tion. This rampant absurdity, which originated with Dupin,' a now forgotten infidel writer upon antiquities, of the days of the French Revolution, has been maintained by modern Archæologists merely, as there is too much reason to fear, because of its utter incompatibility with the truth of the Scripture narrative. Its complete exposure by the present author will be the more acceptable

on this account.

We give one other identification of a name frequently written over foreigners in these vast pictures, which strikes us as also a very important and happy one. It is the people whose name is written Sceto by Rosellini, and Sheta by Champollion, and which was conjectured by both these savans to denote Scythians.

"The near resemblance of the Shethin in all these particulars to the Canaanites will not fail to be observed. The following facts, collected from the hieroglyphic inscriptions, also furnish indications of the locality of this people.

"Their frequent wars with Egypt for so long a period, and their actual invasion of the country, render it probable, at any rate, that they lived at no great distance from its frontier.

"They heard of the advance of Sesostris upon Punon by Mount Hor, and sent an embassy to his camp, and, probably, in consequence of the failure of that embassy, they laid siege to Hadasha, which seems to have been situated to the west of the Dead Sea, near its northern extremity. Their country, therefore, must have extended to within no great distance of both these points.

"We have seen that both Sethos and Sesostris went against them in the ships of the Arvadites, and that, probably, these ships were on the Dead Sea.

In the enumeration at Ipsambul, of the countries subdued by or making peace with Sesostris, the land of the Shethin is named between those of Naharaim and of Heth; and upon the probable supposition that geographical order is observed in it, this country must have been situated between these two districts.

"The same inscription implies that the Shethin consisted of two confederated races, and that there were in the country two places or cities, both of which were known by the name of Rabbah.

"If we now refer to the maps of Canaan, as laid down from the Scripture narratives, we shall find the country denoted by all these indications inhabited by races agreeing very remarkably with all the specified particulars. "The district to the eastward of the Dead Sea, or, in other words, between Naharaim (Mesopotamia) and the land of Heth, was inhabited by the Ammonites and the Moabites, the descendants of the incestuous daughters of Lot.

"Though not of the family of the Canaanites, these races were in constant communication with them, and warmly embraced their quarrel with the Israelites in after times, against whom, notwithstanding their blood-relationship, and notwithstanding the divine command to spare them for Lot's sake (Deut. ii. 19), they entertained an antipathy at least equal to that of the Canaanites. See Num. xxv. 1, 2; Judges iii. 12; 2 Sam. x. These circumstances abundantly account for the similarity between them in dress and

customs.

"The identity of the Shethin of the hieroglyphics with the Moabites and Ammonites is rendered further probable by the circumstance that the latter

Origin de toutes les cultes.

were gross idolaters; and having learned their false religion from the Canaanites, they were doubtless, like them, the worshippers of Asher and Ashtaroth.

"These two branches of the family of Lot seem to have been very generally in close confederation at all times (see the passages just referred to); and their being originally from the same stock would naturally lead to their being known in Egypt under one designation.

"The descendants of Lot also resembled this unknown nation in their practice of going to battle with large bodies of chariots and horsemen : two and thirty thousand are mentioned on one occasion (1 Chron. xix. 7).

"It is likewise a remarkable coincidence that the capital cities both of Ammon and Moab had the same name, and that name was Rabbah.”— (pp. 132-134.)

After giving the account we have already quoted of the war of extermination of the Ammonites with the Zuzim, he proceeds ;

"The name is now the only point of identification between the Shethin and the Moabites and the Ammonites which remains unestablished. This single missing link to complete the chain of evidence is supplied by the prophetie denunciation of Balaam against Moab :

"There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and shall destroy all the children of Sheth' (Num. xxiv. 17). It is needless to dwell upon the undisputed fact, that as Jacob and Israel in the one parallel are the two names of the same people, this must also be the case with Moab and Sheth in the other. Sheth, therefore, was a name of Moab, and this was also the name by which they and the children of Ammon were known in Egypt, for and Shethin are identical. This fact furnishes a valuable illustration of the passage of Scripture before us, which hitherto has been but ill understood. Sheth was the name of the territory of Moab and Ammon. The meaning of the prophecy of Balaam is therefore perfectly obvious; and it received its accomplishment in the subjugation of both these nations by David.

