History of Various Areas (3)(as of 1900)

The announcement which was made in 1902, that the French government had appointed Capt. Gaston Cros as the late M. de Sarzec's successor, was therefore received with general satisfaction. The fact that Capt. Cros had already successfully carried out several difficult topographical missions in the region of the Sahara was a sufficient guarantee that the new diggings would be conducted on a systematic and exhaustive scale.

The new director of the French mission in Chaldea arrived at Telloh in January, 1903, and one of his first acts was to shift the site of the mission's settlement from the bank of the Shatt el-Hai, where it had always been established in the time of M. de Sarzec, to the mounds where the actual digging took place. The Shatt el-Hai had been previously chosen as the site of the settlement to ensure a constant supply of water, and as it was more easily protected against attack by night. But the fact that it was an hour's ride from the diggings caused an unnecessary loss of time, and rendered the strict supervision of the diggers a matter of considerable difficulty. During the first season's work rough huts of reeds, surrounded by a wall of earth and a ditch, served the new expedition for its encampment among the mounds of Telloh, but last year these makeshift arrangements were superseded by a regular house built out of the burnt bricks which are found in abundance on the site. A reservoir has also been built, and caravans of asses bring water in skins from the Shatt el-Hai to keep it filled with a constant supply of water, while the excellent relations which Capt. Cros has established with the Karagul Arabs, who occupy Telloh and its neighbourhood, have proved to be the best kind of protection for the mission engaged in scientific work upon the site.

The group of mounds and hillocks, known as Telloh, which marks the site of the ancient Sumerian city of Shirpurla, is easily distinguished from the flat surrounding desert. The mounds extend in a rough oval formation running north and south, about two and a half miles long and one and a quarter broad. In the early spring, when the desert is covered with a light green verdure, the ruins are clearly marked out as a yellow spot in the surrounding green, for vegetation does not grow upon them. In the centre of this oval, which approximately marks the limits of the ancient city and its suburbs, are four large tells or mounds running, roughly,
north and south, their sides descending steeply on the east, but with their western slopes rising by easier undulations from the plain. These four principal tells are known as the "Palace Tell," the "Tell of the Fruit-house," the "Tell of the Tablets," and the "Great Tell," and, rising as they do in the centre of the site, they mark the position of the temples and the other principal buildings of the city.

An indication of the richness of the site in antiquities was afforded to the new mission before it had started regular excavation and while it was yet engaged in levelling its encampment and surrounding it with a wall and ditch. The spot selected for the camp was a small mound to the
south of the site of Telloh, and here, in the course of preparing the site for the encampment and digging the ditch, objects were found at a depth of less than a foot beneath the surface of the soil. These included daggers, copper vases, seal-cylinders, rings of lapis and cornelian, and pottery. M. de Sarzec had carried out his latest diggings in the Tell of the Tablets, and here Capt. Cros continued the excavations and came upon the remains of buildings and recovered numerous objects, dating principally from the period of Gudea and the kings of Ur. The finds included small terra-cotta figures, a boundary-stone of Gamil-Sin, and a new statue of Gudea, to which we will
refer again presently.

In the Tell of the Fruit-house M. de Sarzec had already discovered numbers of monuments dating from the earlier periods of Sumerian history before the conquest and consolidation of Babylonia under Sargon of Agade, and had excavated a primitive terrace built by the early king
Ur-Nini. Both on and around this large mound Capt. Cros cut an extensive series of trenches, and in digging to the north of the mound he found a number of objects, including an alabaster tablet of Ente-mena which had been blackened by fire. At the foot of the tell he found a copper helmet like those represented on the famous Stele of Vultures discovered by M. de Sarzec, and among the tablets here recovered was one with an inscription of the time of Urukagina, which records the complete destruction of the city of Shirpurla during his reign. On the mound itself a considerable area was uncovered with remains of buildings still in place, the use of which appears to have been of an industrial character. They included flights of steps, canals with raised banks, and basins for storing water. Not far off are the previously discovered wells of Bannadu, so that it is legitimate to suppose that Capt. Cros has here come upon part of the works which were erected at a very early period of Sumerian history for the distribution of water to this portion of the city.

