Page 114 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

raid into Palestine, destroying the small walled towns of the
Canaanites, driving them to the shelter of the cities of the coast

and themselves taking over the rich pastures of the inland hills’
The trading families of the Amorites being by no means averse
to a little brisk warfare, we may well believe that Abram, by now

a tribal chieftain with a very considerable following, brought his
tribe down from the north with the main object of sharing in
this campaign and in its plunder.
However that may be, Egypt was too strong to fear the raids

of desert tribes, and when Amorites came to Egypt it was in small
parties, for peaceful trade. In 1892 b.c., when Abram was (by our

fiction) thirty-eight, just such a party, visiting Egypt, was im-

PART OF THE FAMOUS TOMB PAINTING AT BENI HASAN, SHOWING A
PARTY OF AMORITE MERCHANTS IN EGYPT IN 1892 B.C. THAT ONE
OF THE MEN CARRIES A HARP AND ONE OF THE DONKEYS BEARS AN
ANVIL SHOWS THAT THE MERCHANTS WERE ALSO MINSTRELS AND
ITINERANT COPPERSMITHS.

mortalized in a painting on the wall of a tomb at Beni Hasan.
We can there see in very clear detail the appearance of the

smaller trading parties from Amorite tribes such as that of Abram.
Both men and women travel on foot, the men in sandals and

loincloths, or in knee-length woolen tunics patterned in stripes of
bright colors. The women are barefooted, with ankle rings and
rather longer tunics which leave the left shoulder bare. Their dark

hair falls over their shoulders and is held by a band across the
brow. The older children walk with them, while the youngsters
ride two by two in the saddlebags of the pack asses. The men

bear spears and bows and throwing-sticks, and one of them is a
weaponsmith, with his anvil borne by a donkey. And one man is
carrying a harp.