"The Shethin or Shethites, then, by whose formidable armaments of horse and foot the eastern frontier of Egypt was constantly threatened during the reigns of Sethos and Sesostris, were the children of Moab and Ammon. The proof of this point amounts to absolute certainty."-(pp. 136, 137.)

We proceed to give a summary of this the most important portion of the work before us.

The battle-pieces sculptured on the walls of the palace-temple of Karnac, by Sethos I, whose reign began 1610 B.C.; in the cave of Beit el Wally, in Nubia, by his son Ramses II (who succeeded his father 1577); and in the temple at Ipsambul, and on the walls of nearly all the temples of Egypt that remain, by Sesostris (also the son of Sethos, who succeeded his brother Ramses 1571 B.C.) are all without exception representations of wars with the inhabitants of Canaan. This is also the case with the sculptures on the palace-temple of Medinat Abou, which were executed in the reign of Ramses Meiamoun, the fourth descendant of Sesostris, who came to the throne about a century later; that is, during the sojourn of the children of Israel in the wilderness. He is repre

sented fighting by sea and land with the Philistines, the Ekronites, the Hittites, the Sidonians, and the Syrians or Hamathites.

On the pictorial records of the deeds of the ancestors of this warlike monarch, our author reads the names of the Zuzim, the Amalekites, the Arvadites, the Tyrians, the Hermonites, and the Jebusites. These names are all written in the mode which prevailed both in Syria and Egypt, that is, with the omission of the intermediate vowels. In further proof that his readings are correct, he finds that the names inscribed on the various fortresses represented as besieged by the Egyptians, are all those of places in the land of Canaan. Here he finds the Punon of the Bible the pevn of the Itineraries, in the desert of Sinai; also Hadasha or Adda o a on the borders of the Dead Sea. He has likewise found the Pithom of Scripture, which proves to be identical with the Avaris of Josephus and the Damietta of modern geography, situated on the Phathmetic, (that is, Pethometic 1) branch of the Nile. He has also found a representation of the city of Raamses, which proves to be another name for the Migdol of Scripture, the Magdala of the Itineraries, on the gulf of Suez: Pithom and Raamses being both represented as magazines or treasure-cities, in accordance with the account given of them in the Bible.

In a word, he has identified nearly ninety names of gods and men, of nations, tribes, and cities in Canaan, scarcely one of which was known before, or even suspected.2 He concludes his account

of these Canaanites in the following terms:

"Remesses IV. was the last of the Pharaohs who had to defend his eastern frontier against the incursions of the Canaanites. They are never named again upon the monuments of Egypt. The next oriental war of which any record is preserved, is the attack of Shishak upon Rehoboam, which took place more than 500 years afterwards, B.C. 972. It is wonderfully remarkable that the entire defeat of the Canaanites, their all but extermination, and the occupation of their country by the children of Israel, all took place during the long reign of Remesses IV.3 There is no need to enlarge upon this extraordinary coincidence: we merely give it as perfecting the series of proofs we have to offer of the identification which it has been our purpose to establish." -(p. 112.)

When we further explain that the hieroglyphic characters employed in writing these names, are among the commonest and

It is wonderful that the identification did not point itself out long ago.

2 So little was known hitherto of these names of foreigners, that in a review of Sir Gardiner Wilkinson's third volume of "The Manners and Customs of the Egyptians," which appeared in the "Revue Archæologique" for November, 1845, the reviewer highly praises the accomplished author for not meddling with these names of foreigners, cause," says the reviewer, "assuredly we know nothing at all about them."

be

3 That is, between B.c. 1451 and 1444. The reign of Ramses IV. began B.C. 1474, and terminated B.C. 1419, according to M. Champollion-Figeac, "Premier Lettre au Duc de Blacas," p. 106. His deductions are very learned and well-founded. They were also obtained without the slightest regard to Scripture chronology.

best understood of any in the entire system, with the alphabetic powers of which the most superficial student must necessarily be familiar, we think our readers will agree with us that it is indeed extraordinary that no one should have fallen upon the right interpretation of them until now.