In the Palace Tell Capt. Cros has sunk a series of deep shafts to determine precisely the relations which the buildings of Ur-Bau and Gudea, found already on this part of the site, bear to each other, and to the building of Adad-nadin-akhi, which had been erected there at a much later period. Prom this slight sketch of the work carried out during the last two years at Telloh it will have been seen that the French mission in Chaldea is at present engaged in excavations of a
most important character, which are being conducted in a regular and scientific manner. As the area of the excavations marks the site of the chief city of the Sumerians, the diggings there have yielded and are yielding material of the greatest interest and value for the reconstruction of the early history of Chaldea.

History of Various Areas (2)(as of 1900)

But in spite of its inherent improbabilities, M. Hal?vy succeeded in making many converts to his theory, including Prof. Friedrich Delitzsch and a number of the younger school of German Assyriologists. More conservative scholars, such as Sir Henry Rawlinson, M. Oppert, and Prof.
Schrader, stoutly opposed the theory, maintaining that Sumerian was a real language and had been spoken by an earlier race whom the Semitic Babylonians had conquered; and they explained the resemblance of some of the Sumerian values to Semitic roots by supposing that Sumerian had not been suddenly superseded by the language of the Semitic invaders of Babylonia, but that the two tongues had been spoken for long periods side by side and that each had been strongly influenced by the other. This very probable and sane explanation has been fully corroborated by subsequent excavations, particularly those that were carried out at
Telloh in Southern Babylonia by the late M. de Sarzec. In these mounds, which mark the site of the ancient Sumerian city of Shirpurla, were found thousands of clay tablets inscribed in archaic characters and in the Sumerian language, proving that it had actually been the language of the early inhabitants of Babylonia; while the examples of their art and the representations of their form and features, which were also afforded by the diggings at Telloh, proved once for all that the Sumerians were a race of strongly marked characteristics and could not be ascribed to a
Semitic stock.

The system of writing invented by the ancient Sumerians was adopted by the Semitic Babylonians, who modified it to suit their own language. Moreover, the archaic forms of the characters, many of which under the Sumerians still retained resemblances to the pictures of objects from which they were descended, were considerably changed. The lines, of which they were originally composed, gave way to wedges, and the number of the wedges of which each sign consisted was gradually diminished, so that in the time of the Assyrians and the later Babylonians many of the characters bore small resemblance to the ancient Sumerian forms
from which they had been derived. The reading of Sumerian and early Babylonian inscriptions by the late Assyrian scribes was therefore an accomplishment only to be acquired as the result of long study, and it is interesting to note that as an assistance to the reading of these early texts the scribes compiled lists of archaic signs. Sometimes opposite each archaic character they drew a picture of the object from which they imagined it was derived. This fact is significant as proving that the Assyrian scribes recognized the pictorial origin of cuneiform writing, but the pictures they drew opposite the signs are rather fanciful, and it cannot be said that their guesses were very successful. That we are able to criticize the theories of the Assyrians as to the
origin and forms of the early characters is in the main due to M. de Sarzec's labours, from whose excavations many thousands of inscriptions of the Sumerians have been recovered.

With the death of M. de Sarzec, which occurred in his sixty-fifth year, on May 31, 1901, the wonderfully successful series of excavations which he had carried out at Telloh was brought to an end. In consequence it was feared at the time that the French diggings on this site might be interrupted for a considerable period. Such an event would have been regretted by all those who are interested in the early history of the East, for, in spite of the treasures found by M. de Sarzec in the course of his various campaigns, it was obvious that the site was far from being exhausted, and that the tells as yet unexplored contained inscriptions and antiquities extending back to the very earliest periods of Sumerian history.

History of Various Areas (1)(as of 1900)

Just as new discoveries have been made in Egypt, which have modified our previous conception of her history, so also have the excavators of the ancient sites in the Mesopotamian valley made, during the last few years, far-reaching discoveries, which have enabled us to add to and revise much of our knowledge of the history of Babylonia and Assyria. In Palestine and the Sinaitic peninsula also the spade has been used with effect, but a detailed account of work in Sinai and Palestine falls within the limits of a description of Biblical discoveries. The following descriptions will therefore deal chiefly with modern discoveries which have told us new facts with regard to the history of the ancient Sumerians themselves, and of the Babylonians, Elamites, Kassites, and Assyrians, the inheritors of the ancient Sumerian civilization, which was older than that of Egypt, and which, as we have seen, probably contributed somewhat to its formation. These were the two primal civilizations of the ancient world. For two thousand years each marched upon a solitary road, without meeting the other. Eventually the two roads converged. We have hitherto dealt with the road of the Egyptians; we now describe that of the Mesopotamians, up to thepoint of convergence.

