his name appearing in several lists of their officers and superintendents. It will be seen that these monumental records and the Saneha papyrus all assign the Lotanu to the Sinaitic district in "Middle Empire" times. Later, however, under Thothmes III., for instance, they were stated to be farther away to the north, a matter which need not be explained here. But in Saneha's time some of the Lotanu had evidently gone further away from Egypt, and thus had become to his mind the Upper Lotanu. As mentioned these early monuments also speak of the Horu or Horites as contiguous to the Lotan. This second tribe the Egyptians also subsequently located elsewhere, for the Golenischef papyrus of a voyage to Phoenicia calls the Mediterranean near Byblos "the sea of Hor." However, in Egyptian records, up to the XIXth Dynasty, Horu signified a district close to the Egyptian frontier, and Seti I. says that leaving Zaru, a place near Ismaeliyeh, and marching to Kanana (Canaan), he traversed Horite territory. Therefore at his epoch the north-west angle of the Sinaitic district commencing at Zaru "the gate of Egypt" was Horite land, and perhaps stretched as far, at the date of Thothmes III., as Gaza. So about 2000 B.C. Horu and Lotan were between South Palestine and Sinai, projecting somewhat into each, and not many days' journey from the Egyptian delta. This quite coincides with Genesis xxxvi, 36, where Lotan is identified as "first" born of Seir, a people lying between South Palestine and the Akaka Gulf. Hori, son of this Lotan, like all nomadic pastoral people, pushed out from the Lotan area to further fields and pastures, settling, according to Egyptian evidence, in the districts of the Sinaitic region towards Gaza. It is evident that the Egyptians in their Sinaitic inscriptions faithfully transcribed the local tribal names, subsequently using these ethnic titles as geographical ones. This is further confirmed by the Saneha papyrus mentioning the Aiah of the Bible, the nephew of Lotan, Genesis xxxvi, 24; and also either Qedem, or Adema-Edom; the correct reading of these two names is not quite certain. Saneha speaks of Aiah as being an oasis famous for its vineyards. It is certainly remarkable that two names of Asiatic neighbours to Egypt should be found in Genesis, and that a little later under the XIIth Dynasty there should be associated a papyrus with a third Biblical name: all these three being, in the Old Testament records, placed in the region between Palestine and Egypt, and that the proof of this should be elicited as soon as ever Egyptian texts situated in the proper region beyond their frontier where they might be anticipated, are scientifically examined. Of course there are scores of other Biblical places and peoples also mentioned in Egyptian records.* Professor LANGHORNE ORCHARD.-While very sensible of the great value of Professor Flinders Petrie's work, I must associate myself generally with the criticisms to which we have listened. We cannot go back in human history to 5000 B.C. Dr. Petrie's chronology, apparently following that of Mahler, is not his strong point. Borchardt has shown its unreliability.† The number of the Israelities at the time of the Exodus, as computed by Professor Petrie, is surely too small. If we are to translate alf in this connection by "group," the group must have been a very large one; for when in Egypt the Israelites had increased exceedingly and filled the land, so that Pharaoh was afraid of them. When we consider that the population of America increased in rather more that 120 years from the Declaration of Independence to 60 times its original number, we need feel no surprise that in 210 years the number of Israelites had multiplied into something very great. In investigating the site of Mount Sinai, account should be taken of the fact that "the people encamped before the Mount" (Numbers xix). This at once negatives the idea that Sinai is Jebel Serbal. Serbal, though a magnificent mountain, has no plain before it suitable for such a camping ground. A fair review of available evidence points to the conclusion that Sinai is at the rear of Ras Sufsafeh. Ras Sufsafeh, with its two valleys-the immense Wady * For the Asiatic people known to the ancient Egyptians, see four articles by M. Ballerini in the Italian Journal Bessarione, 1901, "Le Tribu Nomadi della Palestina o del Sinai, Seconda Memorie dell' Egitto Antico," and an essay by M. Isidore Lévy upon the "Horites of Seir and Egyptian records" in the Revue des Études Jauies, January 1906. + Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology, vol. xx p. 264. But was not this largely due to immigration as we as natural increase from births?-ED. Er Rahah to the north-west, and the Wady Esh Sheikh to the north-east-satisfies all the conditions. It has been remarked by Urquhart that the Israelites would, in this case, be enclosed in an almost impregnable mountainous fortress, assailable from only two directions and easily defended. We shall concur with Professor Hull that "Professor Petrie is to be congratulated on the success of his explorations and the able manner in which he has placed the results within reach of the public." We shall cordially thank Professor Hull for the concise, clear and interesting manner in which he has brought the more important of those results before us this afternoon. Mr. ROUSE.