ion of our latest
knowledge of Egyptian history, in order to make known the results of
archaeological discovery in Mesopotamia and Western Asia generally. The
description has been carried down past the point of convergence of the
two originally isolated paths of Egyptian and Babylonian civilization,
and what new information the latest discoveries have communicated to us
on this subject has been told in the preceding chapters. We now have to
retrace our steps to the point where we left Egyptian history and resume
the thread of our Egyptian narrative.

The Hyksos conquest and the rise of Thebes are practically
contemporaneous. The conquest took place perhaps three or four hundred
years after the first advancement of Thebes to the position of capital
of Egypt, but it must be remembered that this position was not retained
during the time of the XIIth Dynasty. The kings of that dynasty, though
they were Thebans, did not reign at Thebes. Their royal city was in the
North, in the neighbourhood of Lisht and Medum, where their pyramids
were erected, and their chief care was for the lake province of the
Fayyum, which was largely the creation of Amenemhat III, the Moeris
of the Greeks. It was not till Thebes became the focus of the
national resistance to the Hyksos that its period of greatness began.
Henceforward it was the undisputed capital of Egypt, enlarged and
embellished by the care and munificence of a hundred kings, enriched by
the tribute of a hundred conquered nations.

But were we to confine ourselves to the consideration only of the latest
discoveries of Theban greatness after the expulsion of the Hyksos, we
should be omitting much that is of interest and importance. For the
Egyptians the first grand climacteric in their history (after the
foundation of the monarchy) was the transference of the royal power from
Memphis and Herakleopolis to a Theban house. The second, which followed
soon after, was the Hyksos invasion. The two are closely connected in
Theban history; it is Thebes that defeated Herakleopolis and conquered
Memphis; it is Theban power that was overthrown by the Hyksos; it is
Thebes that expelled them and initiated the second great period of
Egyptian history. We therefore resume our narrative at a point before
the great increase of Theban power at the time of the expulsion of the
Hyksos, and will trace this power from its rise, which followed
the defeat of Herakleopolis and Memphis. It is upon this epoch--