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Recent Discoveries in Ethiopia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

George A. Reisner
George A. Reisner
Affiliation:
Harvard Camp, Giza Pyramids, Egypt
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Extract

Ethiopia or Cush extends from the upper end of the First Cataract in the Nile southwards to somewhere near the junction of the White and the Blue Niles at Khartum. Strictly speaking, the name “Cush” was applied by the ancient Egyptians to that part of the valley which lies between the Second and the Fourth Cataracts while the name “Wawat” was given to that between the First and Second Cataracts. More general names were “Ta-set” (or perhaps “Ta-Khent”), “Khenthennefer,” and “Tanehsi” (= Land of the Negroes), and a still more general name was “The Southern Lands,” applied to all the southland including Wawat, Cush, Punt and the tribal districts along the Red Sea and in the eastern and the western deserts. The people of Ethiopia are usually called neḥsi which is translated inaccurately “negro;” and neḥsi are represented in the monuments as typical woolly-haired black men. But it is clear from the pictures of men from Ethiopia and from the skeletons found in the ancient cemeteries that Ethiopia was inhabited bya race, dark-skinned it is true, but easily distinguished from the true negro. Thus it is probable that the proverb in Jeremiah 13 23 (“Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots ?”) was founded on the Egyptian tradition rather than on a first-hand knowledge of the Ethiopians.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , January 1920, pp. 23 - 44
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1920

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References

1 Reisner, Nubian Archæological Survey, Bulletins Nos. 1–4; Report, 1907–1908; Firth, Nubian Archæological Survey, Bulletins Nos. 5–7; Reports, 1908–1910.

2 Reisner, , Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Nos. 69, 80.Google Scholar

3 Ibid., Nos. 89, 97; Journal of Egyptian Archæology, IV, 213–227; V, 99–112.

4 Reisner, , Sudan Notes and Records, I, 3–17, 57–79, 217–237Google Scholar; II, 35–67.

5 Petrie, History of Egypt, III, 279; Gauthier, , Livre des rois d'Egypte, IV, 2, 24, 50, 51.Google Scholar

6 Breasted, , Ancient Records of Egypt, I, 47Google Scholar; IV, 518, 519.

7 Breasted, loc. cit., IV, 468 f.

8 Winckler, , Mitteilungen d. vorderasiat. Ges., III (1898), Nos. 1, 4Google Scholar; XI (1906), 102–116; to Cush, p. 106; Altorientalische Forschungen, I, 24–41.

9 See for example, Paton, Early History of Syria and Palestine, pp. 248 ff.; Winckler, Altorientalische Forschungen, I, 410–415, 525.

10 Winckler, loc. cit., I, 524–526; II, 10–16.

11 K 2671 (see Winckler, Forschungen, I, 524).

12 K 3500+4444+10235 (loc. cit., II, 10f.; and Peiser, , Mitteilungen d. vorderasist. Ges., III, No. 6, pp. 1–14.Google Scholar)

13 Rassam Cyl., II, 49–66.

14 Petrie, Tanis, II, pl. IX, No. 163; Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, IV, 456.

15 Budge, The Egyptian Sudan, II, 30.

16 Winckler, Altorientalische Forschungen, I, 478 f.

17 Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, IV, 460.

18 Breasted, loc. cit., IV, 468 f.

19 Gauthier, Livre des rois d'Egypte, IV, 43, 68.

20 Stade, Zeitschrift für alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 1886, pp. 173 f.; Winckler, Alttestamentliche Untersuchungen, p. 31; Mitteilungen d. vorderasiat. Ges., III, No. 1, p. 33; Prasek, Mitteilungen d. vorderasiat. Ges., VIII, No. 4.

21 Rassam Cyl. C, I, line 123.

22 At el-Kurruw, Tirhakah buried Shabataka in the same state as Shabataka had buried Shabaka, and the queens of Shabataka he buried in tombs and with furniture like those of his own queens at Nuri.

23 Petrie, Tanis, II, pl. IX, No. 163; Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, IV, 456.

24 Stade, Zeitschrift für alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 1886, pp. 173 f.; Winckler, Alttestamentliche Untersuchungen, p. 31; Mitteilungen d. vorderasiat. Ges., III, No. 1, p. 33; Prasek, Mitteilungen d. vorderasiat. Ges., VIII, No. 4.

25 The origin of the story of Sethon, Sennacherib, and the field mice, related by Herodotus (see Griffith, Stories of the High Priests of Memphis, pp. 5–12), is a legitimate subject for investigation; but the statements contained in the story cannot at present be utilized for the examination of the question in hand.

26 The pronunciation of these names of Ethiopian kings after Tanutaman is conjectural. The writing gives only the consonants. The forms I adopted in 1917 are merely pronounceable ones in which the original hieroglyphic forms may be recognized. My justification in rejecting forms based on the Meroitic now appears in the fact that the names are for the greater part of Libyan origin.