* For this use of prisoners of war, cf. the picture from the
tomb of Rakhmirî on p. 58 of the present work, in which most
of the earlier Egyptologists believed they recognised the
Hebrews, condemned by Pharaoh to build the cities of Ramses
and Pithom in the Delta.

Nubia, divided into provinces, formed merely an extension of the
ancient feudal Egypt--at any rate as far as the neighbourhood of the
Tacazzeh--though the Egyptian religion had here assumed a peculiar
character.

[Illustration: 058.jpg A GANG Of SYRIAN PRISONERS MAKING BRICK FOR THE
TEMPLE OF AMON]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the chromolithograph in Lepsius.

The conquest of Nubia having been almost entirely the work of the Theban
dynasties, the Theban triad, Amon, Maût, and Montû, and their immediate
followers were paramount in this region, while in the north, in witness
of the ancient Elephantinite colonisation, we find Khnûmû of the
cataract being worshipped, in connexion with Didûn, father of
the indigenous Nubians. The worship of Amon had been the means of
introducing that of Eâ and of Horus, and Osiris as lord of the dead,
while Phtah, Sokhît, Atûmû, and the Memphite and Heliopolitan gods were
worshipped only in isolated parts of the province. A being, however,
of less exalted rank shared with the lords of heaven the favour of the
people. This was the Pharaoh, who as the son of Amon was foreordained to
receive divine honours, sometimes figuring, as at Bohani, as the third
member of a triad, at other times as head of the Ennead. Ûsirtasen
III. had had his chapels at Semneh and at Kûmmeh, they were restored by