Excavations have been and are being carried out in Mesopotamia and the adjacent countries
with no less enthusiasm and energy than in Egypt itself, and, although it cannot be said that they have resulted in any sweeping modification of our conceptions with regard to the origin and kinship of the early races of Western Asia, yet they have lately added considerably to our
knowledge of the ancient history of the countries in that region of the world. This is particularly the case in respect of the Sumerians, who, so far as we know at present, were the earliest inhabitants of the fertile plains of Mesopotamia. The beginnings of this ancient people stretch back into the remote past, and their origin is still shrouded in the mists of antiquity. When first we come across them they have already attained a high level of civilization. They have built temples and palaces and houses of burnt and unburnt brick, and they have reduced their system of agriculture to a science, intersecting their country
with canals for purposes of irrigation and to ensure a good supply of water to their cities. Their sculpture and pottery furnish abundant evidence that they have already attained a comparatively high level in the practice of the arts, and finally they have evolved a complicated
system of writing which originally had its origin in picture-characters, but afterwards had been developed along phonetic lines. To have attained to this pitch of culture argues long periods of previous development, and we must conclude that they had been settled in Southern Babylonia
many centuries before the period to which we must assign the earliest of their remains at present discovered.

That this people were not indigenous to Babylonia is highly probable, but we have little data by which to determine the region from which they originally came. Prom the fact that they built their ziggurats, or temple towers, of huge masses of unburnt brick which rose high above the surrounding plain, and that their ideal was to make each "like a mountain," it has been argued that they were a mountain race, and the home from which they sprang has been sought in Central Asia. Other scholars have detected signs of their origin in their language and system of writing, and, from the fact that they spoke an agglutinative tongue and at the earliest period arranged the characters of their script in vertical lines like the Chinese, it has been urged that
they were of Mongol extraction. Though a case may be made out for this hypothesis, it would be rash to dogmatize for or against it, and it is wiser to await the discovery of further material on which a more certain decision may be based. But whatever their origin, it is certain that the
Sumerians exercised an extraordinary influence on all races with which, either directly or indirectly, they came in contact. The ancient inhabitants of Elam at a very early period adopted in principle their method of writing, and afterwards, living in isolation in the mountainous districts of Persia, developed it on lines of their own. On their invasion of Babylonia the Semites
fell absolutely under Sumerian influence, and, although they eventually conquered and absorbed the Sumerians, their civilization remained Sumerian to the core. Moreover, by means of the Semitic inhabitants of Babylonia Sumerian culture continued to exert its influence on other and more distant races. We have already seen how a Babylonian element probably enters into Egyptian civilization through Semitic infiltration across the Straits of Bab el-Mandeb or by way of the Isthmus of Suez, and it was Sumerian culture which these Semites brought with them. In like manner, through the Semitic Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Kassites, and the inhabitants of Palestine and Syria, and of some parts of Asia Minor, Armenia, and Kurdistan, all in turn experienced indirectly the influence of Sumerian civilization and continued in a greater or less degree to reproduce elements of this early culture.

It will be seen that the influence of the Sumerians furnishes us with a key to much that would otherwise prove puzzling in the history of the early races of Western Asia. It is therefore all the more striking to recall the fact that but a few years ago the very existence of this ancient people was called in question. At that time the excavations in Mesopotamia had not revealed many traces of the race itself, and its previous existence had been mainly inferred from a number of Sumerian compositions inscribed upon Assyrian tablets found in the library of Ashur-bani-pal at Nineveh. These compositions were furnished with Assyrian translations upon the tablets on which they were inscribed, and it was correctly argued by the late Sir Henry Rawlinson, the late M. Oppert, Prof. Schrader, Prof. Sayce, and other scholars that they were written in the language of the earlier inhabitants of the country whom the Semitic Babylonians had displaced. But M. Halevy started a theory to the effect that Sumerian was not a language at all, in the proper sense of the term, but was a cabalistic method of writing invented by the
Semitic Babylonian priests.

The argument on which the upholders of this theory mainly relied was that many of the phonetic values of the Sumerian signs were obviously derived from Semitic equivalents, and they hastily jumped to the conclusion that the whole language was similarly derived from Semitic Babylonian, and was, in fact, a purely arbitrary invention of the Babylonian priests. This theory ignored all questions of inherent probability, and did not attempt to explain why the Babylonian priests should have troubled themselves to make such an invention and afterwards
have stultified themselves by carefully appending Assyrian translations to the majority of the Sumerian compositions which they copied out. Moreover, the nature of these compositions is not such as we should expect to find recorded in a cabalistic method of writing. They contain no secret lore of the Babylonian priests, but are merely hymns and prayers and religious compositions similar to those employed by the Babylonians and Assyrians themselves.

More Egyptian History (as known in 1900) (9)

In the earliest days, then, Egypt received elements of Sumerian culture through a Semitic medium, which introduced Semitic elements into the language of the people, and a Semitic racial strain. It is possible. that both theories as to the routes of these primeval conquerors are true, and that two waves of Semites entered the Nile valley towards the close of the Neolithic period, one by way of the Upper Nile or Wadi Hammamat, the other by way of Heliopolis.

After the reconsolidation of the Egyptian people, with perhaps an autocratic class of Semitic origin and a populace of indigenous Nilotic race, we have no trace of further connection with the far-away centre of Semitic culture in Babylonia till the time of the Theban hegemony. Under the XIIth Dynasty we see Egyptians in friendly relations with the Bedawin of Idumsea and Southern Palestine. Thus Sanehat, the younger son of Amenemhat I, when the death of his royal father was announced, fled from the new king Usertsen (Senusret) into Palestine, and there married the daughter of the chief Ammuanshi and became a Syrian chief himself, only finally returning to Egypt as an old man on the assurance of the royal pardon and favour. We have in the reign of Usertsen (Senusret) II the famous visit of the Arab chief Abisha (Abeshu') with his following to the court of Khnumhetep, the prince of the Oryx nome in Middle Egypt, as we see it depicted on the walls of Khnumhetep's tomb at Beni Hasan. We see Usertsen (Senusret) III invading Palestine to chastise the land of Sekmem and the Syrians.

We know of this campaign from the interesting historical stele of the general Sebek-khu (who took part in it), which was found during Mr. Garstang's excavations at Abydos, not previously referred to above. They were carried out in 1900, and resulted in the complete clearance of a part of the great cemetery which had been created during the XIIth Dynasty. The group of objects from the tombs of this cemetery, and those of XVIIIth Dynasty tombs also found, is
especially valuable as showing the styles of objects in use at these two periods (see Garstang, el-Ardbah, 1901).

The arm of Egypt was growing longer, and its weight was being felt in regions where it had previously been entirely unknown. Eventually the collision came. Egypt collided with an Asiatic power, and got the worst of the encounter. So much the worse that the Theban monarchy of the
Middle Kingdom was overthrown, and Northern Egypt was actually conquered by the Asiatic foreigners and ruled by a foreign house for several centuries. Who these conquering Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings, were no recent discovery has told us. An old idea was that they were Mongols. It was supposed that the remarkable faces of the sphinxes of Tanis, now in the Cairo Museum, which bore the names of Hyksos kings, were of Mongolian type, as also those of two colossal royal heads discovered by M. Naville at Bubastis. But M. Golenischeff has now shown that these
heads are really those of XIIth Dynasty kings, and not of Hyksos at all. Messrs. Newberry and Garstang have lately endeavoured to show that this type was foreign, and probably connected with that of the Kheta, or Hittites, of Northern Syria, who came into prominence as enemies of
Egypt at a later period. They think that the type was introduced into the Egyptian royal family by Nefret, the queen of Usertsen (Senusret) II, whom they suppose to have been a Hittite princess. At the same time they think it probable that the type was also that of the Hyksos, whomthey consider to have been practically Hittites. They therefore revive
the theory of de Cara, which connects the Hyksos with the Hittites and these with the Pelasgi and Tyrseni.

