Egypt of the Pharaohs.

An Introduction by Alan Gardiner

Review by: John A. Wilson
Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Jan., 1962), pp. 67-72
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
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 BOOK REVIEWS 67

serving pig as contrasted with the destructive that it is a religion of town-dwellers and
close-cropping goat and sheep. Finally, the merchants propagated by nomads who are
chapter touches on the Islamic pilgrimage elsewhere in the book (p. 6) characterized as
whose Arabic origins and world-wide Islamic "dubious religionists and blasphemers";
continuation are credited to the tradesman that spiritual forces and moral affinities
affinity for commercial cities. Trade and the complement geographic nomadism to limit
faith combined to utilize and expand an Islam's expansion to the arid and semi-arid
international network of roads supplemented regions of the Afro-Asian continents, but
by sea lanes along which lines of com- nowhere is he presented with even a summary
munications Islam itself took root in various of these spiritual and moral forces; that Islam
types of settlements whence it spread across has "hardened arteries" (p. 127) acquired as
plain and desert until stopped by high land routes yielded first place to sea lanes
mountain range or thick forest. yet he concedes it further expansion in
Chapter two enumerates and describes Africa in this air age and explains its
briefly the groupings and modes of life failure to penetrate into the temperate
fostered by Islam such as the frontier warrior zones by the stiff human resistance in these
settlements and their opposites, the peaceful regions, while his reason for Islam's non-
interior religious orders or brotherhoods; pentration of the forest is that so far it has
religious, racial, and professional segregation hardly tried to do so (pp. 121, 125). Finally,
in town and country; the heretic's refuge in his account of Islam's recent efforts at city
mountain and desert and the strain and stress reorganization (pp. 28 ff.) and desegregation
of majority-minority relationships every- (pp. 94 ff.) are not sufficiently correlated with
where. parallel movements for tribal settlements and
Chapter three takes up the geographical current Islamic nationalisms.
factors in the expansion of Islam in an effort Islamists can fill in the gaps in this work
to determine the extent to which Islam itself and resolve some of the contradictions actual
can be said to be the expression of a specific or implied; but the layman will go about his
geographical environment. No effort is made way only partly informed unless he is
to follow Islam's early expansion, which is enterprising enough to explore the aids
assumed to have been always by conquest provided in the classified and annotated
and forced conversion and which still remains bibliography (pp. 129-42, in French) which
a mystery to the author (pp. 103 f.). He draws heavily on French sources and theories
dwells, therefore, on Islam's later and still and much of which is in current professional
current peaceful penetration even into and specialized periodicals.
territories controlled by western imperial NABIA ABBOTT
powers. Though some of his illustrative Oriental Institute
materials are drawn from the various regions University of Chicago
of the Muslim world, he is most at home in
describing and analyzing Islam's expansion
into North Africa and the entire Sudan. Egypt of the Pharaohs. An Introduction. By
In the final chapter of two pages the author SIR ALAN GARDINER. Oxford: Oxford
sums up his conclusions, which hold no University Press, 1961. Pp. xx + 461 +
surprise for Islamists acquainted\with much 22 pls. + 17 figs. + 3 maps. 35s. net.
theorizing on Islam's vast territorial expan- This book is a great and welcome land-
sion, but which will be informative to a mark. Sir Alan Gardiner is the honored dean
degree, yet frustrating, to the layman who is of Egyptologists, whose mastery of the an-
the author's main target. For, bypassing the cient texts has long commanded respect.
Umayyad and early cAbbasid empires, the From his own "avowedly philological point
author tells him that Islam is opposed to of view," he now presents the story of the
national organisms and regional alliances; pharaonic period of Egypt, with the hope of

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68 JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES
kindling the interest of young people both
in that story and in the methods which
scholars have used to recapture it. In these
ambitions he has been singularly successful.
The book is highly readable and of course
thoroughly sound.
To no other living Egyptologist do we owe
a greater debt. Not only is Gardiner's
Egyptian Grammar the basic textbook for
the classical stages of the language, but he
has given us sixty years of masterly philo-
logical studies, ranging from the definitive
analyses of such literary works as the Story
of Sinuhe, the Admonitions of Ipuwer, and
Papyrus Anastasi I, through the editio prin-
ceps of the Chester Beatty hieratic papyri,
and on to such knotty problems as the
Onomastica and the Wilbour Papyrus. No
one has so clearly earned his right to speak
out firmly about the historical setting of the
texts he has studied.
