Position 63 - Records Of The Campaign Of Shishak, Who Captured Jerusalem; Relief At Karnak, Thebes

We are now on the side of the great hypostyle, opposite that on which we found the reliefs of Sethos I; that is, we are south of it and looking northward, and the wall just before us is at the south end of the second pylon, which forms the front of the great hall (Plan 12). Just here begins the huge first court and extends westward, that is, toward our left, with all the additions that followed after the 19th Dynasty.

Thus these reliefs before us belong to a period long after that of the builders of the great hall. They were put here by Bang Sheshonk, who is called Shishak in the Old Testament, the first king of the 22nd Dynasty, who began to reign about 945 B. C., that is, at about the time of the reign of Solomon. He desired to recover Egypt's conquests in Palestine, which had been lost by his predecessors, and the Old Testament tells us how he went up and captured Jerusalem in the days of Solomon's son, Rehoboam.

It says: “And it came to pass in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem: And he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house; he even took away all: and he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made” (I Kings xiv, 25-26). In Chronicles it is stated that he also “took the fenced cities which pertained to Judah” (II Chron. xii, 4). Now you have before you on this wall a list of those very cities. Do you see the tall figure to which the native in the white garment is pointing? That is the god Amon, the great god of this state temple.

He wears two tall plumes on his head, carries a sword in his extended right hand, while with his left he grasps a number of cords which you see extending backward toward his body. You must think of those cords as extending across his body and beyond to the lines of captives whom you see behind him in long rows, beginning at about the level of the god's waist. Each captive is the symbol of a city; he has no legs, but is merely a head and a pair of pinioned arms attached to an oval containing the name of the city.

These long rows of ovals, then, form a list of the cities of Palestine which Shishak captured on the campaign of which we have just read, and you may find among them many cities spelled out in hieroglyphs, which are also mentioned in different places in the Old Testament. The most interesting among them is the name “The Field of Abram,” being the earliest known occurrence of the patriarch's name.

It is there just where the left shoulder of the native in the white garment cuts into the list. Amon is leading and presenting them all to the king, who, in having the relief this made, wishes to acknowledge his god as the source of his victory. The figure of the king should occupy that vacant space which you see on the extreme right.

For some reason the sculptor was unable to finish his work, and the figure of the king was never inserted. But you can see the group of captives before the god, kneeling with uplifted hands beseeching mercy. The king should be represented as slaying these unfortunate prisoners in the presence of his god. Such representations are common in these Theban temples, so that we know just how this one should appear.

You must imagine the outstretched hand of the king as occupying that vacant space just over the heads of the kneeling victims, and grasping them by the hair, as he brandishes a huge war mace or sword, with which he is about to dispatch them. The inscriptions above this group before the god contain the names and fulsome titles of King Shishak, while those immediately before the god's face and behind him over the list of cities contain the words of the god as he presents the cities to Shishak and promises him victory over his enemies.

We have read but a few pages in this great historical volume preserved on the walls of the temple of Karnak, and if we should attempt to read them all, it would require many volumes of the size of this one. But these examples will suffice to indicate the character, at least of some of them; and we must now leave the east of the river and go back to the west shore, from the cliffs of which you will remember we enjoyed our first view of Thebes (Position 47).

First we shall go to the colossi of Memnon, which we saw from Position 47. This next position is given on Map 9, which you will see is a portion of Map 8 on a larger scale. Find the lines numbered 64, which start near the middle of the lower margin and extend toward the north.