THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN " Majesty. Six of these he had stretched out and displayed high " up on the walls which were opposite to the pylon of Thebes, " together with their hands, and the other he placed in a boat " and had conveyed to the rebel chief of Ta-Kensat, and hung " upon the walls of the city of Nept (Napata), so that all the folk ** there might understand the mighty acts and adore him for ever " and for ever in all the countries of the world, and in all the " mountains and deserts of the Land of the Blacks,' and might " know that he had seized with his hands and conquered the " Aamu, and the northern folk who lived away in the swamps in " the remotest regions of the earth." As a confirmation of the bloodthirsty character which the king gives himself, Brugsch calls attention to the scene painted on one of the walls of an officer's tomb at Kurna (Thebes). Here the king is represented as a child sitting on his nurse's knees, whilst his feet rest upon the heads and backs of nine hereditary foes of Egypt, but it seems to be only an allegorical picture intended to show that the king, even when a babe, was able to set his feet on the necks of his enemies.

One point of special interest for us in the extract quoted above is the statement that Amen-hetep sent the body of the seventh Syrian chief to be hung up on the walls of Nept, for all the Blacks to see. Now from the words which follow it is clear that Amen-hetep II. had this done in order to terrify the Blacks, and this being so it is equally clear that the city of Nept must have been situated in the country of the Blacks, and that it was of considerable importance. It fact, since it was to the Sudan what Thebes was to Egypt, it must have been the metropolis of the country. The city which it is most natural to identify with Nept is that which in the later inscriptions is called Nept, or Nepita, i.e., the capital of the Nubian kingdom established by Piankhi-meri-Amen. Nept, or Nepita,"* called "Napata" by classical writers, lies on the west bank of the Nile, opposite to IK I S J£< A I fv 2 Egypt under the Pharaohs, vol. i., p. 459.

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