When people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory. [Memphis Speech, 1968] History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. [Ibid.]
And here I wait so patiently Waiting to find out what price You have to pay to get out of Going thru all of these things twice -- Dylan, "Memphis Blues Again"
In Memphis, Tennessee, it is illegal for a woman to drive a car unless there is a man either running or walking in front of it waving a red flag to warn approaching motorists and pedestrians.
2:16. The children also of Memphis, and of Taphnes have defloured thee, even to the crown of the head.
46:19. Furnish thyself to go into captivity, thou daughter inhabitant of Egypt: for Memphis shall be made desolate, and shall be forsaken and uninhabited.
The usual guide from the hotel having followed them, they had paid two conductors, nor is it possible, at Rome, to avoid this abundant supply of guides; besides the ordinary cicerone, who seizes upon you directly you set foot in your hotel, and never quits you while you remain in the city, there is also a special cicerone belonging to each monument--nay, almost to each part of a monument. It may, therefore, be easily imagined there is no scarcity of guides at the Colosseum, that wonder of all ages, which Martial thus eulogizes: "Let Memphis cease to boast the barbarous miracles of her pyramids, and the wonders of Babylon be talked of no more among us; all must bow to the superiority of the gigantic labor of the Caesars, and the many voices of Fame spread far and wide the surpassing merits of this incomparable monument."
So the next day after the funeral, along about noon-time, the girls' joy got the first jolt. A couple of nigger traders come along, and the king sold them the niggers reasonable, for three-day drafts as they called it, and away they went, the two sons up the river to Memphis, and their mother down the river to Orleans. I thought them poor girls and them niggers would break their hearts for grief; they cried around each other, and took on so it most made me down sick to see it. The girls said they hadn't ever dreamed of seeing the family separated or sold away from the town. I can't ever get it out of my memory, the sight of them poor miserable girls and niggers hanging around each other's necks and crying; and I reckon I couldn't a stood it all, but would a had to bust out and tell on our gang if I hadn't knowed the sale warn't no account and the niggers would be back home in a week or two.
44:1. The word that came to Jeremias, concerning all the Jews that dwelt in the land of Egypt, dwelling in Magdal, and in Taphnis, and in Memphis, and in the land of Phatures, saying:
46:14. Declare ye to Egypt, and publish it in Magdal, and let it be known in Memphis, and in Taphnis: say ye: Stand up, and prepare thyself: for the sword shall devour all round about thee.
30:16. And I will make a fire in Egypt: Pelusium shall be in pain like a woman in labour, and Alexandria shall be laid waste, and in Memphis there shall be daily distresses.
9:6. For behold they are gone because of destruction: Egypt shall gather them together, Memphis shall bury them: nettles shall inherit their beloved silver, the bur shall be in their tabernacles.
30:13. Thus saith the Lord God: I will also destroy the idols, and I will make an end of the idols of Memphis: and there shall: be no more a prince of the land of Egypt and I will cause a terror in the land of Egypt.
19:13. The princes of Tanis are become fools, the princes of Memphis are gone astray, they have deceived Egypt, the stay of the people thereof.
