The
Eighteenth
Dynasty
(1590 B.C.
to 1330 B.C.).
of the weaker Matiene, wedded their daughters to the Egyptian king, who duly accorded
them the royal rank to which they were entitled in their own country. Between the
several courts proceeded a constant interchange of embassies, and the varied riches
supplied by Asia were incessantly bartered for the gold of Nubia.
Such were the relations maintained with the great neighbouring powers in the
prosperous days before the apathy of Amenhotep IV and his successors had sacrificed
all outlying dependencies to Hittite encroachment. But the position of the vassal states
was very different. They existed merely to be exploited, and Syria became for Egypt
what the Indies were for Spain, an El Dorado to be ruthlessly pillaged by its fortunate
possessor. The princelings of Kharou and Phoenicia were forced to send their sons
to Thebes, where they were Egyptianized and converted into tools of the oppressor;
their daughters became mere inmates of Pharaoh’s harem, and the very administration
of their government was watched by resident officers. These subject provinces in turn
were separated from the powerful independent kingdoms by a frontier region bounded
on the south by the Amorite country. Here Egypt exercised only an indefinite
suzerainty, which varied in effectiveness according to the energy or the indolence of the
temporary occupant of the throne.
The effect of this extension of her political horizon was enormously to increase the
wealth and material prosperity of Egypt by putting her in immediate possession of great
centres of trade and industry, as well as by affording her access to the most important
arteries of commerce. The tribute of Kharou and Phoenicia flooded the royal treasury
and overflowed into the coffers of the priests of Amon. Nor was the growth of luxury
confined to the court or even to the houses of the great nobles. To every soldier was
allowed his share of the plunder obtained on the Asiatic campaigns, and the new
influences penetrating all classes of society leavened the whole life of the people. From
the fresh-won provinces came countless products unknown to an earlier generation, costly
woods and perfumes, dyed and embroidered fabrics, jewellery and precious stones, wines
and olive oil. Strange and new animals were imported, foreign breeds of cattle, exotic
trees and plants. The horse was naturalized, and the use of chariots transformed the
old organization of the army. Above all, the secrets were revealed of fresh arts and
industries which were transplanted into Egypt and flourished there under the care of
foreign craftsmen.
The Syrians, for instance, were cunning workers in metal. Weapons and armour
and vessels of gold and silver were among the choicest articles which they brought as
tribute; and to their workshops may be traced much of the fine bronze work which is
found in tombs of the period. The beautiful glasswork of Phoenicia occurs as early
as the reign of Thothmes I I I ; and not only the style and the decoration, but even the
fabric of much of the pottery is probably Syrian. Yet the conquered states were not
the only source from which new riches were derived. The Hittites and the Babylonians,
masters of the great trade-routes of Asia, were careful to conciliate their dangerous
neighbour with lavish gifts; whilst ‘ the islands of the Mediterranean’ (mentioned by
Thothmes III as his tributaries) maintained a sea-borne commerce with Egypt which
brought her into immediate contact with the rising civilization of Greece. Egyptian
traditions permeated the art of Mycenae, and the frequent occurrence of Mycenaean vases
in tombs of the Eighteenth Dynasty shows that there was a certain reciprocity in these
relations. Finally, the intercourse with Cyprus, which must have begun in very early
times, now assumed a most intimate character, as is proved by the evidence of metal-work
and ceramics, even apart from the probable identification of the island with the often The
. 1 «1 1 • > <* 1 Eighteenth mentioned ‘ Alashiya of the texts. Dynasty
Of the temples and buildings which were raised through the length and breadth of ^59° b.
the country many have perished or have been overlaid with the restorations of a later
date. The ruins of the town built by Akhen-Aten, the heretic sun-worshipper, at
Tell-el-Amarna, mirror the renascent intellectual vigour and the fresh artistic impulse
of his reign; but it is to Thebes that we must look for the most complete memorial
of the splendour of the Eighteenth Dynasty. There the temples of Karnak, of Luxor,
and of Deir-el-Bahri witness to the genius of the architect; and the frescoed tombs tell
a thousand tales of the daily life of country-house and court.
Of the Eighteenth Dynasty we have a number of specimens from each of two sites.
One of these is a locality between Hou and Denderah, which to avoid confusion is
referred to by the name of Shekh Ali, though it is actually several miles to the south of
that village. The specimens from this place were all obtained from a single pit in which
human and animal bones were heaped pell-mell. The only objects found with them
were a small plaque and blue glass ear-ring of the Eighteenth Dynasty and some pottery
of the same period; but these have been considered sufficient to indicate the age of
the deposit. It is difficult to explain why a number of bodies were thus flung together
in an Eighteenth Dynasty tomb-pit. Possibly a sudden pestilence or some other disaster
may have been the cause of their hasty and unceremonious interment. In any case there
can be no doubt that the Shekh Ali series must be regarded as representative of a single
period, and of a class presumably inferior to any which has hitherto been noticed in
these pages.
The other site which has provided a series of skulls is Abydos, where numerous
middle-class burials were found in such pit-tombs as have previously been described.
The specimens are closely dated by archaeological evidence which was carefully
investigated on the spot. The majority belong actually to the Eighteenth or the
beginning of the Nineteenth Dynasty, but in a certain number of cases the re-use of
a tomb in a rather later period makes the dating of a specimen inexact to within the
limits of a few Dynasties. None, however, are as late as the Twenty-sixth Dynasty;
so that the entire number may be grouped between the Eighteenth and Twenty-sixth,
and may further be considered to represent almost exclusively the earlier of these
Dynasties (see Appendix, p. 121).
T he Ptolemaic and Roman Periods (from 331 b . c . onwards).
The ten centuries which separate the Nineteenth Dynasty, when independent Egypt
was at the zenith of her prosperity, from the Ptolemaic period, when a line of alien
sovereigns restored for a short time her long vanished splendour, are virtually unrepresented
in this collection. Though a small series of specimens may be assigned to about the
Thirtieth Dynasty, when some sturdy patriots succeeded for a few years in shaking off the
Persian yoke, we are not otherwise reminded of the dismal chronicle of that decline which
began under the Ramessids and continued down to the last quarter of the fourth century
before Christ.
A t the moment when his victories over Darius put the Persian Empire at the feet
of Alexander the Great, Egypt, like the other provinces of that Empire, was under the