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ANTIQUITIES] of Egypt shows remarkable coincidences with that of Babylonia, the language is of a Semitic type, the religion may well be a compound of a lower African and a higher Asiatic order of ideas. According to the evidence of the mummies, the Egyptians were of slender build, with dark hair and of Caucasian type. Dr Elliott Smith, who has examined thousands of skeletons and mummies of all periods, finds that the prehistoric population of Upper Egypt, a branch of the North African-Mediterranean-Arabian race, changed with the advent of the dynasties to a stronger type, better developed than before in skull and muscle. This was apparently due to admixture with the Lower Egyptians, who themselves had been affected by Syrian immigration. Thereafter little further change is observable, although the rich lands of Egypt must have attracted foreigners from all parts. The Egyptian artists of the New Empire assigned distinctive types of feature as well as of dress to the different races with which they came into contact, Hittites, Syrians, Libyans, Bedouins, negroes, &c.

The people of Egypt were not naturally fierce or cruel. Intellectually, too, they were somewhat sluggish, careless and unbusinesslike. In the mass they were a body of patient labourers, tilling a rich soil, and hating all foreign lands and ways. The wealth of their country gave scope for ability within the population and also attracted it from outside: it enabled the kings to organize great monumental enterprises as well as to arm irresistible raids upon the inferior tribes around. Urged on by necessity and opportunity, the Egyptians possessed sufficient enterprise and originating power to keep ahead of their neighbours in most departments of civilization, until the more warlike empires of Assyria and Persia overwhelmed them and the keener intellects of the Greeks outshone them in almost every department. The debt of civilization to Egypt as a pioneer must be considerable, above all perhaps in religious thought. The moral ideals of its nameless teachers were high from an early date: their conception of an after-life was exceedingly vivid: the piety of the Egyptians in the later days was a matter of wonder and scoffing to their contemporaries; it is generally agreed that certain features in the development of Christianity are to be traced to Egypt as their birthplace and nidus.

For researches into the ethnography of Egypt and the neighbouring countries, see W. Max Müller, Asien und Europa nach den ''altäg. Inschriften (Leipzig, 1893), Egyptological Researches'' (Washington, 1906); for measurements of Egyptian skulls, Miss Fawcett in Biometrika (1902); A. Thomson and D. Randall-MacIver, The Ancient Races of the Thebaid (Oxford, 1905) (cf. criticisms in Man, 1905; and for comparisons with modern measurements, C. S. Myers, Journ. Anthropological Institute, 1905, 80). W. Flinders Petrie has collected and discussed a series of facial types shown in prehistoric and early Egyptian sculpture, Journal Anthropological Institute, 1901, 248. For Elliott Smith’s results see The Cairo Scientific Journal, No. 30, vol. iii., March 1909.

Divisions.—In ancient times Egypt was divided into two regions, representing the kingdoms that existed before Menes. Lower Egypt, comprising the Delta and its borders, formed the “North Land,” To-meh, and reached up the valley to include Memphis and its province or “nome,” while the remainder of the Egyptian Nile valley was The south, if only as the abode of the sun, always had the precedence over the north in Egypt, and the west over the east. Later the two regions were known respectively as P-to-rēs (Pathros), “the south land,” and P-to-meh, “the north land.” In practical administration this historic distinction was sometimes observed, at others ignored, but in religious tradition it had a firm hold. In Roman times a different system marked off a third region, namely Middle Egypt, from the point of the Delta southward. Theoretically, as its name Heptanomis implies, this division contained seven nomes, actually from the Hermopolite on the south to the Memphite on the north (excluding the Arsinoite according to the papyri). Some tendency to this existed earlier. Egypt to the south of the Heptanomis was the Thebais, called P-tesh-en-Ne, “the province of Thebes,” as early as the XXVIth

Dynasty. The Thebais was much under the influence of the Ethiopian kingdom, and was separated politically in the troubled times of the XXIIIrd Dynasty, though the old division into Upper and Lower Egypt was resumed in the XXVIth Dynasty.

If Upper and Lower Egypt represented ancient kingdoms, the nomes have been thought to carry on the traditions of tribal settlements. They are found in inscriptions as early as the end of the IIIrd Dynasty, and the very name of Thoth, and that of another very ancient god, are derived from those of two contiguous nomes in Lower Egypt. The names are written by special emblems placed on standards, such as

suggesting tribal badges. Some nomes having a common badge but distinguished as “nearer” or “further,” i.e. “northern” or “southern,” have simply been split, as they are contiguous: in one case, however, corresponding “eastern” and “western” Harpoon nomes are widely separated on opposite sides of the Delta. In a few cases, such as “the West,” “the Beginning of the East,” it is obvious that the names are derived solely from their geographical situation. It is quite possible that the divisions are geographical in the main, but it seems likely that there were also religious, tribal and other historical reasons for them. How their boundaries were determined is not certain: in Upper Egypt in many cases a single nome embraced both sides of the river. The number and nomenclature of the nomes were never absolutely fixed. In temples of Ptolemaic and Roman age the full series is figured presenting their tribute to the god, and this series approximately agrees with the scattered data of early monuments. The normal number of the nomes in the sacred lists appears to be 42, of which 22 belonged to Upper Egypt and 20 to Lower Egypt. In reality again these nome-divisions were treated with considerable freedom, being split or reunited and their boundaries readjusted. Each nome had its metropolis, normally the seat of a governor or nomarch and the centre of its religious observances. During the New Empire, except at the beginning, the nomes seem to have been almost entirely ignored: under the Deltaic dynasties (except of course in the traditions of the sacred writing) they were named after the metropolis, as “the province (tosh) of Busiris,” “the province of Sais,” &c.: hence the Greek names  , &c. The Arsinoite nome was added by the Ptolemies after the draining of the (q.v.), and in the later Ptolemaic and the Roman times many changes and additions to the list must have been made. In Christian texts the “provinces” appear to have been very numerous.

See H. Brugsch, Geographische Inschriften altägyptischer Denkmäler (3 vols., Leipzig, 1857–1860), and for the nomes on monuments of the Old Kingdom, N. de G. Davies, Mastaba of Ptahhetep and Akhethetep (London, 1901), p. 24 et sqq.

King and Government.—The government of Egypt was monarchical. The king (for titles see ) was the head of the hierarchy: he was himself divine and is often styled “the good god,” and was the proper mediator between gods and men. He was also the dispenser of office, confirmer of hereditary titles and estates and the fountain of justice. Oaths were generally sworn by the “life” of the king. The king wore special headdresses and costumes, including the crowns of and the cobra upon his forehead. Females were admitted to the succession, but very few instances occur before the Cleopatras. The most notable Pharaonic queen in her own right was Hatshepsut in the XVIIIth Dynasty, but her reign was ignored by the later rulers even of her own family. A certain Nitōcris of about the VIIIth Dynasty and Scēmiophris of the XIIth Dynasty are in the lists, but are quite obscure. Yet inheritance through the female line was fully recognized, and marriage with the heiress princess was sought by usurpers to legitimate the claims of their offspring.