The IInd Dynasty of Manetho appears to have been separated from the Ist even on the Palermo stone; it also was Thinite, and the tombs of several of its nine (?) kings were found at Abydos. The IIIrd Dynasty is given as Memphite by Manetho. Two of the kings built huge mastaba-tombs at Bêt Khallaf near Abydos, but the architect and learned scribe Imhotp designed for one of these two kings, named Zoser, a second and mightier monument at Memphis, the great step-pyramid of Sakkara. In Ptolemaic times Imhotp was deified, and the traditional importance of Zoser is shown by a forged grant of the Dodecaschoenus to the cataract god Khnûm, purporting to be from his reign, but in reality dating from the Ptolemaic age. With Snefru, at the end of this dynasty, we reach the beginning of Egyptian history as it was known before the recent discoveries. Monuments and written records are henceforth more numerous and important, and the Palermo annals show a fuller scale of record. The events in the three years that are preserved include a successful raid upon the negroes, and the construction of ships and gates of cedar-wood which must have been brought from the forests of the Lebanon. Snefru also set up a tablet at Wadi Maghara in Sinai. He built two pyramids, one of them at Medum in steps, the other, probably in the perfected form, at Dahshur, both lying between Memphis and the Fayum. Entry: 1
HENDERSON, a city and the county-seat of Henderson county, Kentucky, U.S.A., on the S. bank of the Ohio river, about 142 m. W.S.W. of Louisville. Pop. (1890), 8835; (1900), 10,272, of whom 4029 were negroes; (1910 census) 11,452. It is served by the Illinois Central, the Louisville & Nashville, and the Louisville, Henderson & St. Louis railways, and has direct communication by steamboat with Louisville, Evansville, Cairo, Memphis and New Orleans. Henderson is built on the high bank of the river, above the flood level; the river is spanned here by a fine steel bridge, designed by George W. G. Ferris (1859-1896), the designer of the Ferris Wheel. The city has a public park of 80 acres and a Carnegie library. It is situated in the midst of a region whose soil is said to be the best in the world for the raising of dark, heavy-fibred tobacco, and is well adapted also for the growing of fruit, wheat and Indian corn. Bituminous coal is obtained from the surrounding country. Immense quantities of stemmed tobacco are shipped from here, and the city is an important market for Indian corn. The manufactures of the city include cotton and woollen goods, hominy, meal, flour, tobacco and cigars, carriages, baskets, chairs and other furniture, bricks, ice, whisky and beer; the value of the city's factory products in 1905 was $1,365,120. The municipality owns and operates its water works, gas plant and electric-lighting plant. Henderson, named in honour of Richard Henderson (1734-1785), was settled as early as 1784, was first known as Red Banks, was laid out as a town by Henderson's company in 1797, was incorporated as a town in 1810, and was first chartered as a city in 1854. The city boundary lines were extended in 1905 by the annexation of Audubon and Edgewood. Henderson was for some time the home of John James Audubon, the ornithologist. Entry: HENDERSON
The XIIth Dynasty is the central point of the Middle Kingdom, to which the decline of the Memphite and the rise of the Heracleopolite dynasty mark the transition, while the growth of Thebes under the XIth Dynasty is its true starting-point. Monuments of the XIIth Dynasty are abundant and often of splendid design and workmanship, whereas previously there had been little produced since the VIth Dynasty that was not half barbarous. Although not much of the history of the XIIth Dynasty is ascertained, the Turin Papyrus and many dated inscriptions fix the succession and length of reign of the eight kings very accurately. The troubled times that the kingdom had passed through taught the long-lived monarchs the precaution of associating a competent successor on the throne. The nomarchs and the other feudal chiefs were inclined to strengthen themselves at the expense of their neighbours; a firm hand was required to hold them in check and distribute the honours as they were earned by faithful service. The tombs of the most favoured and wealthy princes are magnificent, particularly those of certain families in Middle Egypt at Beni Hasan, El Bersha, Assiut and Deir Rifa, and it is probable that each had a court and organization within his nome like that of the royal palace in miniature. Eventually, in the reigns of Senwosri III. and Amenemhê III., the