Anecdota Oxoniensia. Semitic series.

80 CHURCHES AND MONASTERIES OF EGYPT.

first who discovered books and sciences and astronomy and arithmetic.
He studied the latter in the books of the Chaldaeans and people of the
East, and introduced them into Egypt, besides magic and the art of
Fol. 23 a conjuring. At the same time, Sodom and Gomorrah were built; and
Babylon' also was built upon the river Nile. This king, mentioned
above, reigned for thirty-two years.
Revenues of Egypt.
~ Under the administration of Joseph, son of Jacob, the land-tax
of Egypt, after the country began to flourish through his enterprise,
reached the sum of twenty-four million six hundred thousand dinars2.
The Pharaoh of the time of Moses drew a revenue of ninety millions
of dinars; his name was Al-Walid ibn Mus'ab3; and he dug, by the
the shortened form Tfits (.b4l), the name of a king whom Al-Makrizi calls the
son of Maliya, son of Kharaba; see Kzhtat, i. p. it.; As-Suyfit (Husn al-Muhddarah, i. p. r I) calls Tutis the son of Malliya, son of Kalkan, son of Khartaba.
For a different account of the foundation of the Egyptian Babylon, see
fol. 60 b. The generally accepted story of its origin is given by Strabo, Geogr.
xvii. cap. I, ~ 30, and Diodorus, i. cap. 56, ~ 3; cf. Josephus, Ant.Jud. ii. 15. The
recently-discovered tablets from Tall al-Amarna show that intimate relations existed
between Egypt and Babylon on the Euphrates, at least 1,500 years before our
era. (A. J. B.)
2 Al-Makrlzi says 97,000,000 dinars, and adds that according to the computation of Ibn Dahyah 90,000,000 Pharaonic dinars were equivalent to 270,000,000
dinars of his own time. Ash-Sharif al-Harrani says that from a Sahidic list
translated into Arabic he found that the revenues of Egypt in the time of Joseph
amounted to 24,400,000 dinars, thus nearly agreeing with our author. The
same figures are given by Al-Hasan ibn 'All al-Asadi. See Al-Makrizi', Khitat,
i. p. vo.
This is the name commonly given by Arab writers to the Pharaoh of the
time of Moses; see Al-Mas'fidi, ii. p. 397 f.; An-Nawawi, Tahdhtb al-Asmd, p. o..;
Al-\Iakrizi, Khitat, i. p. icr; As-Suyuti, tIusn al-Muhiddarah, i. p. ro. Other
names, however, are mentioned by Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam.