Position 88 - Remarkable Inscription Of A Seven Years' Famine, On The Island Of Sehel, First Cataract

The inscription before us is on an island in the very middle of the cataract. The cataract is about five miles long; at its lower end is Assuan and the Island of Elephantine, which we saw from the opposite heights, while at its upper end lies the island of Philae (Map 17). The channel of the river along the whole length of the cataract is filled with granite islands, which are indeed the cause of the cataract.

The rocks on these islands are covered with inscriptions; they form the most ancient and the most interesting visitors' book in the world. As the power of Egypt waxed, and she gained more and more fully the control of Nubia, these records increased in number. Now it is the Pharaoh himself, who records in terms of pride and boastfulness the passage of the cataract on his return from some successful campaign against the Nubians; again it is some officer of the king who has come to take out stone from the quarries; now it is a celebration of the king's jubilee, which the prince in charge has successfully managed; and again it is the clearance of the canal through the cataract, which existed here probably as far back as the Old Kingdom; or if the faithful official has no great achievement to record, as he passes he has carved a relief showing himself doing obeisance to the king.

Thus century after century and dynasty after dynasty from 2700 B. C. onward through Roman times, kings and nobles, scribes and officers on various missions to or from Nubia, have here left their records on these rocks. Indeed, much of the history of Egyptian conquest and government in Nubia may be read on these rocks.

The inscription before us is important in itself, but especially interests students of the Old Testament because of its reference to a seven years' famine in Egypt. The document purports to be an official communication from King Zoser of the 3rd Dynasty, whose terraced pyramid we saw at Sakkarah, addressed to a prince of Elephantine, telling the latter of the king's great anxiety because the Nile had not risen, and there had been no inundation for seven years. Unable to account for this, the king had summoned to his presence one of his great wise men, Imhotep by name, and had questioned him regarding the gods of the Nile, who controlled its sources and the inundation.

The wise man consulted his books and returned to the king with a report that the god Khnum was the controlling divinity at the cataract whence the inundation, according to Egyptian belief, came. He described to the king the wealth of the cataract region in minerals and building stone, and told him that all this belonged to Khnum. The king, overjoyed, ordered a sacrifice to be offered to the cataract god, and that night, in a dream, Khnum appeared to him and promised to cause the regular and unfailing rise of the Nile thereafter.

In gratitude, the king then sent the communication containing this narrative to the prince of Elephantine, with the decree, that the two shores of the river from Elephantine to a point some sixty miles above it should belong to Khnum. In late times, under the reign of the Ptolemies, the priests of Khnum in this region found it wise to brush up the claims of their god in this district, and they therefore revived the ancient title to it given their ancestors 3,000 years earlier by King Zoser. Hence this remarkable inscription before us is not the original document of King Zoser, but a revival of it by the priests of the god on this island some 3,000 years later than Zoser.

The seven years' failure of the Nile, of which it tells, occurred, according to the document, probably some 1,200 or 1,300 years before the time of Joseph, but it is interesting to find that such an occurrence was not an impossibility in time long before the Hebrews ever saw Egypt. In later time, also, the same thing has occurred, for there was a famine of seven years' duration which begun in 1066 A. D. under the Fatimids.

In the rectangle above the inscription is a rough relief showing the old King Zoser standing at the left, and offering to the three divinities of the cataract, Khnum, Satet and Anuket, who may be recognized by the long sceptres in their hands. The inscription has been here over 2,000 years, and you observe how the top of the granite boulder has cracked and lifted clear across the lines of the text; but nothing is lost except where a few pieces have chipped off at the edge of the crack. The number “21” has been appended by savants for convenience of reference.

We are now to have the privilege of visiting probably the most beautiful place in Egypt, the island of Philae. It is a small island which you will find in the lower portion of Map 17, set in a decided eastern bend of the Nile. We are to stand, as the lines marked 89 show, on the shore just north of it, and look directly south. This position is also given on Map 18, which gives the island on a larger scale.