Page:Buried cities and Bible countries (1891).djvu/60

character afforded by the Book of Exodus agree exactly with what the monuments reveal concerning that haughty oppressor; but, as already stated, the reference is probably to Rameses I. The slavery of the Israelites was of a kind to which all hostile or conquered people were reduced by the Egyptians. Thothmes III., during his many campaigns, brought to Egypt unnumbered prisoners of every race, and made them labour like convicts on the public works, under the superintendence of architects and overseers. On the walls of a chamber in a tomb at Thebes there is a very instructive pictorial representation of such forced labour, and the Asiatic countenances of the workers strongly resemble those of the Hebrew race. The date is too early, and we may suppose them to belong to some other nation of the Semitic family; but the picture none the less shows the method of working under taskmasters. Some carry water in jugs from the tank hard by; others knead and cut up the loamy earth; others, again, by the help of a wooden form, make the bricks, or place them carefully in long rows to dry; while the more intelligent among them carry out the work of building the walls. The hieroglyphic explanations inform as that the labourers are captives whom Thothmes III. has carried away to build the temple of his father Amon. They explain that the baking of the bricks is a work for the new building of the provision house of the god Amon of Apet (the east side of Thebes), and they finally declare the strict superintendence of the steward over the foreigners. The words are—(Here are seen) the prisoners which have been carried away as living prisoners in very great numbers; they work at the building with active fingers; their overseers show themselves in sight, these insist with vehemence, obeying the orders of the great skilled lord [the head architect] who prescribes to them the works, and gives directions to the masters; (they are rewarded), with wine