succession of strong kings appears to have centralized all authority very completely. The names in the dynasty are Amenemhê (Ammenemes) and Senwosri (formerly read Usertesen or Senusert). The latter seems to be the origin of the Sesostris (q.v.) and Sesoosis of the legends. Amenemhê I., the first king, whose connexion with the previous dynasty is not known, reigned for thirty years, ten of them being in partnership with his son Senwosri I. He had to fight for his throne and then reorganize the country, removing his capital or residence from Thebes to a central situation near Lisht about 25 m. south of Memphis. His monuments are widespread in Egypt, the quarries and mines in the desert as far as Sinai bear witness to his great activity, and we know of an expedition which he made against the Nubians. The "Instructions of Amenemhê to his son Senwosri," whether really his own or a later composition, refer to these things, to his care for his subjects, and to the ingratitude with which he was rewarded, an attempt on his life having been made by the trusted servants in his own palace. The story of Sinûhi is the true or realistic history of a soldier who, having overheard the secret intelligence of Amenemhê's death, fled in fear to Palestine or Syria and there became rich in the favour of the prince of the land; growing old, however, he successfully sued for pardon from Senwosri and permission to return and die in Egypt. Entry: 1
His chief published works are: _Le Sérapéum de Memphis_ (1857 and following years); _Dendérah_, five folios and one 4to (1873-1875); _Abydos_, two folios and one 4to (1870-1880); _Karnak_, folio and 4to (1875); _Deir el-Bahari_, folio and 4to (1877); _Listes géographiques des pylônes de Karnak_, folio (1875); _Catalogue du Musée de Boulaq_ (six editions 1864-1876); _Aperçu de l'histoire d'Égypte_ (four editions, 1864-1874, &c.); _Les Mastabas de l'ancien empire_ (edited by Maspero) (1883). See "Notice biographique," by Maspero in _Auguste Mariette. Oeuvres diverses_ (tome 1, Paris, 1904), and art. EGYPT: _Exploration and Research_. Entry: MARIETTE
Probably in no other country, except Judaea, did Hellenism encounter as stubborn a national antagonism as in Egypt. The common description of "the Oriental" as indurated in his antagonism to the alien conqueror here perhaps has some truth in it. The assault made upon the Macedonian devotee in the temple of Serapis at Memphis "because he was a Greek" is significant (_Papyr. Brit. Mus._ i. No. 44; cf. Grenfell, _Amherst Papyr._ p. 48). And yet even here one must observe qualifications The papyri show us habitual marriage of Greeks and native women and a frequent adoption by natives of Greek names. It has even been thought that some developments of the Egyptian religion are due to Hellenistic influence, such as the deification of Imhotp (Bissing, _Deutsche Literaturzeitung_, 1902, col. 2330) or the practice of forming voluntary religious associations (Otto, _Priester und Tempel_, i. 125). The worship of Serapis was patronized by the court with the very object of affording a mixed cultus in which Greek and native might unite. In Egypt, too, the triumph of Christianity brought into being a native Christian literature, and if this was in one way the assertion of the native against Hellenistic predominance, one must remember that Coptic literature, like Syriac, necessarily incorporated those Greek elements which had become an essential part of Christian theology. Entry: B
MARIETTE, AUGUSTE FERDINAND FRANÇOIS (1821-1881), French Egyptologist, was born on the 11th of February 1821 at Boulogne, where his father was town clerk. Educated at the Boulogne municipal college, where he distinguished himself and showed much artistic talent, he went to England in 1839 when eighteen as professor of French and drawing at a boys' school at Stratford-on-Avon. In 1840 he became pattern-designer to a ribbon manufacturer at Coventry; but weary of ill-paid exile he returned the same year to Boulogne, and in 1841 took his degree at Douai. He now became a professor at his old college, and for some years supplemented his salary by giving private lessons and writing on historical and archaeological subjects for local periodicals. Meanwhile his cousin Nestor L'Hôte, the friend and fellow-traveller of Champollion, died, and upon Mariette devolved the task of sorting the papers of the deceased savant. He thenceforth became passionately interested in Egyptology, devoted himself to the study of hieroglyphs and Coptic, and in 1847 published a _Catalogue analytique_ of the Egyptian Gallery of the Boulogne Museum; in 1849, being