ABSTRACT
Owing to a number of misconceptions on the part of the Egyptologists who flourished in the first half of the XIXth century, it has been generally supposed that the period of the Ramessids marked the culminating point of Egyptian civilization, power, and influence, but this was not the case, for, as we have seen, Egypt reached the zenith of her power under the truly great kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty. Thothmes III. and Ȧmen-ḥetep III. deserve the title “great” far more than Rameses II. The XIXth Dynasty marks the beginning of the decline of the power of Egypt, and the decline continued without break until the end of the period of the XXIst Dynasty, by which time Egypt had become like the “bruised reed” 1 to which she was compared in Holy Scriptures; this period of decline lasted about three hundred years. Several causes contributed to the downfall of Egypt; among these the most important were the general corruption which resulted from the great wealth and luxury of the country; the persistent attacks upon Egyptian possessions in Palestine and the Delta by hostile foreigners, who were not slow to perceive the increasing impotence of Egypt; and most of all the blighting and benumbing effect of the influence of the priests of Ȧmen, which during this period gradually invaded and pervaded every part of the body politic, until at length the astute head of that wealthy and all-powerful confraternity seated himself upon the throne of Egypt as king. Whilst the people of Egypt were submitting to the never-ending claims of the priests of Ȧmen, and the king was demoralized by the excessive adulation of his court, the brave governors on the frontiers of the Empire could obtain no help from Egypt, and so, little by little, the conquests of the Thothmes and Ȧmen-ḥeteps were lost. In the XXIst Dynasty not only do we find Egypt confined to the Valley of the Nile, but even divided into two separate kingdoms of the South and North, as in the days of the Hyksos seven hundred years before.
