DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55202#0112
92 THE MIDDLE KINGDOM IN THEBES
where the Nile branched off into the different channels which
watered the Delta. Throughout the Middle Kingdom the armies of
Pharaoh were facing up the river into Nubia and the Sudan, where
gold and ivory and ebony could be gathered up with a minimum of
labor and of bloodshed. In the Sudan Hep-djefi and his successors
ruled the country until the unrest which followed the break-up of a
strong administration in Egypt tempted the Sudanese to revolt
against the domination of the Egyptians. There then followed more
than a century of freedom until the Egyptian armies once more con-
quered the country in the Eighteenth Dynasty.
In the Middle Kingdom Asia does not seem to have been particu-
larly coveted by the Egyptians, though they had sailed the waters
which lay between the mouths of the Nile and the highlands where
timber grew, for the past thousand years or more. From nowhere else
could have come the logs used to roof the First Dynasty tombs at
Abydos,2 and Byblos on the Syrian shore was obviously visited by
the Egyptians from the very earliest times.3 On the whole relations
were probably peaceful between the natives of these lands and the
Egyptians during the Old and Middle Kingdoms.
Still it is clear that an occasional raid must have been made for
slaves among the peoples of Palestine, for it is hard to believe that
all the Asiatic prisoners who are shown on the monuments of those
days were captured trying to break into the rich lands of Lower
Egypt. The temple at Abusir built by King Sahu-Ref, and the reliefs
in a tomb at Deshasheh of the Fifth Dynasty; the biography of
Weni in the Sixth; and that of Sobk-khu in the Twelfth Dynasty,
all contain pictures or stories of incursions among the Bedawin of
Asia.4 Yet obviously these were no more than forays against the
local tribes. Usually the Egyptian of those days was content simply
to write the names of foreigners on potsherds or on little tablets of
mud which could be consigned to perdition in order that such foreign
peoples might be destroyed.5 In fact, relations between Egypt and
Palestine were on the whole rather quiet in the Twelfth Dynasty, but
the chances are that had the Nile Valley remained internally peace-
2 Petrie, Royal Tombs, I, p. 9.
3 For connections with Syria 1 am indebted to Dr. Ludlow Bull and his as yet unpublished
Presidential Address to the American Oriental Society, 1940. Albright, Stone Age to Chris-
tianity, p. 114.
4 Borchardt, Sakbu-Re', II, Pls. V, XII, XIII; Petrie, Deshasheh, Pl. IV. Breasted, AR, 1
§§ 3II-3I5> 680-682; Peet, Stela of Sebek-khu.
5 Sethe, Achtungfeindlicher Fiirsten; Lansing, MM A Bulletin, Nov. 1933, II, P- 23, Fig. 32.
where the Nile branched off into the different channels which
watered the Delta. Throughout the Middle Kingdom the armies of
Pharaoh were facing up the river into Nubia and the Sudan, where
gold and ivory and ebony could be gathered up with a minimum of
labor and of bloodshed. In the Sudan Hep-djefi and his successors
ruled the country until the unrest which followed the break-up of a
strong administration in Egypt tempted the Sudanese to revolt
against the domination of the Egyptians. There then followed more
than a century of freedom until the Egyptian armies once more con-
quered the country in the Eighteenth Dynasty.
In the Middle Kingdom Asia does not seem to have been particu-
larly coveted by the Egyptians, though they had sailed the waters
which lay between the mouths of the Nile and the highlands where
timber grew, for the past thousand years or more. From nowhere else
could have come the logs used to roof the First Dynasty tombs at
Abydos,2 and Byblos on the Syrian shore was obviously visited by
the Egyptians from the very earliest times.3 On the whole relations
were probably peaceful between the natives of these lands and the
Egyptians during the Old and Middle Kingdoms.
Still it is clear that an occasional raid must have been made for
slaves among the peoples of Palestine, for it is hard to believe that
all the Asiatic prisoners who are shown on the monuments of those
days were captured trying to break into the rich lands of Lower
Egypt. The temple at Abusir built by King Sahu-Ref, and the reliefs
in a tomb at Deshasheh of the Fifth Dynasty; the biography of
Weni in the Sixth; and that of Sobk-khu in the Twelfth Dynasty,
all contain pictures or stories of incursions among the Bedawin of
Asia.4 Yet obviously these were no more than forays against the
local tribes. Usually the Egyptian of those days was content simply
to write the names of foreigners on potsherds or on little tablets of
mud which could be consigned to perdition in order that such foreign
peoples might be destroyed.5 In fact, relations between Egypt and
Palestine were on the whole rather quiet in the Twelfth Dynasty, but
the chances are that had the Nile Valley remained internally peace-
2 Petrie, Royal Tombs, I, p. 9.
3 For connections with Syria 1 am indebted to Dr. Ludlow Bull and his as yet unpublished
Presidential Address to the American Oriental Society, 1940. Albright, Stone Age to Chris-
tianity, p. 114.
4 Borchardt, Sakbu-Re', II, Pls. V, XII, XIII; Petrie, Deshasheh, Pl. IV. Breasted, AR, 1
§§ 3II-3I5> 680-682; Peet, Stela of Sebek-khu.
5 Sethe, Achtungfeindlicher Fiirsten; Lansing, MM A Bulletin, Nov. 1933, II, P- 23, Fig. 32.