The book is dedicated to the memory of
James Henry Breasted. Breasted would have
been delighted with it. In his Preface to A
History of Egypt, written in 1905, he ex-
pressed his desire to present an account
which rested "upon the surviving records
themselves." We are particularly grateful
that Gardiner has brought up to date the
understanding of so many important texts.
Thus a treatment of Egyptian history is
given us, essentially derived from a study of
texts. This is avowedly deficient in the treat-
ment of other fields, such as art, architecture,
material objects, even law, education,
science, and mortuary religion, in which last
area Gardiner has done solid work elsewhere.
Yet his purpose of laying his special interests
before young people could be accomplished
only by cutting down and thus bringing the
volume to a very reasonable price.
So we are happy to have translations and
comments on such texts as the newly ex-
panded Ka-mose stela (pp. 166-68), the
Amarna boundary stelae (pp. 221-22), and
the inscriptions of the Ethiopian period
(pp. 335-50). These are particularly good sec-
tions. It is true that the desire to do justice
to methods of analysis leads to some dreary
pages (pp. 147-63) which attempt to give
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Manetho his due on the Second Intermediate
Period. These might have been compressed
or thrust into the chronological Appendix.
But Gardiner clearly relishes those problems
which he calls "at once the joy and the tor-
ment of Egyptologists" (p. 276).
The emphasis on history from the texts
has lead to a historical inversion, whereby
the chapters on prehistory and on the first
two dynasties appear at the end of the book
as a kind of supplement. Even here we recog-
nize clarity and insight into problems very
difficult to control.
In the compactness of the book, some con-
clusions come with a magisterial sweep, as
when the alleged coregency of Amen-hotep
III and Amen-hotep IV is dismissed as "an
illusion" (p. 213). Such dicta sometimes in-
volve problems of definition, as when Aton-
ism is described as "a genuine monotheism"
(p. 227), yet Akh-en-Aton seems to have
claimed "a share in his divine father's divin-
ity; indeed, one has sometimes the impression
that this share approached complete iden-
tity"; "while Akhenaten prayed to the Aten,
his subjects just as often prayed to him"
(p. 228). Similarly, a question of definition
lies in the statement: "It may even be
doubted whether the much vaunted Egyp-
tian empire ever existed" (p. 230). One must
admit that excathedral judgments come with
effective force from a scholar who occupies
a high and firm cathedra. On some points
where other scholars have disagreed with him
he is very fair-minded, as on the problem of
the location of the Biblical city Raamses
(p. 258).
So sumptuous a repast might be enjoyed
for itself alone, and that is the recommenda-
tion for the young people whom Gardiner
would like to capture. But the scholars who
read this Journal have a more exacting
palate. We shall therefore offer a seasoning
of salt, pepper, and even a touch of vinegar,
in the belief that a good meal may be en-
riched by added spice and that seasoning
also helps to preserve that which is worthy
of long life.
Manetho's "thirty Dynasties" on p. viii
and his "thirty-one dynasties" on p. 46 are
 BOOK REVIEWS
reconciled on p. 453 by the statement that
the Thirty-first Dynasty "has been added to
the genuine Manetho by some later chrono-
grapher."
The "108 years" for the Hyksos dynasty is
stated more confidently on p. 150 than on
p. 442, n. 2: "The 100 certain, the 8 less so."
An alleged incestuous marriage of Akh-en-
Aton and Ankhes-en-Amon after the death
of Tut-ankh-Amon is rejected by Gardiner
(p. 236), but he does not point out that,
using his own conjectural dates, Akh-en-
Aton would have been dead about a dozen
years!
With reference to pp. 445-46, Rowton
(JNES, XIX, 15-22) has revised his tenta-
tive dating of Ramses II's accession year
from 1290 to 1304 B.C. This would affect
the conjectural dates from the end of
the Eighteenth Dynasty into the mid-
Twentieth Dynasty.