appointed to a subordinate position in the Louvre, he left Boulogne for Paris. Entrusted with a government mission for the purpose of seeking and purchasing Coptic, Syriac, Arabic and Ethiopic MSS. for the national collection, he started for Egypt in 1850; and soon after his arrival he made his celebrated discovery of the ruins of the Serapeum and the subterraneous catacombs of the Apisbulls. His original mission being abandoned, funds were now advanced for the prosecution of his researches, and he remained in Egypt for four years, excavating, discovering and despatching archaeological treasures to the Louvre, of which museum he was on his return appointed an assistant conservator. In 1858 he accepted the position of conservator of Egyptian monuments to the ex-khedive, Ismail Pasha, and removed with his family to Cairo. His history thenceforth becomes a chronicle of unwearied exploration and brilliant success. The museum at Bula was founded immediately. The pyramid-fields of Memphis and Sakkara, and the necropolis of Meydum, and those of Abydos and Thebes were examined; the great temples of Dendera and Edfu were disinterred; important excavations were carried out at Karnak, Medinet-Habu and Deir el-Bahri; Tanis (the Zoan of the Bible) was partially explored in the Delta; and even Gebel Barkal in the Sudan. The Sphinx was bared to the rock-level, and the famous granite and alabaster monument miscalled the "Temple of the Sphinx" was discovered. Mariette was raised successively to the rank of bey and pasha in his own service. Honours and orders were showered on him: the Legion of Honour and the Medjidie in 1852; the Red Eagle (first class) of Prussia in 1855; the Italian order of SS. Maurice and Lazarus in 1857; and the Austrian order of Francis-Joseph in 1858. In 1873 the Academy of Inscriptions decreed to him the biennial prize of 20,000 francs, and in 1878 he was elected a member of the Institute. He was also an honorary member of most of the learned societies of Europe. In 1877 his health broke down through overwork. He lingered for a few years, working to the last, and died at Cairo on the 19th of January 1881. Entry: MARIETTE
D'URFEY, THOMAS (1653-1723), better known as Tom d'Urfey, English song-writer and dramatist, belonged to a Huguenot family settled at Exeter, where he was born in 1653. Honoré d'Urfé, the author of _Astrée_, was his uncle. His first play, _The Siege of Memphis, or the Ambitious Queen_, a bombastic rhymed tragedy, was produced at the Theatre Royal in 1676. He was much more successful with his comedies, which had brisk, complicated plots carried out in lively dialogue. He had a light touch for fitting words on current topics to popular airs; moreover, many of his songs were set to music by his friends Dr John Blow, Henry Purcell and Thomas Farmer. Many of these songs were introduced into his plays. Addison in the _Guardian_ (No. 67) relates that he remembered to have seen Charles II. leaning on Tom d'Urfey's shoulder and humming a song with him. Even William III. liked to hear him sing his songs, and as a strong Tory he was sure of the favour of Princess Anne, who is said to have given Tom fifty guineas for a song on the Electress Sophia, the next heir in succession to the crown. "The crown's far too weighty, for shoulders of eighty," said d'Urfey, with an indirect compliment to the princess, "So Providence kept her away,--poor old Dowager Sophy." Pope, in an amusing letter to Henry Cromwell (_Works_, ed. Elwin and Courthope, vi. 91) describes him as "the only poet of tolerable reputation in this country." In spite of the success of his numerous comedies he was poor in his old age. But his gaiety and invincible good humour had made him friends in the craft, and by the influence of Addison his _Fond Husband, or The Plotting Sisters_ was revived for d'Urfey's benefit at Drury Lane on the 15th of June 1713. This performance, for which Pope wrote a prologue full of rather faint praise, seems to have eased the poet's difficulties. He died on the 26th of February 1723, and was buried in St James's Church, Piccadilly. Entry: D
