phrases describing their attributes, their deeds, and their festivals.  To substitute for this the records of secular history was Assyrian and not Egyptian.  Indeed the very conception of annalistic chronicling, in which the history of a reign was given briefly year by year and campaign by campaign, belonged to the kingdoms of the Tigris and Euphrates, not to that of the Nile.  It was a new thing in Egypt, and flourished there only during the short period of Asiatic influence.  The Egyptian cared comparatively little for history, and made use of papyrus when he wished to record it.  Unfortunately for us the annals of Thothmes III. remain the solitary monument of Egyptian chronicling on stone.

The twenty-second year of his reign (B.C. 1481) was that in which the Egyptian Pharaoh made his first determined effort to subdue Canaan.  Gaza was occupied without much difficulty, and in the following year, on the fifth day of the month Pakhons, he set out from it, and eleven days later encamped at Ihem.  There he learned that the confederated Canaanitish army, under the command of the king of Kadesh on the Orontes, was awaiting his attack at Megiddo.  Not only were the various nations of Palestine represented in it, but contingents had come from Naharaim on the banks of the Euphrates, as well as from the Gulf of Antioch.  For a while Thothmes hesitated whether to march against them by the road which led through ’Aluna to Taanach or by way of Zaft (perhaps Safed), whence he would have descended southward upon Megiddo.  The arrival of his spies, however, determined him to take the first, and accordingly, after the officers had sworn that they would not leave their appointed posts in battle even to defend the person of the king, he started on his march, and on the nineteenth of the month pitched his tent at ’Aluna.  The way had been rough and impassable for chariots, so that the king had been forced to march on foot.

’Aluna must have been close to Megiddo, since the rear of the Egyptian forces was stationed there during the battle that followed, while the southern wing extended to Taanach and the northern wing to Megiddo.  The advanced guard pushed into the plain below, and the royal tent was set up on the bank of the brook of Qana, an affluent of the Kishon.  The decisive struggle took place on the twenty-first of the month.  Thothmes rode in a chariot of polished bronze, and posted himself among the troops on the north-west side of Megiddo.  The Canaanites were unable to resist the Egyptian charge.  They fled into the city, leaving behind them their horses and their chariots plated with gold and silver, those who arrived after the gates of the town had been shut being drawn up over the walls by means of ropes.  Had the Egyptians not stayed behind in order to plunder the enemy’s camp they would have entered Megiddo along with the fugitives.  As it was, they were compelled to blockade the city, building a rampart round it of “fresh green trees,” and the besieged were finally starved into a surrender.