Egypt and Asia under the Twelfth Dynasty

Abstract

A DISCOVERY of no little importance in its bearing on the relations of Ancient Egypt and Asia under the Middle Kingdom is reported from Toud, the ancient Tuphium, twenty-five miles south of Luxor, where an expedition of the Institut Francais d'Archeologie Orientale is now at work. According to a dispatch from the Cairo correspondent of The Times in the issue of March 2, four small bronze caskets have been found which contain a tribute from Asia to Amenemhet II, one of the Pharaohs of the Twelfth Dynasty who reigned from 2000 to 1790 B.C. They were excavated from sand among the foundations of a temple of Mont, the god of war. The contents of the caskets are lapis lazuli beads and amulets, and ingots of gold, silver and lead. The amulets are said to be of a type hitherto unknown in Egypt. In addition to figures of Asiatic divinities, a human-headed eagle and a winged lion, each of the boxes contained a cylinder with a cuneiform inscription, which has not yet been deciphered.