AS TO THE ANCIENT CIVILIZATION

OF THE

VALLEY OF THE NILE AND ITS ORIGIN.

ITS ANCIENT WORKS OF ART BEING DESCRIBED AS THEY APPEARED AT AND BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF THIS 19TH CENTURY.

AND AS TO THE GENERAL COSMOPOLITY OF ANCIENT EGYPT.

Egypt, according to its own traditions, was originally inhabited by savage tribes, without agriculture or organized government, who lived upon such fruits as the earth spontaneously produced and upon fish with which the Nile was always well stocked, while their buildings consisted merely of huts made of reeds. Of a portion of its inhabitants, namely, the shepherd and fishing tribes, the mode of life in later times evidences the truthfulness of this account. But it appears evident from its history that as the ages passed on Egypt was governed by different dynasties, so called, and although the obscurity which overhangs this subject owing to its great antiquity does not permit us to trace as clearly as we would wish the lineage of those successive governing clans, still we may conclude it not only probable, but true that some of those dynasties were in

their origin foreign not only to Egypt but to the valley of the Nile; and consequently that each of those governing races must in its turn have more or less impressed itself upon the then actually existing Egyptian race.

It is the opinion of some very able investigators upon this subject that the history of the political growth of Egypt did not arise from those savage tribes with which the history of Egypt begins; but from a race of different language and somewhat different color, who settling among those barbarians in the fertile part of the land, especially in the valley of the Nile, became the builders of cities, the promoters of agriculture, the originators of public works, the founders of colonies and states and the constructors of such magnificent temples and monuments as the world never elsewhere beheld; that these joined or assimilated to themselves the aboriginal peoples or brought them kindly into subjection to their civilization. Their dominion was thus established, not so much by force as by superior knowledge and a kind of civilization which arose from and was connected with their religion. This the Egyptians themselves express in their own way, when they ascribe the foundation of their civilization to their gods, particularly to Osiris, Isis and Amun.

even

But, if in the whole range of Egyptian antiquities there is to be found one proposition less open to contradiction than another it is that the Egyptian civilization, more especially political improvement, did not spread from the sea inland, but rather from south to north. Upper Egypt was, according to the history and traditions of the nation, more early civilized than Middle Egypt the first Egyptian dynasty coming from This—and there was a time when the name of Thebes was generally synonymous with the civilized portion of Egypt. It is equally certain that Lower Egypt was not cultivated till after both those portions, partly for the reason that it was not habitable till later and partly from the direction of the progres of the civilization.

Speaking of the real and standing civilization of the Egyptians at a very early period Mr. Geo. Rawlinson says: "Shuré was the leader of the 4th dynasty, and his name found by Mr. Perring on blocks built in the northern pyramid of Abouseer shows him to have been the founder of that monument. This may be called the Memphite or the pyramid period.* And not only does the con

* Dr. Lepsius mentions 67 pyramids, which necessarily represent a large number of Kings. As it is likely that each pyramid represents a different king then it is unfortunate that the 67 Egyptian pyramids cannot now be traced.

struction of the pyramids, but the scenes depicted in the sculptured tombs of this epoch show that the Egyptians had already the same habits and arts as in aftertimes; and the hieroglyphics in the great pyramid written in the cursive character on the stones, before they were taken from the quarry, prove that writing had been long in use. The position too of each pyramid, corresponding, as it does, to the four cardinal points and the evident object they had in view of ascertaining by the long line of one of its faces the return of a certain period of the year, prove the advance made by the Egyptians in mathematical science; and all these evidences being obtained from the oldest monuments that exist, introduce them to us as a people already possessing the same settled habits as in later times. We see no primitive mode of life; no barbarous customs; not even the habit, so slowly abandoned by all people, of wearing arms, when not in military service; nor any archaic art. And if some clumsy figures have been found in the neighborhood of Memphis, probably of the 3rd dynasty, their imperfections are rather attributable to the inferior skill of the workmen, than to the habitual strife of the period; and rude figures were sometimes made long after the fourth dynasty."

"Whatever may have been the style of construction in the pyramids of Venephes certain it is that in the 4th dynasty, about two centuries after Menes, the blocks in the pyramids of Geezeh, many of which were brought from the cataracts of Syene, were put together with a precision unsurpassed by any masonry of ancient or modern times; and all these facts lead to the conclusion that the Egyptians had already made great progress in the arts of civilization before the age of Menes, and perhaps before they emigrated into the valley of the Nile. In the tombs of the pyramid period are represented the same fowling and fishing scenes as occur later; the rearing of cattle and wild animals of the desert; the scribes using the same kind of reed for writing on the papyrus an inventory of the estate which was to be represented to the owner; the same boats, though rigged with a double mast instead of the single one of later times; the same mode of preparing for the entertainment of guests; the same introduction of music and dancing; the same trades, as glass-blowers, cabinet makers, and others; as well as similar agricultural scenes, implements and granaries. We see also the same costume of the priests; and the prophet or Sam, with his leopard's skin dress; and the painted sculptures are both in relief and intaglio," etc., etc.

