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They were the Shasu or "Plunderers" of the Egyptian inscriptions, sometimes also termed the Sitti, the Sute of the cuneiform texts. Like their modern descendants, they lived by the plunder of their more peaceful neighbours. As was prophesied of Ishmael, so could it have been prophesied of the Amalekites, that their "hand should be against every man, and every man's hand against" them.
Sometimes they were the Herusha or "Lords of the Sands," sometimes the Shasu or "Plunderers," sometimes again the Sutê or "Archers." The third name was borrowed from the Babylonians; in return, as we learn from the tablets of Tel el-Amarna, the Babylonians adopted the second.
Make to thyself a name among the Mohars and the knights of the land of Egypt. Let thy name be like that of Qazirnai the lord of Aser, because he discovered lions in the interior of the balsam-forest of Baka at the narrow passes, which are rendered dangerous by the Shasu who lie in ambush among the trees. Their noses reached to the soles of their feet.
who had made a circuit around the fortified works on the isthmus, and its indestructible walls contained an Egyptian garrison, who could easily defend it against a force greatly superior in numbers. To-day it looked as if the sons of the desert had assailed it; but the men and women who were bustling about below and on the broad parapet of the gigantic building were Hebrews, not Shasu.
The two Pharaohs of the Tell el Amarna Period belong to the XVIIIth Dynasty, which about 1560 B.C. had freed the land from the yoke of certain Asiatic invaders known as the Shasu. The new dynasty soon began to encroach upon Asia. On the African side he extended the bounds of his kingdom to the confluence of the Nile and the Atbara, so that the greater part of Nubia owned his sway.
In the cuneiform tablets of Tel el-Amarna, too, there is frequent mention of the "Plunderers" by whom the Beduin, the Shasu of the Egyptian texts, must be meant, and who seem to have been generally ready at hand to assist a rebellious vassal or take part in a civil feud. Lebanon, the "white" mountain, took its name from its cliffs of glistening limestone.
Aahmes was a contemporary of Aahmes the transport officer, and served under several of the early kings of the eighteenth dynasty. On another occasion I captured for him three hands to the north of Aukehek. I accompanied the King of the South, the King of the North, Āakheperenrā, whose word is law, and I brought away as tribute a very large number of the Shasu alive, but I did not count them.
Its long white-washed walls, it is true, glimmered through the gloom as distinctly as ever, but instead of towering as usual at this time mute and lifeless above the slumbering town the most active bustle was going on within and around it. It was intended also as a defense against the predatory hordes of the Shasu,
These "strangers" were a motley crew, comprising Asiatics of Semitic blood, who had escaped from the bondage or severe punishments which the Egyptian law imposed, traders who expected to find among the wanderers purchasers of their wares, or Shasu shepherds, whose return was prohibited by the officials on the frontier.
Its long white-washed walls, it is true, glimmered through the gloom as distinctly as ever, but instead of towering as usual at this time mute and lifeless above the slumbering town the most active bustle was going on within and around it. It was intended also as a defense against the predatory hordes of the Shasu,
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