icit which their
constant gifts to the temples were making in the treasury. The sons
of Ramses III., on the other hand, had suspended all military efforts,
without, however, lessening their lavish gifts to the gods, and they
must, in the absence of the spoils of war, have drawn to a considerable
extent upon the ordinary resources of the country; their successors
therefore found the treasury impoverished, and they would have been
entirely at a loss for money had they attempted to renew the campaigns
or continue the architectural work of their forefathers. The priests of
Amon had not as yet suffered materially from this diminution of revenue,
for they possessed property throughout the length and breadth of Egypt,
but they were obliged to restrict their expenditure, and employ the sums
formerly used for the enlarging of the temples on the maintenance
of their own body. Meanwhile public works had been almost everywhere
suspended; administrative discipline became relaxed, and disturbances,
with which the police were unable to cope, were increasing in all the
important towns. Nothing is more indicative of the state to which Egypt
was reduced, under the combined influence of the priesthood and the
Ramessides, than the thefts and pillaging of which the Theban necropolis
was then the daily scene. The robbers no longer confined themselves
to plundering the tombs of private persons; they attacked the royal
burying-places, and their depredations were carried on for years before
they were discovered. In the reign of Ramses IX., an inquiry, set on
foot by Amenothes, revealed the fact that the tomb of Sovkumsauf I. and
his wife, Queen Nubk-has, had been rifled, that those of Amenothes I.
and of Antuf IV. had been entered by tunnelling, and that some dozen
other royal tombs in the cemetery of Drah abu'l Neggah were threatened.*

* The principal part of this inquiry constitutes the _Abbott
Papyrus_, acquired and published by the British Museum,
first examined and made the subject of study by Birch,
translated simultaneously into French by Maspero and by
Chabas, into German by Lauth and by Erman. Other papyri
relate to the same or similar occurrences, such as the Salt
and Amherst Papyri published by Chabas, and also the
Liverpool Papyri, of which we possess merely scattered
notices in the writings of Goodwin, and particularly in
those of Spiegelberg.

The severe means taken to suppress