The most ancient Egyptian States, according to the histories of Manetho and others, were altogether in the valley of the Nile, on both sides of the river. The nature and constitution of the Nile's valley shows this to be so, because in Lower Egypt or the Delta, where the plain on both sides of the river considerably expands, the soil itself was not formed until at a considerably late period. The kingdoms of Upper and Middle Egypt, as mentioned by Manetho, are, beginning from the southern frontier, the States of Elephantis, of Thebes or Diospolis, of This, afterwards called Abydos, of Heracleoplis and of Memphis, this last named being not far from the place where the Nile divides. States in Lower Egypt, or the Delta, are not mentioned till towards the end of his dynasties, namely, the States of Tanis Bubastis, Mendes, Sebennytus and Sais.

The dynasties of Manetho, it is true, contain but little more than mere catalogues of successive kings, but they are, notwithstanding, of the greatest importance in regard to Egyptian antiquity, not only because they lead us to correct ideas concerning that, but more especially because they make known to us the names of the cities in which those kings reigned and so point out the localities of the most ancient Egyptian civilization. In a nation, whose whole being, language, government and civilization were so much formed according to the local circumstances these give the first ideas, the foundations upon which all further inquiries must be built.

In the period of her highest civilization the Egyptian polity exhibits the form of a complete hierarchy, in which every germ, which in a less fortunate soil must have perished, by favoring circumstances in various ways shot forth. A consideration of this subject in its various features leads to the conclusion that the civilization of the Nile's Valley, including Egypt, Nubia, Meroe, etc., was largely due to the instrumentality of the priest-caste. Thebes, as well as the States in general, of Upper Egypt, are called, in the annals of the priests colonies, from Meroë in Ethiopia (Diodorous Sic. 1, p. 175-6); and at Thebes the service of Jupiter Amun, whose temple was the common center of this State as well as of that of ancient Meroë, gives of itself a striking proof that such was the case. Elephantis most likely owed its origin to the navigation of the Nile. The situation of the place, lying just at the point where the river became and ceased to be navigable, made it what it became. Memphis, whose situation is so remarkable from the dams

and embankments, is called a colony of Thebes (Diodorous, 1, p. 160). Other principal cities of Egypt, likewise, derived their descent directly or indirectly from Ethiopia, of which they considered themselves as colonies and to which fact their religious institutions appear to give testimony. (Id. p. 175.)

These testimonies, then, and indications render the conclusion reasonable that the same race which ruled in Ethiopia and Meroë spread themselves by colonies, in the first instance, to Upper Egypt; that these latter colonies, in consequence of their remarkable prosperity, became in their turn the founder of others; and as in all this they followed the course of the river, there gradually became founded a succession of colonies in the valley of the Nile, which, according to the usual custom of the ancient world, were probably at first independent of each other, and there formed, as the Greek cities, just so many little States.

This outspreading colonization must not of necessity be under. stood to have taken place step by step in exact geometrical order, so to speak, for that there may have been a mutual colonizing of Ethiopia by Egypt at times in the course of ages is not to be denied.

That the whole of Egypt, as then existing, was governed by Menes, their first king, as according to their existing records, and not only one constituent part or state of it, is reasonably the understanding which their ancient history as transcribed into the Greek language and handed down by their high priest Manetho in the time of the Ptolemies was intended to convey; and that it was successive dynasties, from Menes downwards, which were in the mind of Manetho, and not contemporary ones in some ages, preceding the 18th dynasty, as some critics, Eusebius, among others, have supposed, is as fairly to be understood in like manner of Manetho, so far as his meaning may be required, and however the case may really have been.*

* This I wrote in 1887, but during the last year my researches have satisfactorily and conclusively proved that the commencement of the empire of Menes, was with the 18th dynasty, so called; and that the 18th, 19th and 20th dynasties, so called, when fully expressed, are the substantial prototypes of the dynasties expressed before them in the history, which had an existence only on paper. This discovery I see now obtains corroboration from the Statement then added from Rawlinson as follows: "With the exception of the pyramids of Memphis and the Labyrinth, some fragments and small objects, some stelae and obelisks of Osirtasen I. at Heliopolis and in the Fay. oum, nothing is met with of old times before the 18th dynasty. This may be reasonably as. cribed to the invasion of the shepherds, as the preservation of the early tombs may be explained by the feeling common to all time of respect for the dead." (Herod. App. Bk. ii, p. 338.)

It is seen, therefore, that the monuments do not help us out much in regard to the history of the dynasties preceding the 18th; but there has been some stress laid upon one short passage in Manetho, translated" Kings of Thebais and of the other provinces of Egypt," which, whether or not of his original penning, was thought by some to favor the idea of contemporary dynasties.