There is a slight chronological difficulty in
the dating of Shoshenk I's Asiatic campaign
and the building of the Bubastite Portal,
where he left a record of that campaign
(p. 329). Gardiner believes that this construc-
tion had "long since" been started before
Shoshenk's 21st year, that is, long before
925-24 B.C. in his dating. Then he suggests
as the probable date of the invasion of Pales-
tine 930 B.c., which would be the 15th or 16th
regnal year. While it is true that we do not
know the years in question, it is a normal
expectation that both a campaign of aggran-
dizement and the embellishment of a major
temple would fall in the earlier years of a
new dynast.
Turning to matters of translation, it is
noteworthy that Gardiner makes a distinc-
tion between the classical style, particularly
characteristic of earlier times, and the col-
loquial which came in with Late Egyptian,
for example rendering the 2nd singular by
"thou" in the classical and by "you" in the
colloquial (pp. 300 ff.).
"I acted so that His Majesty should praise
me on account of it" on p. 58 might be recon-
ciled with "so that His Majesty praised me
for it" on p. 95.
The translation, "I had opened up these
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69
countries. Never had it been found done by
any friend," etc., on p. 100 might suggest a
change in the rendering on p. 96, "There was
revealed to me the number of these troops,
though it had never (before) been revealed
to any servant," to "All these troops opened
up (the way) for me, though (it) had not been
opened up for any servant (before)."
Is it clear that "the time of perfuming the
mouth" is "the hour of the midday meal"
(p. 167, n. 2) ? May it not have been that late
breakfast which in many agricultural coun-
tries is eaten after some hours of morning
work ?
With regret we note that Gardiner is ob-
liged to translate one of the items sent from
Egypt to Byblos, as recorded in the Wen-
Amon report, as "plain mats, 500," (p. 311),
instead of Breasted's "papyrus, 500 rolls."
The export of Egyptian papyrus, specifically
to Byblos, was always an interesting item of
record.
Does the name of Psusennes, Pseba-kha-
en-Nut, mean "The Star which arose in
Thebes," with an assimilation of the preposi-
tion m to the following n-, or "The Star
which arose for (the benefit of) the City"?
Both possibilities are given in Ranke, Per-
sonnennamen, II, 354. If the correct render-
ing is "for," the significance of the name as
indicating birth in Thebes is not in point
(p. 318).
The statement that "the name Tahpenes
is unidentifiable in the hieroglyphs" (p. 329)
is true, but both Stricker (Acta Orientalia,
XV [1936], 11-12) and Grdseloff (Revue de
l'histoire juive enmigypte, I [1947], 88-90)
have suggested an easy emendation of the
Hebrew consonants to t-h-m-n-s, which is
closer to the Septuagint's Thekhemeina,
with the possibility that this represents "the
Wife of the King"-like Pharaoh, not a name
but a title.
While it is true that the royal name Send
may be translated "the Afraid" (p. 415), the
concept may have been "the Respectful" or
"the One Standing in Awe" of a deity.
Is it necessary to assume that the name
Nefer-ka-Re is a fictitious addition to the
Second Dynasty lists (p. 416), when another
70 JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES
name of that Dynasty, Neb-Re, includes the
element Re, and Nefer-ka-Re conforms to
the pattern of Nefer-ka-Sokar of that
Dynasty ?
I do not understand the substitution of
Shepseskhe for Shepseskaf, based on "Urk.
i, 160, corrected" (p. 434, n. 10). The photo-
graph in Reisner's Mycerinos shows Shepses-
ka. ... Whence that final -khe ?
Although the statement that Sh6shenk is
"thus vocalized in Assyrian rather than
Sheshonlk" (p. 448, n. 1) is justified, it is so
on the understanding that the cuneiform
actually reads Susink1u.
Tanuatamun's name (p. 450) appears in
the Assyrian records in the rendering
"URdamane." In other words, the reading
of the beginning in cuneiform is not
certain.
"Pw6ne" or Punt on p. 37 is "probably the
African coast opposite Aden, the land of
spices, myrrh, and other much-prized pro-
ducts." On p. 185 this becomes more con-
fidently "near the Bdb el-Mandeb." Granted
that the scene depicted in the temple of Deir
el-Bahri is African, is it necessary that, for
the ancient Egyptians, Punt was solely the
African coast ? Might not the lands of myrrh
and spices have been to the south, without
recognition that the Bdb el-Mandeb would
later form a separation of two great land-
masses ? It seems invidious to omit the later
Arabia Felix.