Fortunately the native records are largely supplemented by others: valuable information comes from cuneiform literature, belonging to two widely separated periods. The first group is contemporary with the XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties and consists in the first place of the Tell el Amarna tablets with others related to them, containing the reports of governors of the Syrian possessions of Egypt, and the correspondence of the kings of Babylon, Assur, Mitanni and Khatti (the Hittites) with the Pharaohs. The sequel to this is furnished by Winckler's discovery of documents relating to Rameses II. of the XIXth Dynasty in the Hittite capital at Boghaz Keui (see also HITTITES and PTERIA). The other group comprises the annals and inscriptions of the Assyrian kings Esarhaddon and Assur-bani-pal, recording their invasions of Egypt under the XXVth Dynasty. There are also a few references to Egypt of later date down to the reign of Darius. In Hebrew literature the Pentateuch, the historical books and the prophets alike contain scanty but precious information regarding Egypt. Aramaic papyri written principally by Jews of the Persian period (5th century B.C.) have been found at Syene and Memphis. Entry: A
HYKSOS, or "SHEPHERD KINGS," the name of the earliest invaders of Egypt of whom we have definite evidence in tradition. Josephus (c. _Apion._ i. 14), who identifies the Hyksos with the Israelites, preserves a passage from the second book of Manetho giving an account of them. (It may be that Josephus had it, not direct from Manetho's writings, but through the garbled version of some Alexandrine compiler.) In outline it is as follows. In the days of a king of Egypt named Timaeus the land was suddenly invaded from the east by men of ignoble race, who conquered it without a struggle, destroyed cities and temples, and slew or enslaved the inhabitants. At length they elected a king named Salatis, who, residing at Memphis, made all Egypt tributary, and established garrisons in different parts, especially eastwards, fearing the Assyrians. He built also a great fortress at Avaris, in the Sethroite nome, east of the Bubastite branch of the Nile. Salatis was followed in succession by Beon, Apachnas, Apophis, Jannas and Asses. These six kings reigned 198 years and 10 months, and all aimed at extirpating the Egyptians. Their whole race was named Hyksos, i.e. "shepherd kings," and some say they were Arabs (another explanation found by Josephus is "captive shepherds"). When they and their successors had held Egypt for 511 years, the kings of the Thebais and other parts of Egypt rebelled, and a long and mighty war began. Misphragmuthosis worsted the "Shepherds" and shut them up in Avaris; and his son Thutmosis, failing to capture the stronghold, allowed them to depart; whereupon they went forth, 240,000 in number, established themselves in Judea and built Jerusalem. Entry: HYKSOS
Darius in his inscriptions appears as a fervent believer in the true religion of Zoroaster. But he was also a great statesman and organizer. The time of conquests had come to an end; the wars which Darius undertook, like those of Augustus, only served the purpose of gaining strong natural frontiers for the empire and keeping down the barbarous tribes on its borders. Thus Darius subjugated the wild nations of the Pontic and Armenian mountains, and extended the Persian dominion to the Caucasus; for the same reasons he fought against the Sacae and other Turanian tribes. But by the organization which he gave to the empire he became the true successor of the great Cyrus. His organization of the provinces and the fixing of the tributes is described by Herodotus iii. 90 ff., evidently from good official sources. He fixed the coinage and introduced the gold coinage of the Daric (which is not named after him, as the Greeks believed, but derived from a Persian word meaning "gold"; in Middle Persian it is called _zarig_). He tried to develop the commerce of the empire, and sent an expedition down the Kabul and the Indus, led by the Carian captain Scylax of Caryanda, who explored the Indian Ocean from the mouth of the Indus to Suez. He dug a canal from the Nile to Suez, and, as the fragments of a hieroglyphic inscription found there show, his ships sailed from the Nile through the Red Sea by Saba to Persia. He had connexions with Carthage (i.e. the _Karka_ of the Nakshi Rustam inscr.), and explored the shores of Sicily and Italy. At the same time he attempted to gain the good-will of the subject nations, and for this purpose promoted the aims of their priests. He allowed the Jews to build the Temple of Jerusalem. In Egypt his name appears on the temples which he built in Memphis, Edfu and the Great Oasis. He called the high-priest of Saïs, Uzahor, to Susa (as we learn from his inscription in the Vatican), and gave him full powers to reorganize the "house of life," the great medical school of the temple of Saïs. In the Egyptian traditions he is considered as one of the great benefactors and lawgivers of the country (Herod. ii. 110, Diod. i. 95). In similar relations he stood to the Greek sanctuaries (cf. his rescript to "his slave" Godatas, the inspector of a royal park near Magnesia, on the Maeander, in which he grants freedom of taxes and forced labour to the sacred territory of Apollo. See Cousin and Deschamps, _Bulletin de corresp. hellén._, xiii. (1889), 529, and Dittenberger, _Sylloge inscr. graec._, 2); all the Greek oracles in Asia Minor and Europe therefore stood on the side of Persia in the Persian wars and admonished the Greeks to attempt no resistance. Entry: 1
