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EGYPTOLOGY

of earlier times has faded before elaborate grammatical studies, which formulate a great deal more than the Egyptians themselves knew about their own writing. History. The earliest stage of man that is known in Egypt is the Palaeolithic; this was contemporary with a rainy climate, which enabled at least some vegetation to grow on the high desert, for the great bulk of the worked flints are found 500-1500 ft. above the Nile, on a tableland which is now entirely barren desert. Water-worn palaeoliths are found in the beds of the stream courses, now entirely dried up, and flaked flints of a rather later style occur in the deep beds of Nile gravels, which are 20 or 30 ft. above the highest level of the present river. This type of work, however, lasted on to the age of the existing conditions, for perfectly sharp and fresh palseoliths are found on the desert as low down as the present high Nile. The date of the change of climate is roughly shown by the depth of the Nile deposits. It is well known, by a scale extending over about 3000 years, that in different parts of Egypt the rise of the Nile bed has been on an average about 4 inches per century, owing to the annual deposits of mud during the inundation (r) (23).* And in various borings that have been made, the depth of the Nile mud is only about 25 or 30 ft. (J). Hence an age of about 8000 or 9000 years for the cultivable land may be taken as a minimum, probably to be somewhat extended by slighter deposit in the earlier time. The continuous history extends to about 5000 B.c., and the prehistoric age of continuous culture known to us covers probably 2000 years more; hence our continuous knowledge probably extends back to about 7000 b.c., or to about the time when the change of climate took place. At that time we find a race of European type starting on a continuous career, but with remains of a steatopygous race of “ Bushman ” (Koranna) type known and represented in modelled figures (8). We can hardly avoid the conclusion that this steatopygous race was that of Palaeolithic man in Egypt, especially as that equivalence is also known in the French cave remains. It is noticeable that all the figures known of this race—in France, Malta, and Egypt —are women, suggesting that the men were exterminated by the newer people, but the women were kept as slaves, and hence were familiar to the pioneers of the European race. These Palaeolithic women were broadly built, with deep lumbar curve, great masses of fat on the hips and thighs, with hair along the lower jaw and over most of the body. The fresh race which entered Egypt was of European type—slender, fair-skinned, with long wavy brown hair. The skull was closely like that of the ancient and modern Algerians of the interior; and as one of the earliest classes of their pottery is similar in material and decoration to the present Kabyle pottery, we may consider them a branch of Algerians (8). They seem to have entered the country as soon as the Nile deposits rendered it habitable by an agricultural people. They already made well-formed pottery by hand, knew copper as a rarity, and were clad in goat-skins (9). Entering a fertile country, and mixing probably with the earlier race, they made a rapid advance in all their products, and in a few generations they had an able civilization. Their work in flint was fine and bold, with more delicate handiwork than that of any other people except their descendants; their stone vases were cut in the hardest materials with exquisite regularity; their carving of ivory and slate was better than Reference numbers refer to list of books at the end.

[history. anything which followed for over a thousand years; and they had a large number of signs in use, which were probably the first stages of our alphabet (12). After some centuries of this culture a change appears, at the same point of time in every kind of work. A difference of people seems probable, but no great change of race, as the type is unaltered. The later people show some Eastern affinities; and it seems as if a part of the earlier Libyan people had entered Syria or North Arabia and had afterwards flowed back through Egypt, modified by their Semitic contact. It is perhaps to this influx that the Semitic element in the Egyptian language is due. This later prehistoric people brought in new kinds of pottery and more commerce, which provided gold, silver, and various foreign stones; they also elaborated the art of hint-working to its highest pitch of regularity and beauty, and they greatly extended the use of copper, and developed the principal tools to full size (9). But they show even less artistic feeling than the earlier branch, for all figure-carving quickly decayed, both in ivory and in stone. The use of amulets was brought in, and also foreheadpendants of shell. And the signs which were already in use almost entirely disappeared. (See Fig. 1.) In the earlier, and still more in the later, age, ships or galleys rowed by oars were familiar; and these were sometimes of large size, figured with sixty oars. That commerce was already carried on in the Mediterranean is shown by the foreign pottery imported into Egypt, even before the middle of the prehistoric age; by the supply of gold in the 1st Dynasty, apparently from Asia Minor, and by the pottery of the vEgean being brought in at the same time (12). This prehistoric civilization was much decayed when it was overcome by a new influx of people, who founded the dynastic rule. These came apparently from the Red Sea, as they entered Egypt in the region of Koptos, and not either from the north or from the Upper Nile. They were a highly artistic people, as the earliest works attributable to them—the Min sculptures at Koptos—show better drawing (Plate, Fig. 2) than any work by the older inhabitants (11); and they rapidly advanced in art to the noble works of the 1st Dynasty. They also brought in the hieroglyphic system, which was developed along with their art. It seems probable that they came up from the Land of Pun, at the south of the Red Sea, and they may have been a branch of the Punic race in its migration from the Persian Gulf round by sea to the Mediterranean. They rapidly subdued the various tribes who were in Egypt, and at least five different types of man are shown on the monuments of their earliest kings. The oldest records are those sculptured in relief on the palettes of slate, v/hich show the battles, conquests, and triumphs of the dynastic race, culminating in the great palette of King Narmer (Fig. 2), who seems to have reigned very shortly before Menes (10). These kings seem to be the dynasty of 10 kings of Thinis (Abydos) who reigned for 350 years, according to Manetho. The names recovered which appear to belong to them are Ka, Zeser, Nar-mer, and Sma: of Narmer a magnificent slate with triumphal carvings was found at Hierakonpolis (10). The completion of the conquest of Egypt led to Men (Mena, Menes) being called the founder of the 1st Dynasty (Fig. 3). And this period, which has often been supposed fabulous, is now as well known to us as most of the later dynasties, owing to the study of the inscriptions and remains from the royal tombs of Abydos (12). The early dynasties have hitherto been known only by the list of kings carved in the XIXth Dynasty at Abydos by Sety L, and by the Greek transcription of Manetho. We now have recovered the original forms