* For this use of prisoners of war, cf. the picture from the tomb of Rakhmirî on p. 58 of the present work, in which most of the earlier Egyptologists believed they recognised the Hebrews, condemned by Pharaoh to build the cities of Ramses and Pithom in the Delta.
Nubia, divided into provinces, formed merely an extension of the ancient feudal Egypt--at any rate as far as the neighbourhood of the Tacazzeh--though the Egyptian religion had here assumed a peculiar character.
[Illustration: 058.jpg A GANG Of SYRIAN PRISONERS MAKING BRICK FOR THE TEMPLE OF AMON]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the chromolithograph in Lepsius.
The conquest of Nubia having been almost entirely the work of the Theban dynasties, the Theban triad, Amon, Maût, and Montû, and their immediate followers were paramount in this region, while in the north, in witness of the ancient Elephantinite colonisation, we find Khnûmû of the cataract being worshipped, in connexion with Didûn, father of the indigenous Nubians. The worship of Amon had been the means of introducing that of Eâ and of Horus, and Osiris as lord of the dead, while Phtah, Sokhît, Atûmû, and the Memphite and Heliopolitan gods were worshipped only in isolated parts of the province. A being, however, of less exalted rank shared with the lords of heaven the favour of the people. This was the Pharaoh, who as the son of Amon was foreordained to receive divine honours, sometimes figuring, as at Bohani, as the third member of a triad, at other times as head of the Ennead. Ûsirtasen III. had had his chapels at Semneh and at Kûmmeh, they were restored by Thûtmosis III., who claimed a share of the worship offered in them, and whose son, Amenôthes II., also assumed the symbols and functions of divinity.
[Illustration: 059.jpg ONE OF THE RAMS OF AMENÔTHES III]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Mons. de Mertens.
Amenôthes I. was venerated in the province of Kari, and Amenôthes III., when founding the fortress Hâît-Khâmmâît* in the neighbourhood of a Nubian village, on a spot now known as Soleb, built a temple there, of which he himself was the protecting genius.
*** The name signifies literally the Citadel of Khâmmâît, and it is formed, as Lepsius recognised from the first, from the name of the Sparrow-hawk Khâmmâît, Mait rising as Goddess, which Amenôthes had assumed on his accession.