THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN temples of Usertsen I. and Thothmes IV. stood in a large enclosure which was surrounded by a line of fortifications, of which a few bricks of the base of the wall alone remain ; in front of this line was a ditch, which is now sanded up. Captain Lyons learned from the people round about that the name given to the site by the Barabara is ** Sulu-n-diffe," i.e., " Fort of Sulu." Amenemhat II., the successor of Usertsen I., continued the policy inaugurated by Amenemhat, and succeeded in forcing the Nubians to pay tribute in gold and precious stones. In his reign the Egyptians gained firm foothold in the country of Ha, by which we are, perhaps, to understand the district which lies between Wadi Haifa and Semna; in fact, they advanced some fifty or si.xty miles further to the south than they had done in the time of his predecessor. A high official, called Sa-Hathor, tells us in his sepulchral inscription, which was found on a stele at Abydos,' that he journeyed into the country of Heh, and made the people to labour in the mines there. The young men dug out the ore, and crushed it, and the old men washed out the gold.

This mention of young and old men forcibly reminds us of the description of the method of working the gold mines given by Diodorus Siculus- (Bk. iii., chap. 13 ff). Sa-Hathor says that the natives were terror-stricken, and greatly afraid of his lord, and that they came to him, and when we think of the methods which the Egyptians used in dealing with the Nubians, it is clear that this official is telling the truth. In the twenty-eighth year of the reign of Amenemhat II. Prince Khent-khat-ur returned safely from an expedition to Punt, and thus we see that the Egyptians were bringing the products of the Sudan to their country both by sea and by land. From the Peninsula of Sinai also they were obtaining turquoises during this reign, and these, with the gold and carnelians which came from the Sudan, were made into ' It is now in the British Museum, No. 569. The text is published and described by Birch in Aee. Zeit. 1874, p. 112, and Egyptian Texts, p. 21.

' A \A |n '— ' o , " I worked a mine with young men, I forced the old ones to wash out gold, I brought turquoises."

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