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15 THE END OF THE TWENTY-FIFTH DYNASTY IN EGYPT 139 rom Dynasties 22 through 26 Egypt’s desert frontiers, both east and west, remained reasonably secure. On the east the Wady Hammamat quarries were extensively worked, at least under the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, and the Red Sea offered, as it always had, an easily negotiated transit corridor to the south.1 If bedu continued to ~lter into the valley through the Wady (Arabeh or one of the wadies farther south which debouched into Middle Egypt, the government could easily co-opt them and con~ne them in settlements as impressed paramilitary .2 The problems of the Western Desert gave the impression of being intractable but in the event did not cause the Egyptians undue hardship. The Nubian invaders of the late eighth century appreciated what the oasis chain meant as a transit corridor: at least as early as Piankhy’s twenty-fourth year (716 b.c.) Kushite control had been extended as far north as Dakhleh.3 Before 700 b.c. a Kushite presence is attested at Bah riyeh.4 Despite the temporary setback to Egyptian interests in the west brought about by the defeat of Apries’s forces in 571 b.c. at the hands of the Cyrenians,5 Egypt’s occupation of the western oases remained unchallenged6 and from about 600 b.c. was institutionalized in the form of a regular nomarchate.7 The Libyan enclaves of the North African coast which had dominated the Egyptian military and even the Tanite kingship were effectively reduced by Psammetichus I in his eleventh year (654 b.c.),8 and whatever remnant remained suffered a death blow in the civil war that erupted between Apries and Amasis. THE EASTERN FRONTIER IN THE LATE PERIOD In such inclusive phrases as “from x to y” in which the extremities of the state are speci~ed, the southern boundary is always stated to be ElephanF tine and the cataract, but the northern varies. In the earliest times it is “the East,” that is, the long desert tract bordering the Pelusiac branch, by the end of the third millennium “the Ways of Horus,” the beginning of the transit corridor through the North Sinai. Under the Hyksos it suffered a southwestern withdrawal to Pi-Hathor on the Rh ˘ .ty-water, but the New Kingdom ~rmly established the extremity of Egypt proper at the fortress of Sile (Tell Hebwa). And even though Sile’s role as border fort and entry point had long since been taken over by other towns by 700 b.c., the Pelusiac branch near which it was located continued to offer the most easily defended line on the east.9 The ~ve centuries that elapsed between the end of Dynasty 20 and the accession of Psamtek I constitute a virtual “dark age” in the history of the eastern frontier. As far as we know, no special effort was expended during this time to fortify the Sinai frontier, and yet the principalities along the eastern side of the Delta—Tanis, Ranofer, Pi-sopdu—suffered no ill effects from bedu in~ltration. During the tenth and ninth centuries no major hostile power lay in hither Asia, waiting to pounce on the Nile Valley: until the accession of Sargon the Tanite kings used the small states of Palestine and the coast as effective buffers against Assyria. Indeed, as late as the Twenty-fourth Dynasty it was still considered possible “to extend the frontier,” and both Sabaco and Taharqa proved that Egyptian forces could meet invaders in the Philistine plain and hold the line there. The creation of the Suez Canal with its north-south alignment completely distorts one’s directional sense in the eastern Delta, and one must block it from consciousness if the ancient lay of the land is to be appreciated , for the now defunct Pelusiac River, the easternmost branch of the Nile, ran in a northeasterly direction. Since the silting-up of this watercourse , desert conditions have prevailed along its lower reaches, and it is only in the twentieth century that the tract of land between S  alh iyeh and the canal has been placed under cultivation. In antiquity, however, lagoons and lakes proliferated as one descended the Pelusiac branch towards Pelusium at its mouth,10 and these posed hazards to those attempting an entry into Egypt from the north (see map 4). Travelers proceeding from Gaza would have been obliged to hug the coast, if only for the water holes, and...

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