--There can be no doubt that in the interpretation just dealt with Professor Petrie desired to bring the Bible statement within the bounds of common experience. But the expedients will not assort with other facts in the sacred story. Nor is there the cause that he imagines for lengthening the Berlin chronology. In order to make room, as he says, for the XIIIth and XVIIth Dynasties* as well as for the Hyksos, he finds it needful to add a whole Sothic period to the apparent difference in date between an astronomical observation made late in the XIIth Dynasty and another made early in the XVIIIth. But that this is needless is evidenced by the list of kings whose monuments he has found in and around the mines of Sinai; for whereas the XIIth Dynasty has a continuous record of its seven kings on these monuments, and from the second king of the XVIIIth, who acceded in 1562 B.C., down to the fourth king of the XXth, who acceded in 1156, there is only one break and that of only 55 years (which we know to have been troubled ones), on the other hand no king of either the XIIIth or the XVIIth Dynasty is represented at all. The inference is natural that the kings of the intermediate native dynasties were contemporary with and subordinate to the Hyksos kings; that, when the Hyksos invaded Egypt, the miners who, as appears from the Sinaitic records, were Semites, fled back to their distant homes; and that the Hyksos, having during their conquest of Egypt let the mines slip, were never powerful enough to renew Egyptian ownership over them. It is indeed strange that Professor Petrie should reckon the XIIIth and * Manetho assigns three dynasties to shepherd kings; but he calls them the 15th, 16th, and 17th. XVIIth Dynasties as preceding and following the Hyksos, when the tablet of Abydos, which gives a list of the predecessors of Rameses, passes straight from the XIIth to the XVIIIth Dynasty, omitting all mention of ancestors in between. Moreover we know that in the latter part of the domination of the Hyksos in the north of Egypt there were kings in the south, three of whom bore the name of RaSekenen, for we have a list of these in a record of the rifling of tombs, besides a fragmentary correspondence between one of these and Apepa, the Hyksos king; while the naval captain Aahmes, son of Abana, who, among other feats, tells us that he shows great courage in the siege of Avaris, the Hyksos capital, under King Aahmes I., founder of the XVIIIth Dynasty, records also that his father had been "a captain of the deceased King Ra-Sekenen" (Brugsch, Hist. Egypt, English Translation, vol. i, pp. 282, 283). And we may add that Manetho, in his story of the Hyksos, preserved by Josephus (and abundantly confirmed by Professor Petrie in his discovery of Avaris last year), says that "the kings of Thebes and other parts of Egypt finally raised a revolt against the Hyksos, which led to their departure from Egyptian soil." The Egyptians fixed their New Year's Day originally by an astronomical event which falls at the time of year when the inundation of the Nile begins to be felt in their country, namely, the rising of the dog-star (Sothis) with the sun, or as closely before the sun as it can be seen, which takes place on July 21st,* as Censorinus tells us. But because the Egyptian kalendar year was always exactly 365 days (no leap years being used), the New Year's Day (the 1st of Thoth) went back nearly a quarter of a day in each successive year until it had made the whole circle of 365 days; and the time taken to effect this was known as the Sothic period. This is usually accepted as 1,460 years, and Petrie so accepts it, while hinting that this falls somewhat short of the mark, but it really was 1,506 years. The precise length of the solar year in 1900 A.D. was 365-5-48-45-975; and, since it has shortened itself in every century by only 5305, it is easy to calculate that in Petrie's second Sothic period (1322 B.C. to 139 A.D.) its average length was 365.5 48.56, and in the next period before that only 8 seconds longer. The 8 seconds make no * Of the Julian Kalendar or 22nd of the Gregorian. difference, and the time required in each case to turn this fraction of a day into 365 days is certainly 1,506 years. Thus the 25 days' recession* that Censorinus remarked had taken not 100, but 103 years to bring about: and the date of his account being the last previous Sothic period had ended in Now, since in the ninth year of Amenhotep I., the 1st of Thoth fell 57 days after the heliacal rising of Sothis and × 1,506 years = 235 years, 57 365 his ninth year is brought to 235 years before 1369 B.C. 1604 B.C. and his first year to 1612 99 and since Aahmes I., his immediate predecessor and founder of the XVIIIth Dynasty, reigned 25 years, he acceded in 1636 B.C.† Again, in the seventh year of Sennsert III. the 1st of Thoth fell 139 days after the heliacal rising of Sothis, Sebeknefern's last, or 4th year, closing the XIIth Dynasty, to 1858 "" 1858 "" 1636 "" Seeing, then, that the XIIth Dynasty ended in and the XVIIIth began in there remained for the Hyksos kings in the north and for their contemporaries, the under-kings of the XIIIth and XVIIth Dynasties in the south, 222 years instead of the 30 years that Petrie leaves to the Hyksos as sole monarchs. [In one important matter, Petrie, both by discovery and inference, utterly confutes the rationalists. In the mines and the many * It appears to be 26 days; but June 25th Julian June 26th, Gregorian, which is one day nearer to July 21st. + In nearly every case the "last year" of one king is the "first year" of his successor. D |