ABSTRACT
The policy of Ptolemy II in respect of Nubia and the Sudan is well illustrated by the inscription on a stele of this king which was discovered at Per-Tem (i.e. Pithom, in the Wadi Tumllat) by Naville in 1884. (See The Store-city o f Pithom, London, 1885 ; and Brugsch, Aeg. Zeit., 1894, p. 74; and Sethe, Urkunden, G.-R. Zeit., Leipzig, 1904, II. 81.) He sent a fleet of ships to what in the early texts is called the “ land of Punt ” (he calls it Khemtithet
|)|)s=3\|^£^) captain of these sailed to the “ uttermost
part of the Land of the Blacks” ^ ^^'j , i.e. Sudan, and brought back products of that region which were beloved of the king and Queen Arsinoe. He likewise founded the city of Ptolemais Epitheras, not far from the modern Sawakin, and from the “ hinter land ” he brought large numbers of elephants which were shipped to Egypt. The scribe who wrote the text is correct in saying that “ the like of this was never before done for any king in all the earth/’ The inscription ends with the statement that Ptolemy holds Egypt in his grasp, and all the lands of the South bow before his will, and all the Nine Nations [of Nubia] who fight with the bow are beneath his sandals. A ll this was undoubtedly true, and Ptolemy had brought about his conquest not by means of raids and wholesale pillage and slaughter, but by merchant caravans and the encourage ment of trade.
