hutmosis III.,** behind the chapel of Minephtah,*** or in the court
of that of Seti I.

* This is how I translate a fairly common expression, which
means literally, "to be put on the wood." Spiegelberg sees in
this only a method of administering torture.

** Perhaps the chapel of Uazmosu, or possibly the free space
before the temple of Deir el-Bahari.

*** The site of this chapel was discovered by Prof. Petrie
in the spring of 1896. It had previously been supposed to be
a temple of Amenothes III.

Their overseers followed them; the police commissioners of the locality,
the Mazaiu, and the scribes mingled with them and addressed themselves
to some of the leaders with whom they might be acquainted. But these
would not at first give them a hearing. "We will not return," they would
say to the peacemakers; "make it clear to your superiors down below
there." It must have been manifest that from their point of view their
complaints were well founded, and the official, who afterwards gave an
account of the affair to the authorities, was persuaded of this. "We
went to hear them, and they spoke true words to us." For the most part
these strikes had no other consequence than a prolonged stoppage of
work, until the distribution of rations at the beginning of the next
month gave the malcontents courage to return to their tasks. Attempts
were made to prevent the recurrence of these troubles by changing
the method and time of payments. These were reduced to an interval of
fifteen days, and at length, indeed, to one of eight. The result was
very much the same as before: the workman, paid more frequently, did not
on that account become more prudent, and the hours of labour lost did
not decrease. The individual man, if he had had nobody to consider but
himself, might have put up with the hardships of his situation, but
there were almost always wife and children or sisters concerned, who
clamoured for bread in their hunger, and all the while the storehouses
of the temples or those of the state close by were filled to overflowing
with durrah, barley, and wheat.*

* Khonsu, for example, excites his comrades to pillage the
storehouses of the gate.

The temptation to break open the doors and to help themselves in the
present necessity must have been keenly felt. Some bold spirits among
the strikers, having set out together, scaled the two or three boundary
walls by which the granaries w