* Graffiti of this sovereign have been found at the second cataract.  Certain expressions have induced E. de Rouge to believe that he, as well as Siphtah, came originally from Khibit in the Aphroditopolite nome.  This was an allusion, as Chabas had seen, to the myth of Horus, similar to that relating to Thutmosis III., and which we more usually meet with in the cases of those kings who were not marked out from their birth onwards for the throne.

[Illustration:  265.jpg SETI II.]

     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.

The second, who was named Siphtah-Minephtah, ascended “the throne of his father” thanks to the devotion of his minister Bai,* but in a greater degree to his marriage with a certain princess called Tausirit.  He maintained himself in this position for at least six years, during which he made an expedition into Ethiopia, and received in audience at Thebes messengers from all foreign nations.  He kept up so zealously the appearance of universal dominion, that to judge from his inscriptions he must have been the equal of the most powerful of his predecessors at Thebes.

Egypt, nevertheless, was proceeding at a quick pace towards its downfall.  No sooner had this monarch disappeared than it began to break up.** There were no doubt many claimants for the crown, but none of them succeeded in disposing of the claims of his rivals, and anarchy reigned supreme from one end of the Nile valley to the other.  The land of Qimit began to drift away, and the people within it had no longer a sovereign, and this, too, for many years, until other times came; for “the land of Qimit was in the hands of the princes ruling over the nomes, and they put each other to death, both great and small.

* Bai has left two inscriptions behind him, one at Silsilis and the other at Sehel, and the titles he assumes on both monuments show the position he occupied at the Theban court during the reign of Siphtah-Minephtah.  Chabas thought that Bai had succeeded in maintaining his rights to the crown against the claims of Amenmesis.

     ** The little that we know about this period of anarchy has
     been obtained from the Harris Papyrus.

Other times came afterwards, during years of nothingness, in which Arisu, a Syrian,* was chief among them, and the whole country paid tribute before him; every one plotted with his neighbour to steal the goods of others, and it was the same with regard to the gods as with regard to men, offerings were no longer made in the temples.”

* The name of this individual was deciphered by Chabas; Lauth, and after him Krall, were inclined to read it as Ket, Ketesh, in order to identify it with the Ketes of Diodorus Siculus.  A form of the name Arisai in the Bible may be its original, or that of Arish which is found in Phoenician, especially Punic, inscriptions.

This was in truth the revenge of the feudal system