BESSEMER, a town of Jefferson county, Alabama, U.S.A., about 12 m. S.W. of Birmingham, a little N. of the centre of the state. Pop. (1890) 4544; (1900) 6538, including 3695 negroes; (1910) 10,864. The town is served by the Alabama Great Southern (Queen & Crescent route), the Louisville & Nashville, the Kansas City, Memphis & Birmingham (St Louis & San Francisco system), the Birmingham Southern, and the Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic railways. Bessemer is situated in the midst of the iron ore and limestone district of Alabama, in the south part of Jones' Valley (about 3 m. wide.); to the east is the Red Ore mountain range, rich in red haematite; to the north-west are the Warrior coalfields; to the south-west, south and south-east are immense fossiliferous iron ore seams and the Cahaba coalfields; in the immediate vicinity of the city are limestone quarries, and about 18 m. north-east are the limestone kilns of Gate City. Mining, iron smelting and the manufacture of iron and coke are the chief industries of Bessemer; truck farming is also an important industry. In 1900 Bessemer was the eighth city of the state in population, second in amount of capital invested in manufacturing, and fourth in the value of its manufactured product for the year. Bessemer was laid out in 1887, and was incorporated in 1889. Entry: BESSEMER
BUSIRIS, in a Greek legend preserved in a fragment of Pherecydes, an Egyptian king, son of Poseidon and Lyssianassa. After Egypt has been afflicted for nine years with famine, Phrasius, a seer of Cyprus, arrived in Egypt and announced that the cessation of the famine would not take place until a foreigner was yearly sacrificed to Zeus or Jupiter. Busiris commenced by sacrificing the prophet, and continued the custom by offering a foreigner on the altar of the god. It is here that Busiris enters into the circle of the myths and _parerga_ of Heracles, who had arrived in Egypt from Libya, and was seized and bound ready to be killed and offered at the altar of Zeus in Memphis. Heracles burst the bonds which bound him, and, seizing his club, slew Busiris with his son Amphidamas and his herald Chalbes. [v.04 p.0874] This exploit is often represented on vase paintings from the 6th century B.C. and onwards, the Egyptian monarch and his companions being represented as negroes, and the legend is referred to by Herodotus and later writers. Although some of the Greek writers made Busiris an Egyptian king and a successor of Menes, about the sixtieth of the series, and the builder of Thebes, those better informed by the Egyptians rejected him altogether. Various esoterical explanations were given of the myth, and the name not found as a king was recognized as that of the tomb of Osiris. Busiris is here probably an earlier and less accurate Graecism than Osiris for the name of the Egyptian god Usiri, like Bubastis, Buto, for the goddesses Ubasti and Uto. Busiris, Bubastis, Buto, more strictly represent Pusiri, Pubasti, Puto, cities sacred to these divinities. All three were situated in the Delta, and would be amongst the first known to the Greeks. All shrines of Osiris were called _P-usiri_, but the principal city of the name was in the centre of the Delta, capital of the 9th (Busirite) nome of Lower Egypt; another one near Memphis (now Abusir) may have helped the formation of the legend in that quarter. The name Busiris in this legend may have been caught up merely at random by the early Greeks, or they may have vaguely connected their legend with the Egyptian myth of the slaying of Osiris (as king of Egypt) by his mighty brother Seth, who was in certain aspects a patron of foreigners. Phrasius, Chalbes and Epaphus (for the grandfather of Busiris) are all explicable as Graecized Egyptian names, but other names in the legend are purely Greek. The sacrifice of foreign prisoners before a god, a regular scene on temple walls, is perhaps only symbolical, at any rate for the later days of Egyptian history, but foreign intruders must often have suffered rude treatment at the hands of the Egyptians, in spite of the generally mild character of the latter. Entry: BUSIRIS