sake.  Tie ye yourselves to his sandals.  Smell the earth before him.  Do homage to him.  Follow him at every moment.  Praise him.  Worship him.  Magnify his beneficent actions as ye do those of Ra every morning.  Present ye before him your offerings [in] his Great House (i.e. palace), which is holy.  Carry ye to him the “blessings” (?) of the [tilled] lands and the deserts.  Be strong to fulfil his words and the decrees that are uttered among you.  Follow (?) his utterances, and ye shall be safe under his Souls.  Work all together for him in every work.  Haul monuments for him, excavate canals for him, work for him in the work of your hands, and there will accrue unto you his favour as well as his food daily.  Amen hath decreed for him his sovereignty upon earth, he hath made this period of his life twice as long as that of any other king, the King of the South and North, the Lord of the Two Lands, Usermaatra-setep-en-Amen, life, strength, health [be to him!], the son of Ra, the lord of crowns, Rameses (IV)-heqmaat-meri-Amen, life, strength, health [be to him!], who is endowed with life for ever.

                   THE INVASION AND CONQUEST OF EGYPT
                        BY PIANKHI, KING OF NUBIA

The text describing the invasion and conquest of Egypt by Piankhi, King of Nubia, is cut in hieroglyphs upon a massive stone stele which was found among the ruins of Piankhi’s temple at Gebel Barkal, near the foot of the Fourth Cataract, and which is now preserved in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo.  Although this composition does not belong to the best period of Egyptian Literature, it is a very fine work.  The narrative is vivid, and the aim of the writer was rather to state the facts of this splendid expedition than to heap up empty compliments on the king; both the subject-matter and the dress in which it appears are well worthy of reproduction in an English form.  The inscription is dated in the twenty-first year of Piankhi’s reign, and the king says: 

“Hearken ye to [the account of] what I have done more than my ancestors.  I am a king, the emanation of the god, the living offspring of the god Tem, who at birth was ordained the Governor whom princes were to fear.”  His mother knew before his birth that he was to be the Governor, he the beneficent god, the beloved of the gods, the son of Ra who was made by his (the god’s) hands, Piankhi-meri-Amen.  One came and reported to His Majesty that the great prince Tafnekht had taken possession of all the country on the west bank of the Nile in the Delta, from the swamps even to Athi-taui[1], that he had sailed up the river with a large force, that all the people on both sides of the river had attached themselves to him, and that all the princes and governors and heads of temple-towns had flocked to him, and that they were “about his feet like dogs.”  No city had shut its gates before him, on the contrary, Mer-Tem, Per-sekhem-kheper-Ra, Het-neter-Sebek, Per-Metchet,