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The next year the Pharaoh led his troops against some country, the name of which is lost, in "the land of the hostile Shasu" or Beduin. The plunder which was carried off from it shows that it was somewhere in Syria, probably in the region of the Lebanon. Gold and silver, a silver double-handled cup with a bull's head, iron, wine, balsam, oil, butter and honey, were among the spoils of the war.
It is true that the Beduin now range over the loamy plains and encamp among the marshes of Lake Hûleh, where in happier times their presence was unknown. But this is the result of a weak and corrupt government, added to the depopulation of the lowlands.
Thy groom wakes up in the night; he sees what has happened to him; he takes what is left, he goes off to bad company, he joins the Beduin. He transforms himself into an Asiatic. Thou wakest, thou findest no trace of them, for they have carried off thy property. Let thy ear be filled with that which I relate to thee besides.
Gath-Carmel, Zelah, and Lachish are the towns mentioned in connection with their attempts to capture and destroy "the fortresses of the king." "The country of the king" which had "gone over to the Confederates" was the territory over which Ebed-Tob claimed rule, while the district occupied by Labai and his Beduin followers was handed over "to the men of the district of the Confederates."
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.
In a word, my brother discovered to him all his misfortunes, and endeavoured to soften him with tears; but the Beduin had no mercy; and, being vexed to find himself disappointed of a considerable sum, which he reckoned he was sure of, he took his knife, and slit my brother's lips, to avenge himself, by this inhumanity, for the loss that he imagined he had sustained.
In the age of the Babylonian invasion, however, the Amorites had not advanced so far to the south. En-Mishpat was still in the hands of the Amalekites, the lords of "all the country" round about. The Amalekites had not as yet intermingled with the Ishmaelites, and their Beduin blood was still pure.
A certain Biridasyi had stirred up the city of Inu'am, and after shutting its gate upon Namya-yitsa had entered the city of Ashtaroth-Karnaim in Bashan, and there seized the chariots belonging to the Pharaoh, handing them over to the Beduin. The rebels next attacked Aziru, captured some of his soldiers, and in league with Etu-gama wasted the district of Abitu.
With the rise of the nineteenth dynasty and the restoration of a strong government at home, the Egyptians once more began to turn their eyes towards Palestine. Seti I. drove the Beduin before him from the frontiers of Egypt to those of "Canaan," and established a line of fortresses and wells along "the way of the Philistines," which ran by the shore of the Mediterranean to Gaza.
The earliest of Egyptian rock-sculptures is engraved in the peninsula, and represents Snefru, the founder of the fourth dynasty, slaughtering the Beduin who inhabited it. Its possession was valued on account of its mines of copper and malachite. These were worked by the Egyptian kings with the help of convict labour.
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