A much litigated question of Egyptian chronology would seem to be set at rest by this discovery. We have already seen that, according to the calculation of Champollion, the founder of the 18th dynasty began to reign 1822 B.C. This date (which Mr. Osburn's discovery proves unanswerably to be about the right one) was deduced by M. Champollion-Figeac from data supplied by the Alexandrian astronomers, whence it appears that a certain king named Menophres was reigning in Egypt in the year 1322 B.C. Identifying this Menophres with a monarch of the 19th dynasty, named Amenophes, he proceeded from this point d'appui, to calculate the duration of the reigns of the predecessors of this Pharaoh, as given by the Greek historians, or as read by his brother upon the monuments of Egypt. The date we have just quoted is the result of this calculation. M. Champollion, who enjoys a deservedly high reputation for successful chronological research, gives it merely as an approximation; justly remarking, "Le lecteur jugera commes nous que en pareille maliére, les approximations ont un merite velles, et peutetre suffisant." And so the result has proved.

The first writer by whom a different system of chronology for the 18th dynasty was proposed, was Sir Gardiner Wilkinson. He was induced to make the Exodus 1495 B.C. synchronise with the reign of Thothmosis III. (the fifth Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty) which began, according to Champollion, 1736 в.C., by a passage in the fourteenth chapter of the first book of Josephus against Apion; but the learned Baronet's deduction is a tissue of blunders from first to last. In the first place the Thothmosis mentioned in this passage is not Thothmosis the Third but Thothmosis the First; in the next place the shepherds whom he finally expelled from Egypt were not the children of Israel, but a nation of Canaanites. Josephus himself tells us this afterwards (c. 26.) The Exodus took place by Manetho's account, whom Josephus quotes in both places, more than 300 years later, under the reign of a Pharaoh whom he calls Amenophes, the last monarch of the 18th dynasty, -evidently confounding this event with a second invasion of shepherds which took place about the same time.

But Sir Gardiner considers that his chronology is confirmed

L'Univers, p. 344.

Topography of Thebes, p. 510.

by the astronomical ceiling of the tomb of Amenophis II., the son and successor of Thothmosis III. This ceiling, he informs us, represents the heliacal rising of the dog-star on the first day of the month Thoth, which he thence infers took place during the reign of this monarch, and which, we know from the ancient astronomers, must have occurred in 1322 B.C. This was written in 1831. Since that period the publication of the Grammar and Lexicon of Champollion, and the labours of one or two earnest students in this country, have somewhat advanced our knowledge of the hieroglyphic writings. Yet we venture to say, having ourselves examined an accurate drawing of the ceiling in question, that the man does not now live who is in condition to pronounce what that ceiling means, or what it does not mean! We respectfully submit that this is a little too bad!

These are, so far as we know, the only grounds upon which the chronology of Champollion has been rejected by all modern Egyptologues, not excepting even the Chevalier Bunsen! Misled by a generous admiration of the toilsome, self-denying and persevering labours of Wilkinson, Burton, Felix, and other English travellers in the collection of the names of kings in Egypt, he at once falls into their chronology, and denounces Champollion's canicular cycle and his deduction of dates from it, with an ardour almost poetical.1 Now we most cordially unite with the Chevalier, in his admiration of the labours of our distinguished countryman, and in his high estimate of the value of the collections they have made. Nevertheless, amicus Socrates, amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas. We beg respectfully to refer him to his own admirably amended text of Josephus against Apion (Reskundenbuch, pp. 43-45°), where he will at once detect the error into which Sir Gardiner Wilkinson has fallen. If he will then turn to the list of kings at the end of the learned Baronet's Topography of Thebes, he will discover that the motive which misled Sir Gardiner was the best in the world. He observed that Osortasen I. had left a far greater number of monuments of his reign than any other of the most ancient Pharaohs. He therefore assumed that Osortasen I. reigned in Egypt in the days of Joseph. Now the interval between Joseph and the Exodus being only 312 years (according to the dates in the margin of the English Bible) he has conjecturally made the times of Joseph and Osortasen to synchronize, and then at once concluded that the

"There happened to Champollion by this calculation an already plainly-befallen calamity," Ein oben schon beruehrtes Unglueck. Aegypteus Stelle in der Weltgeschichte, 1ste Buch 294. This passage, which scarcely admits of an English translation, is, if we mistake not, a quotation from one of Schiller's tragedies.

2 The Chevalier's critical annotations upon the text of the Greek historians are beyond all praise.