[Illustration: FEMALE HEAD-DRESS, ANCIENT EGYPT]
[7] [Vases with tops of human forms or divinities, used to hold the entrails of embalmed bodies.]
[8] [Hieratic writing is a modified form of hieroglyphics.]
[9] [Syringes (plural of syrinx) are narrow and deep rock tunnel-tombs.]
[XIXTH-XXVTH DYNASTIES: _ca._ 1285-655 B.C.]
And the Lord shall smite Egypt; he shall smite and heal it: and they shall return even to the Lord, and he shall be intreated of them, and shall heal them.
In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians.--_Isaiah_ xix. 22, 23.
So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.--_Isaiah_ xx. 4.
After the summit, the inevitable decline. The first of world powers under the Ramessides, Egypt again becomes degenerate, and, after some five hundred years of reanimation, passes into the power of the priests, who in turn are supplanted by invading hosts, this time from Ethiopia. Then the Assyrian conquerors, taking their turn at world-domination, invade Egypt along the route which Tehutimes and Ramses had followed of old in invading Assyria. Dismembered Egypt falls an easy prey to Esarhaddon. It revolts under Asshurbanapal again and again, and is as often reconquered. But a mixed population of Ethiopians and Assyrians again gives a certain measure of new vitality to the old body, and, the destruction of the Assyrian empire having rid the Egyptians of one of their enemies, they were presently able, under Psamthek I (Psammetichus), to overthrow the Ethiopian “usurpers,” and establish once more a “native” dynasty.
For about three-quarters of a century Egypt retained autonomy, and even struggled back to a shadow of its old-time power, illustrating once again the vitality that resides in an old stock. Then the final _coup_ was given by Cambyses the Persian; and the last contest was over. Taken by themselves, these long-drawn-out struggles of a dying nation--extending over half a thousand years--are full of interest; but in the comparative scale they are unimportant. We have seen the great nation at its flood-tide of power, and we need not dwell at very great length upon the time of its ebbing fortunes; for other nations, off to the east, have now taken the place of Egypt as the world-centres, and are beckoning attention.[a]