The Historians' History of the World 01 [Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia]

“I was despatched to conduct the ships toward the land of Punt, to fetch Pharaoh sweet-smelling spices, which the princes of the red country collect with the fear and anxiety which he inspires in all peoples. And I started from the city of Coptos.”—“And his majesty gave the order that the armed men who were to accompany me should come from the southern land of the Thebaïd.”

After a defaced portion in the inscription, which was fairly long, and of which enough had been preserved to show that in the course of the story there was some account of how the armed force was provided for offence and defence against the enemy, and how the king’s officers, with stone-cutters and other work-people, accompanied the train, Hannu continues:

“And I journeyed thence with a host of three thousand men, and came through the place of the red hamlet, and through a cultivated land. I had skins prepared and barrows to convey the water-jars to the number of twenty. And every one of my people carried a burden daily … and another adjusted the load. And I had a reservoir dug twelve rods in length in a wood, and two basins at a place called Atahet, one of them a rod and twenty cubits, and the other a rod and thirty cubits. And I made another in Ateb, ten cubits by ten each way, that it might hold water a cubit deep. Thereafter I came to the harbour town of Seba (?), and I had cargo vessels built to bring commodities of every kind. And I made a great sacrifice of oxen, cows, and goats. And when I returned from Seba (?) I had fulfilled the king’s command, for I brought him all kinds of commodities, which I had found in the harbours of the sacred country. And I descended into the street of Uak and Rohan, and took with me valuable stones for the statues of the houses of God. The like has never been since there were kings, and such things were never done by any blood relations of the king who were sent to those places since the time (the rule) of the sun-god Ra. And I did thus for the king on account of the great favour he cherished for me.”

M. Chabas, who first rendered this important inscription and its contents intelligible, has joined to his translation some valuable remarks concerning the direction of the desert road from Coptos to the Red Sea. By this means we may satisfy ourselves that already in those remote times, the ancient Egyptians had opened a road by which to establish communication with the land of Punt, and to transport its products—rare and costly commodities—to the valley of the Nile.

In his description of the journey, Hannu speaks of five principal camps, at which the wanderers rested, and men and animals (then only donkeys, the only beast of burden referred to, at least at this period) fortified themselves for the toilsome journey in the enjoyment of the fresh drinking-water. It is, moreover, this same road which, even in the time of the Ptolemies and Romans, led from Coptos in the direction of the sunrise, to the harbour of Leukos Limen (now Kosseir), on the Red Sea, the great highway and commercial route of the merchants of all countries, who carried on a trade in the wondrous products of Arabia and India, the bridge of nations which once connected Asia and Europe.

Although, in view of the most recent discoveries, we must no longer regard Punt and the oft referred to “sacred country” as the exclusive designation of the southern and western coasts of Arabia itself, still nothing is more probable than that, already in the reign of King Sankh-ka-Ra, five and twenty centuries before the beginning of our era, the Egyptians had some knowledge of the coasts of Yemen and of the Hadramaut on the opposite side of the sea, which lay in sight of the incense-bearing mountains of Punt and of the sacred country. Here, in these regions, should, as it seems to us, that mysterious place be sought which, in remotely prehistoric times, sent forth the restless Cushite nations oversea from Arabia, like swarms of locusts, to plant themselves on the highly favoured coasts of Punt and the “sacred country,” and to extend their wanderings further inland in a westerly and northerly direction.b

THE TWELFTH DYNASTY

It is hard to keep in mind the long sweep of these meagre Egyptian chronicles, but it must not be forgotten that we are handling dynasties of long duration and not single reigns.

[ca. 2466 B.C.]

It was not without a struggle that the XIIth Dynasty was established, and the first years of the reign of the Theban king Amenemhat were harassed by the conspiracies and plots of those who contested his claim to the throne.

In the Instructions to his son, Usertsen I, the king says: “When night came I took an hour of ease. I stretched myself on the soft couch in my palace and sought repose, my spirit had nearly succumbed to sleep, when lo! they gathered themselves together in arms against me, and I became as weak as a serpent of the field. Then I arose to fight with my own hands, and I found I had but to strike to conquer. If I attacked an armed foe, he fled before me, and I had no reverse of fortune.” And it was to this force of character that the king owed his success. “Never in my life have I given way,” he continues, “either in a grasshopper plague or in conspiracies set afoot in the palace, or when, taking advantage of my youth, they banded together against me.”