Ramses II. enjoyed a long reign. The monuments expressly testify to a rule of sixty-seven years, of which probably more than half must be assigned to his joint reign with his father. His thirty-years' jubilee as (sole?) Pharaoh was the occasion for great festivities throughout the whole country, of which we have frequent mention in the inscriptions at Silsilis, El Kab, Bigeh, Sehêl, and even upon several scarabæi. The prince and high priest of Ptah of Memphis, Khamus, travelled through the principal cities of the land with this object, in order to make the necessary preparations, through the governors, for celebrating this great feast of joy in honour of his father in a proper manner.

The return of this festival also seems to have been reckoned according to a fixed cycle of years, perhaps when the lunar and solar years coincided1 at short intervals of three or four years, in the same manner as the festivals. In the 30th year Khamus celebrated the feast under his own superintendence, according to usage and prescription, in Bigeh and in Silsilis, where at that time Khai was governor of the district, while at El Kab the governor Ta conducted the festivities. The repetition of the succeeding jubilees took placethe second in the 34th year, the third in the 37th year, and the fourth in the 40th year, of the reign of

Ramses II.

Great in war, and active in the works of peace, Ramses seems also to have enjoyed the richest blessings of heaven in his family life. The outer wall of the front of the temple of Abydus gives us the pictures

1 Comp. Vol. I. pp. 102–3.

and the names (only partially preserved) of 119 children (59 sons and 60 daughters); which gives ground for supposing a great number of concubines, besides his lawful wives, already known to us, namely, his favourite Tsenofer, the mother of Khamus, the queen Nofer-ari, Mienmut, and the daughter of the king of Khita.

Among his sons, Khamus held a fond place in his father's heart. He was high priest of Ptah in Memphis, and in that character did his best to restore the decayed worship of the holy Apis-bulls, which were regarded as the living type of Ptah-Sokari, and to invest it with the greatest splendour. His buildings in Memphis, and in the so-called Serapeum, the burial place of the holy bulls, are celebrated by inscriptions as splendid works of the age, and their author is overwhelmed with praises. According to all that the monuments tell us about Khamus, in words more or less clear, the king's son seems to have been a learned and pious prince, who devoted himself especially to the holy service of the deity, and who remained in the temple of Ptah at Memphis, keeping himself more estranged from state affairs than was altogether pleasing to his royal father.

The elder sons, including Khamus, died during the long reign of their father. The fourteenth in the long list of children, by name Mineptah, the friend of Ptah,' was chosen by destiny to mount at last the throne of the Pharaohs. He had already taken part in the affairs of government during the lifetime of his aged father, and in this capacity he appears on the monuments of Ramses II., by the side of his royal parent.

Of the daughters of the king, the monuments name,

during the lifetime of the Pharaoh, as real queens and wives of Egyptian kings (perhaps sub-kings or brothers), his favourite daughter, called by the Semitic name of Bint-antha, 'the daughter of Anaitis,' and Meri-amon, and Neb-taui. A much younger sister of the name of Meri deserves to be mentioned, since her name reminds us of the Princess Merris (also called Thermuthis), according to the Jewish tradition,' who found the child Moses on the bank of the stream, when she went to bathe. Is it by accident, or by divine providence, that in the reign of Ramses III., about 100 years after the death of his ancestor, the great Sesostris, a place is mentioned in Middle Egypt, which bears the name of the great Jewish legislator? It is called T-en-Moshé, the island of Moses' or 'the river-bank of Moses.' It lay on the eastern side of the river, near the city of the heretic king Khu-n-aten.2 The place still existed in the time of the Romans; those who describe Egypt at that time designate it with a mistaken apprehension of its true meaning, as Musai, or Musôn, as if it had some connection with the Greek Muses.

6

The list of contemporaries during the long reign of the king, about whom the monuments furnish us with information, is almost innumerable. It were a labour which would repay the cost, to collect together their names and families, so as to form a general view of their generations under Ramses II. Among them, that Bekenkhonsu occupied a distinguished place,upon whose

1 Joseph. Antiq. ii. 9, § 35; Artapanus, ap. Euseb. Præp. Evang. ix. 27.

statue (in Munich) the following notice of his career is handed down to the latest generations:

(1) The hereditary lord and first prophet of Amon Bekenkhonsu thus speaks: I have been truthful and virtuous towards my lords. I undertook with pleasure that which my god taught me. I walked in his ways. I performed the deeds of virtue within his temple. I was a great architect in the town of Amon, my heart being filled with good works for my lord.

'O ye men, all of you altogether, of reflecting mind, (2) ye who remain now upon the earth, and ye who will come after me for thousands and later thousands of years, according to your age and frailty, whose heart is possessed by the knowledge of virtue, I give you to know what services I performed on earth, in that office which was my lot from my birth.

'I was for four years a very little child. For twelve years (3) I was a boy. I was the superintendent of the office for the sustenance of the king Mineptah Seti. I was a priest of Amon for four years. I was a holy father of Amon for twelve years. I was third prophet of Amon for sixteen years. I was second prophet of Amon for twelve years. He (the king) rewarded me, and distinguished me because of my deserts. He named me as first prophet of Amon for six years. I was (4) a good father for my temple servants, in that I afforded sustenance to their families, and stretched out my hand to the fallen, and gave food to the poor, and did my best for my temple. I was the great architect of the Theban palace for his (Seti's) son, who sprang from his loins, the king Ramses II. He himself raised a memorial to his father Amon, (5) when he was placed upon the throne as king.

'The skilled in art, and the first prophet of Amon, Bekenkhonsu, he speaks thus: I performed the best I could for the temple of Amon as architect of my lord. I executed the pylon "of Ramessu II., the friend of Amon, who listens to those who pray to him," (thus is he named) at the first gate of the temple of Amon. I placed obelisks at the same made of granite. Their height reaches to the vault of heaven. A propylon is (6) before the same in sight of the city of Thebes, and ponds and gardens, with flourishing trees. I made two great double doors of gold. Their height reaches to heaven. I caused to be made a double pair of great masts. I set them up in the splendid court in sight

of his temple. I had great barks built on the river for Amon, Mut, and Khonsu.'

Although the day of the death of Bekenkhonsu is not given in the inscription, yet it is clear that he must have departed this life while priest of Amon, after having completed sixty-six years. We can therefore divide his whole life of sixty-six years into the following sections:

It is hardly probable that the great Sesostris died leaving his earthly empire in peaceful circumstances. A large family of sons and grandsons were ready in his advanced years to dispute the inheritance of their father. The seeds of stormy and unquiet times were Sown. The historical records in the sequel justify these anticipations in the most striking manner.

The body of Pharaoh was laid in his burial chamber in the rocky valley of Biban-el-Moluk. The son of Seti, so full of gratitude to his father, in spite of the large number of his children, had not left one descendant

1 Champollion has briefly described the extensive but muchruined sepulchre of this man, on the west side of Thebes, in his Notices Descript. tome i., p. 538. On its second door the French hierogrammatist read the following inscription :-The hereditary lord and president of the prophets of Amon-ra, the lord of Thebes, the first prophet of Amon, Bekenkhonsu, the bles ed.'