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

After the capture of Sherohan, Aahmes went on to the border provinces of Zahi (Phœnicia) and then turned back. The fall of the Palestine town crushed the Hyksos’ last hope of recovering their Egyptian domain. The majority of their race had not fled with the army, but had remained with other tribes that had followed them into Egypt—the Israelites among them—to accept whatever lot was meted out by the new conquerors. The yoke was not imposed equally throughout the land. Those living in the Delta regions were reduced to slavery, and all that part of the country was well fortified to resist the Bedouin.

Aahmes returned to Africa only to find his presence needed in the South. The land of Nubia, tributary to the lords of Thebes, had been somewhat neglected during the long struggle which the Pharaoh had just successfully terminated. The southern races had failed to assimilate the gift of culture and civilisation thrust upon them by the rulers of the XIIth and XIIIth Dynasties, and kept to their own customs while the temples erected by Usertsen and Amenemhat crumbled and vanished. From out this disordered state developed a serious invasion from the Sudan. Hostile tribes—which ones, we know not—descended the Nile, outraging the people and desecrating the sanctuaries. Aahmes hastened to meet them.

“His Majesty went south,” runs the record of Aahmes the admiral, “to Khent-en-nefer to destroy the Anu Khenti, and his Majesty made great havoc among them. I captured two live men and three hands; once more I was given the gold of valour, and my two captives were given to me for slaves. Then his Majesty came down the river; his heart swelled with his brave and victorious deeds; he had conquered the people of the South and of the North.”

The triumph of the return was dimmed by disquieting news from the North. The remains of the Hyksos race had taken advantage of Aahmes’ absence in the South to break out in rebellion. There seem to have been two outbursts. One by the Aata, probably a branch of the Hyksos, which marched southward and was destroyed by Aahmes at Tentoa, the other by a powerful faction under a certain Teta-an. Aahmes-si-Abana tells of his fate:

“Then came that enemy named Teta-an; he had brought wicked rebels together. But his Majesty slaughtered him and his slaves even to extinction.”b

Thus was stamped out the last spark of Asiatic resistance. There are no more records of expeditions undertaken in this Pharaoh’s reign—at least none in which he took part.

From the crushing of Teta-an, about the sixth year, to the twenty-second, the monuments are silent; and when again they speak we find a peaceful and not a warlike monarch. It is a law of human progress that an age of military success is followed by a revival of art and building activity. At the end of Aahmes’ reign—he ruled about twenty-five years—this condition prevailed throughout the kingdom. The principal temples of the land were restored or rebuilt. The reward of the gods for their divine aid in the deliverance of Egypt was thus bestowed. A tenth of all the booty of victory was devoted to the needs of the religious cult. Sculptors and painters, for whom there had been centuries of little or no employment, recovered their skill in the revived demand for their services, and, indeed, a new school, with new ideas and methods, came into existence under the great impetus to culture. In the twenty-second year the quarries of Turah were reopened that building stone might be obtained for the temples of Ptah at Memphis and Amen at Thebes, although nothing was done to the latter until a later reign.