II. Northern nations: The five peoples enumerated above: 1. "Libyan Shepherds" (the Mennahom of Rosel 2. Asi: lini): Khet; Rtn (Upper and Lower); Sinkar (Rosellini happily suggests Singara, near Edessa 84); Unut; Pebash; (Two illegible ending in na.) Mennus; Bairanut; Unnu; Shasu (Shepherds); Sritu; Punt (Pnn, land of the red granite, on the Red Sea; perhaps Mauritania; certainly not Rhsh; and a few others obliterated. 3. Atmes: Mensaû; Ushah; Nuahu; Mehekmu; Tinhur; Anakm; Memtu; Matu; Turt; Sthebu; Pekatmu. 84 Pliny, N. H. v. 24. Steph. de Urb. s. v. We maintain that, to an Egyptian, the northern nations mean in fact races of North Africa, consequently Libyans, and perhaps Mauritanians. This view was first developed with great ingenuity and equal scholarship by our learned friend, Colonel Mure, in a treatise which we shall shortly be called upon to examine more closely. Rosellini's idea, that the Rmmn, Shasu, Amar, Tahn, and Khet in the above inscriptions must be counted among the RTNN, and that the latter are Lydians, i. e. Asiatics, is untenable. The inscriptions do not say so, and Lud is not Lydia, still less Asia, which is a very modern idea. II. THE TOMB OF SETI.-THE REPRESENTATION OF THE FOUR RACES OF MEN. THE representations on the magnificent tomb of this king in the valley of Biban El Moluk contain no historical subjects, except the celebrated group of the FOUR RACES, each represented by four men. They stand in one row (as may be seen in Belzoni's work, who discovered it), and form the following groups (Ros. M. R. CLV. CLVI.): First: The TAMAHU, fair-complexioned, in long clothing of skins without girdles, with painted (tattooed) skin, little beard, the hair artistically arranged, a long tuft on the cheek and two ostrich feathers on the head. Secondly: The NEHES (Nhsu), Negroes, with their under garments and a shawl thrown over the left shoulder serving as a girdle, and golden bracelets hanging from the wrist. Thirdly: The HEM (Hemu), of a light brown colour, well-formed men, with fine under garments, the hair in a bag hanging down, and blue eyes. The usual reading is Aamu (Great of the Water): Birch suggests either the Hebrew word 'ham, people, or gojim, nations, as the derivation. The former written with the letter Ain is the more. probable, according to the correspondence of the two alphabets.85 Fourthly: The RET, i.e. the kind, the race, or especially the men, a representation of four Egyptians followed by Horus. The simple question naturally is, whom are we to understand by the first and third rows? We must here give our full acquiescence in the explanation of these representations offered by Mure, as early as 1836, in the annals of the Archæological Institute at Rome, in opposition to the views of Champollion and Rosellini. He does not consider Africa, Europe, and Asia to be here depicted, but in the first group the inhabitants of Mauritania and North Africa generally, in the third, the inhabitants of Palestine. Everything that has since been advanced by Osburn and others as to it and the names is unwarranted by philology, and at variance with historical probability. All that we can venture to say is, that the group immediately preceding the Egyptians probably represents the Asiatics who were known to them, namely, the Semitic people of Palestine, Syria, and possibly also Arabia. They exhibit the high-born impress of the Caucasian race, which we are in the habit of calling Oriental, and hence they bear an unmistakable resemblance to the handsomely featured Jews, or the Assyrians and Persians on the monuments of Nineveh and Persepolis. Thus also the Tamahu may be considered to represent the Libyans in the widest sense, as precisely similar representations occur with the name of Pet, the people of the nine bows. As Ret is not the proper name of the Egyptians, it need be no matter of surprise that the names HEMU and TAMAHU are not met with in the numerous representa 85 See the Alphabet (Phonetics, M. 8.) in Vol. I. Part I. tions of single conquered nations. At present, however, no philological explanation of these names has been discovered. The solution offered of the general appellation of the Asiatics as "Great of the Water" is as questionable as Osburn's fanciful notion (who translates it ungrammatically "Great Water") that it means the Euphrates, and contains an allusion to the origin of the human race on the great river. There is one circumstance, independent of such uncertain names, which, as regards the research into the old people-history, seems to me more important than any conjectures as to their meaning. Everything combines to render it probable that the extent of the campaigns of the Tuthmōses and Ramessides, as well as of the names of the people, which are in fact frequently repeated, was, as regards general history, a very narrow one. Wherever we discover an undoubted historical Asiatic name, it is in Palestine or Syria. Here we have Canaan and the Hethites, here also Damascus; and, as a general rule, the extreme northern point seems to be Mesopotamia (Naharina). If, then, we compare with this limited theatre of the campaigns and conquests of the Pharaohs of that age, the vast number of names which are recorded as individual peoples, it is clear, in the first place, that no great empire then existed in Palestine and Syria, not even a single important state. The second result, and one which is a direct consequence of the other, is, that these monuments represent the condition of those countries as precisely identical with what we find in the most ancient accounts in the Bible -single Canaanitish races, principally nomads, with a few towns some of which were fortified. We may also with probability infer from it that no powerful empire then existed on the Tigris and Euphrates, in Mesopotamia, Nineveh, or Babylon. These two cities are made tributary without any great effort, like the others. Had the kingdom of Babylon been still in exist ence, there would have been greater adhesion among these separate races in those productive regions. Our only hope of making any real advance as to a knowledge of the state of these countries lies in a critical comparison of the Egyptian geography of Palestine and Syria with the most ancient Hebrew, and with the Syrian and Canaanitish races and localities on the oldest Assyrian monuments. We are not, however, so far advanced at present as to be able to institute any such comparison with a reasonable expectation of success. II. SETHOS, THE FATHER OF RAMESSES, IN THE HISTORICAL TRADITION AS RESTORED. IN the passage transmitted by Josephus out of Manetho's historical work, or, at all events, all that is important in it, we learn that Sethosis, i. e. Sethos I., first conquered Cyprus and Phoenicia and then made a successful expedition against the Assyrians and Medes. After this, on his return from that expedition, while sojourning in Pelusium, he was treacherously threatened by his brother Armais with being burnt to death, from whom, with a few attendants, he escaped as it were by a miracle. This campaign then, as Lepsius has rightly remarked, does not belong to Ramesses, but to his father. This puts an end to the fruitless search after the supposed double of Ramesses, on whom Rosellini especially has expended so much ingenuity, and in whom Kenrick still believes. No such double is to be found on the monuments, for it is beyond all question that the cruel brother was a paternal uncle of Ramesses, who received in his father's lifetime the merited reward of his treachery. If we turn back to the monuments, we find that the |