“The archives of the empire were transferred from Thebes to the new residence of the king, and there stored in the royal palace, which stood among its gardens at the northern extremity of the city. But the existence and prosperity of Khu-en-Aten’s capital were of short duration. When the king died he left only daughters behind him, whose husbands assumed in succession the royal power. Their reigns lasted but a short time, and it is even possible that more than one of them had to share his power with another prince. At any rate it was not long before rulers and people alike returned to the old paths. The faith which Khu-en-Aten had endeavoured to introduce was left without worshippers, the Asiatic strangers whom he and his father had promoted to high offices of State were driven from power, and the new capital was deserted never to be inhabited again. The great temple of the solar disk fell into decay, like the royal palace, and the archives of Khu-en-Aten were buried under the ruins of the chamber wherein they had been kept.”
It is these archives which have now come to light, and which furnish such extraordinary information concerning the state of Egypt and Palestine in the century before the Oppression. In the winter of 1887 the fellahin of Egypt, searching for nitrous earth with which to manure their fields, discovered some three hundred ancient tablets inscribed with Babylonian cuneiform writing. The tablets are copies of letters and despatches from the kings and governors of Babylonia and Assyria, of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Eastern Cappadocia, of Phœnicia and Palestine, exchanging information with the Pharaoh of Egypt, or making reports as to the state of the country they governed. Among the correspondents of the Egyptian sovereigns were Assurynballidh of Assyria and Burnaburyas of Babylonia, which thus fix the date of Khu-en-Aten to about 1430 B.C. This shows incidentally that the Egyptologists have been quite right in not assigning the Exodus to an earlier period than 1320 B.C., that is to say, the reign of Menephtah, the son and successor of Rameses II.
At the date of the despatches Palestine and Phœnicia were garrisoned by Egyptian troops, and their affairs were more or less directed by Egyptian governors. But in some cases the native prince was allowed to retain his title and a portion of his power. Thus Jerusalem (which was then called Uru-’Salim--the seat or oracle of the god Salim, it is supposed, whose temple stood on the mountain of Moriah)--was ruled over by Ebed-tob. He appears to have been a priest rather than a king, since he tells us that he was appointed by an oracle of the god; and in that case the state over which he presided would be a Theocracy. Dr Sayce considers that an unexpected light is thus thrown on the person and position of Melchizedek. He was priest of El-Elyon, the “Most High God,” and king only in virtue of his priestly office. His father therefore is not named. [“Records of the Past.” New Series, vol. v.] There were as yet no signs of the Israelites coming into the land. But the Canaanite population was already threatened by an enemy from the north. These were the Hittites, to whom references are made in several of the despatches from Syria and Phœnicia. After the weakening of the Egyptian power, in consequence of the religious troubles which followed the death of Khu-en-Aten, the Hittites were enabled to complete their conquests in the south, and to drive a wedge between the Semites of the East and the West. With the revival of the Egyptian empire under the rulers of the nineteenth dynasty the southward course of Hittite conquest was checked; but the wars of Rameses II. against the Hittites of Kadesh on Orontes desolated and exhausted Canaan and prepared the way for the Israelitish invasion. Phœnicia seems to have been the furthest point to the north to which the direct government of Egypt extended. At any rate the letters which came to the Egyptian monarch from Syria and Mesopotamia were sent to him by princes who called themselves his “brothers,” and not by officials who were the “servants” of the king.