Perhaps the term "God's Land" referred
to foreign territory claimed by the Pharaoh
(p. 138), but an alternative would be the
orient, the land of the rising sun-god; cf.
Kuentz, in Bulletin de l'Institut franqais
d'archdologie orientale, XVII, 178 ff.
Gardiner (p. 42) is bothered by the fact
that Egypt had no native silver or silver ores
and repeats the suggestion that the word
translated "silver" may in the earliest texts
have been "white (gold)." Yet on p. 44, he
writes that "In periods behind historical
recollection trade was wider flung than we
are apt to imagine," so that imported silver
is clearly a possibility.
At Byblos the Egyptians identified their
own goddess Hat-Hor with "the native
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Semitic Astart6" (p. 89). On p. 194, n. 2, she
becomes "the goddess Bacalat."
It should be made clear on p. 254 whether
the Bethsha6l of the inscription is the same
or is different from Biblical Beth-shean. On
p. 275 Gardiner accepts the name as Beth-
shean.
The statement about the Luka-Lycians on
p. 271 is misleading. They had already
appeared in another text of the time of
Ramses II (p. 262), and the footnote refer-
ence on p. 271 to Onom. i, 128*, reveals that
there were two personal names which might
carry the element "Lycian."
On p. 284 the later narrative does tell us
that the Tjekker were occupying the port of
Dor, but it does not specify that they were
sea-pirates. We see the Philistines in Fig. 11
on p. 286 wearing head-dresses which look
like fea+hers, but we do not actually know
that feathers were present. For example,
this head-dress might be of pleated leather.
Would Egyptian art have depicted a circlet
of feathers with what looks like a flat and
uniform top, as it appears in Med. Habu, II,
P1. 125A ? The horizontal lines at the back of
the neck, cf. ibid., I, Pl. 51E, may similarly
depict overlapping strips of leather, to pro-
tect that vulnerable part of the head. The
Egyptian goddess Anuqet does wear some-
thing which looks like a feathered head-dress,
each feather thrusting up its own rounded
top. The Hebrew word for helmet has taken
to be a loan from a hypothetical Philistine
word *kaubac (JAOS, LVII, 73 ff.) and re-
lated to the German Haube, which would be
a war cap of metal or leather (American
Journal of Archaeology, L, 258 f.)-but might
also be a bird's crest!
The term "Iuntyu" is not confined to
peoples living to the northeast of the Delta
(p. 414). Since there were also Nubian
Iuntyu, the term applies generally to those
of the eastern deserts.
The "No other people has ever shown a
greater reverence for what was by them
termed 'the time of the ancestors' " on p. 56
needs to be reconciled with "a lack of
scrupulosity as regards ancestral property"
on the following page.
 BOOK REVIEWS
The confident statement on p. 98 that
"Asiatic aggression ... overwhelmed Egypt"
in the First Intermediate Period is scarcely
borne out by the treatment of that Period
as characterized by internal disintegration
and weakness, "possibly fomented by the
infiltration of Asiatics into the Delta"
(p. 107). And it is puzzling to read on p. 115
that travel into the marshes of the Delta was
"a feat surely impossible in the political
conditions" of the First Intermediate Period,
when the rest of this Chapter does not indi-
cate that the Asiatics in the Delta consti-
tuted an insuperable menace to travel and
communications throughout the area.
Although the siege of Sharuhen (p. 169)
was apparently the limit of Ah-mose I's
initial Asiatic campaign, the inscription of
his year 22 showing cattle captured "in the
lands of the Fenkhu" (p. 174) does suggest
that there might have been later campaigns.
Do the decrees of immunity exempt priests
"from taxation and from arbitrary removal
from their posts" (p. 60), or only from forced
labor on behalf of the state ? Cf. the provi-
sions of the decree summarized on pp. 251-52.
"Upper Egypt was essentially agricultural,
the Delta pastoral" (p. 103) expresses a truth,
but perhaps in exaggeration. Both parts of
Egypt were agricultural-witness the regu-
larity of the term "northern barley"-but
some sections of the Delta were used as the
pasture lands for the entire country.
