RAMESES 1.

any details as to the countries in the south which were forced to pay tribute suggests that the power of Egypt in Nubia was on the wane, and when we remember the unsettled state of Egypt during the reign of Amen-hetep IV., and the disturbed times which followed after his death, it is not surprising that the desert tribes seized every opportunity of throwing off their allegiance to the Pharaohs.

With Rameses I. we begin a new dynasty of Egyptian kings, the XlXth. During the reign of this king matters went from bad to worse, and Egypt was practically obliged to relinquish her' hold upon the rich, tribute- producing countries of Western Asia, from which Thothmes III. had drawn such great treasure. The confederation of tribes in Northern Syria, which was headed by the Prince of the Kheta, was now so strong that Rameses was powerless to stay their encroachments, and he was glad to make a treaty with Sapalul, the Prince of the Kheta. It is not known in what year of his short reign this treaty was concluded, but it was probably soon after his accession to the throne. In either the first or second year of his reign he made an expedition into Nubia, but he waged no war there, and he conquered no tribes. He appears to have visited Behen (Wadi Haifa), for a limestone stele sculptured with figures of the king and his son, Seti I., making offerings to Menu, and dated in his second year, was found there by ChampoUion ' in the temple founded by Usertsen I. and restored by Amen-hetep II. The object of this visit was probably to re-assert the authority of Egypt in Nubia, but otherwise it was without results.

When Seti I., the son of Rameses I., became the sole ruler of Egypt, he found that the tribes living in the deserts to the east and north-east of Egypt and in Palestine were in open revolt. The peoples who were in Northern Syria, headed by the Prince of the Kheta, refused to acknowledge his sovereignty, and as these were joined by the nomad tribes who lived by pasturing flocks, the payment of tribute to Egypt was out of the question.

Seti I. took the field against this league of peoples, and marched into Syria, with the object of reducing the " abominable Shasu " to subjection. He passed through Palestine and advanced into * See Notices, p. 32 ff. ; E. de Rouge, Aotice ontmaire, Paris, 1876, p. 48 627