The Ancient Military Road between Egypt and Palestine

Abstract

with the Libyans, and a battle with the Hittites.There is every reason to think, with Professor Breasted, that a number of different campaigns are here represented, possibly even one for each register; and that, at all events, the wars referred to on the western half are subsequent to those on the eastern half.The probable reconstruction of the historical sequence is as follows.At the beginning of his reign Sethos I found his eastern frontier threatened by marauding Semites whose name is given as Shosul.The campaign of the first year, or part of it, was concentrated upon their defeat and upon the securing of the coast of Philistia; this is illustrated by the lowest register of the eastern half-wall, the only section of the sculptures where any date (in this case 'year 1') is indicated.Whether the capture of the unidentified town of Yenoam and the conquest of the Lebanon, as shown in the upper register, were effected this year is doubtful; Professor Breasted2 thinks not, since in that case Sethos I would probably have returned to Egypt by sea frornm one of the Phoenician ports, whereas the sculptures referring to the first year depict him returning, with countless prisoners at his chariot-wheels, by land.At all events the reduction of the Lebanon, as in the campaigns of Tuthmosis III, was a necessary prelude to exploits further afield; the capture of Kadesh and the defeat of the Hittites, as figured on the western half-wall, mnust indubitably be attributed to a later date; and to a later date also we must probably assign the campaign against the Libyans, scenes descriptive of which occupy the middle register on the same wall.The scenes which concern us here (Plates XI-XII) are from the series occupying the lowest register of the eastern half-wall.To right of them, not reproduced in our Plates, are a picture of Sethos presenting his prisoners to Amufn and another of their immolation (as previously mentioned) before him.These events were intended to be construed as occurring in Egypt, indeed at Karnak itself.The picture to the left of the subject of our Plates, on the other hand, represents the storming of a town somiewhere in the mlaritilme plain where the Philistines later settled; whether the words < X r%\ f^^owritten across a fortress here figured mean 'a town of (the) Canaan' or, as is perhaps more plausible in view of parallel locutions, 'the town of (the) Canaan '-in either case there is sufficient evidence to show that the region designated by the Egyptians as 'Canaan,' 'the Canaan' was the maritime plain just mentioned3.There is thus great probability, from the outset, that the intermediate scenes will represent the road between Egypt and Philistia, i.e. the road between El-Kantareh and Rafa, known to the Elohistic author of Exodus xiii, 17 as' the way of the land of the Philistines.'This is confirmed by a hieroglyphic legend accompanying the last scene of the series, where the whole campaign is thus described: 'Year 1 of King MenmnaCre¢, the spoiling mnade by the strong arm of Pharaoh 1 For the latest discussion of the historical import of these movements, see BURNEY, Israel's Settlenment in Canaan, pp.75 foll., 81 foll., where all necessary bibliographical references will be found.While most recent writers connect the name of the Shosu with the West-Semitic root rlOt, Sethe has recently returned to the old etymology from Egyptian V?s 'to wander' (Nachrichten v. d. k6n.Ges.d.Wissensch., phil.-hist.Klasse, 1916, p. 130); he also interestingly shows how both the name Shosu and the still older name ¢A'amu given to the Semites came to mean 'herdsman' in Coptic times (gcc, ^.ue) because in contrast with the settled agricultural Egyptians the Semites could be regarded as nomads and a pastoral people. 2 Op.cit., p. 40, note c. 3 For a most business-like and informative discussion of the term Canaan as used in the Egyptian and other sources see FR. B6HL, Kanaander und Hebrder, pp.1-11.

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