The cult depictions of Queen Ah-mose
Nefert-iri as a deified patron of the necropolis
show her with a black or blue-or red-
complexion. This is not strictly "unaccount-
able" (p. 175), because she is shown as a god-
dess and not as a human. Davies, The Tomb
of Two Sculptors at Thebes, p. 33, n. i, offers
two possible solutions: her color is that of the
underworld, or she was known in western
Thebes through a cult statue.
Instead of "Large scarabs were still in-
serted in the mummy" (p. 229), it would be
more precise to write "Large scarabs were
still inserted into the mummy wrappings."
Occasionally scholarly caution results in a
devious sentence, as on p. 218: "The diffi-
culty of escaping wholly from earlier tradi-
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71
tion is one which never ceased to make itself
felt, however much it may have been
theoretically desired." Similarly, p. 317: "Nor
is the degeneracy of the new r6gime more
than thinly disguised by the rich jewellery
with which Montet's many years of patient
digging were rewarded."
The paragraph of family relationships of
Thut-mose I on pp. 177-78 is not clearly
stated. It should be explicit that the two
sons Amen-mose and Wadj-mose were sons
of Thut-mose I, since their parentage has
elsewhere been incorrectly stated.
For clarity, we should read on p. 210:
"Ugarit, on the coast a little to the north of
Laodicea, is the present-day Ras esh-
Shamra, where Cl. Schaeffer has excavated.
"The House of Life or scriptoria" on p. 367
offers awkward problems of singular and
plural, which might be met in some such
terms as "the scriptoria which the Egyptians
grouped under the name, the House of Life."
On p. 105, in the hieroglyphs for the word
translated "Friends," the plural strokes have
fallen out. In the footnote on the same page,
the reference should be "p. 59, with n. 2." On
p. 246, for The Tomb of HIay, viceroy of Nubia,
read The Tomb of HIuy, etc. In p. 268, n. 6,
read p. 280, instead of p. 279. On p. 401, read
Udimu instead of Udirnu. And the name
of the high-priest Menkheper on p. 447 should
conform to the Menkheperr&c of pp. 317-19.
The Bibliography at the end of each chap-
ter is useful and up-to-date. The Index at
the end of the book is selective. For example,
from the personal and place names in the
text on pp. 207-10, the Index contains refer-
ence to Queen Tiye, but not Amenophis III;
to the high-priest Ptahmose, but not the sage
Amenhotpe son of Hapu: to Tushratta, but
not Kadashman-Enlil I; to the Colossi of
Memnon, but not the temple of Karnak; etc.
When the reference is abbreviated, it is
sometimes difficult to find one's way among
footnotes. The "Seele, op. cit." of p. 249,
n. 1, and of p. 257, n. 2, does not refer to the
Seele, King Ay... of the Bibliography on
p. 246, but to the earlier reference of p. 245,
n. 1, Seele, Coregency... Similarly, for
72 JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES

"Vandier, op. cit." on p. 428, we turn to p. xx eighty years old. The highly refreshing factor
and are there referred to p. 69. The reference in this book is the youthful vigor of his work.
to Waddell in p. 439, n. 4, is made specific if His bibliographical references are compre-
we find it in the Bibliography on p. 69. And hensive and run right down to works pub-
"Rowley's book, p. 130, n. 2" on p. 444 does lished in 1960. He constantly refers to
not refer to any listing on p. 130 of the pre- problems on which future research is neces-
sent volume, but to p. 130 of the book by sary, and one gathers that he would like to
Rowley listed in the footnote on p. 156 of the be centrally engaged in such research. He will
present volume. be, by himself and by those who follow his
Enough of such minutiae. The essential of work. In words of his own translating: "Those
the book lies in a statement ending the last learned scribes from the time of the succes-
paragraph: "we frankly admit our aim to sors of the gods, (even) those who foretold
have been propaganda, and our ambition the future, it hath befallen that their names
would not have been satisfied unless we suc- endure for all eternity."
ceed in winning at least one fresh recruit to
JOHN A. WILSON
our fascinating field of research." This
ambition should be realized fortyfold. Oriental Institute
In March, 1959, Sir Alan Gardiner was University of Chicago

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