This is a very interesting theory, which, when carried out to its logical conclusion, would connect the Hyksos and Hittites racially withthe pre-Hellenic "Minoan" Mycenseans of Greece, as well as with the Etruscans of Italy. But there is little of certainty in it. It is by no means impossible that we may eventually come to know that the Hittites (_Kheta_, the _Khatte_ of the Assyrians) and other tribes of Asia Minor were racially akin to the "Minoans" of Greece, but the connection between the Hyksos and the Hittites is to seek. The countenances of the Kheta on the Egyptian monuments of Ramses II's time have an angular cast, and so have those of the Tanis sphinxes, of Queen Nefret, of the Bubastis statues, and the statues of Usertsen (Senusret) III and Amenemhat III. We might then suppose, with Messrs. Newberry and Garstang, that Nefret was a Kheta princess, who gave her peculiar racial traits to her son Usertsen (Senusret) III and his son Amenem-hat, were it not far more probable that the resemblance between this peculiar XIIth Dynasty type and the Kheta face is purely fortuitous.

There is really no reason to suppose that the type of face presented by Nefret, Usertsen, and Amenemhat is not purely Egyptian. It may be seen in many a modern fellah, and the truth probably is that the sculptors have in the case of these rulers very faithfully and carefully depicted their portraits, and that their faces happen to have been of a rather hard and forbidding type. But, if we grant the contention of Messrs. Newberry and Garstang for the moment, where is the connection between these XIIth Dynasty kings and the Hyksos? All the Tanite monuments with this peculiar facial type which would be considered Hyksos are certainly
of the XIIth Dynasty. The only statue of a Hyksos king, which was undoubtedly originally made for him and is not one of the XIIth Dynasty usurped, is the small one of Khian at Cairo, discovered by M. Naville at Bubastis, and this has no head. So that we have not the slightest idea of what a Hyksos looked like. Moreover, the evidence of the Hyksos names which are known to us points in quite a different direction. The Kheta, or Hittites, were certainly not Semites, yet the Hyksos names are definitely Semitic. In fact it is most probable that the Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings, were, as the classical authorities say they were, and as their name (_hiku-semut_ or _hihu-shasu_,) "princes of the deserts" or ("princes of the Bedawen") also testifies, purely and simply Arabs.

Now it is not a little curious that almost at the same time that a nomad Arab race conquered Lower Egypt and settled in it as rulers (just as 'Amr and the followers of Islam did over two thousand years later), another Arab race may have imposed its rule upon Babylonia. Yet this
may have been the case; for the First Dynasty of Babylon, to which the famous Hammurabi belonged, was very probably of Arab origin, to judge by the forms of some of the royal names. It is by no means impossible that there was some connection between these two conquests, and that both Babylonia and Egypt fell, in the period before the year 2000 B.C. before some great migratory movement from Arabia, which overran Babylonia, Palestine, and even the Egyptian Delta.

In this manner Egypt and Babylonia may have been brought together in common subjection to the Arab. We do not know whether any regular communication between Egypt, under Semitic rule, and Babylonia was now established; but we do know that during the Hyksos period there were considerable relations between Egypt and over-sea Crete, and relations with Mesopotamia may possibly have been established. At any rate, when the war of liberation, which was directed by the princes of Thebes, was finally brought to a successful conclusion and the Arabs were expelled, we find the Egyptians a much changed nation. They had adopted for war the use of horse and chariot, which they learnt from their Semitic conquerors, whose victory was in all probability largely gained by their use, and, generally speaking, they had become much more like the Western Asiatic nations. Egypt was no longer isolated, for she had been forcibly
brought into contact with the foreign world, and had learned much. She was no longer self-contained within her own borders. If the Semites could conquer her, so could she conquer the Semites. Armed with horse and chariot, the Egyptians went forth to battle, and their revenge was complete. All Palestine and Syria were Egyptian domains for five hundred years after the conquest by Thothmes I and III, and Ashur and Babel sent tribute to the Pharaoh of Egypt.

The reaction came, and Egypt was thrown prostrate beneath the feet of Assyria; but her claim to dominion over the Western Asiatics was never abandoned, and was revived in all its pomp by Ptolemy Euergetes, who brought back in triumph to Egypt the images of the gods which had been removed by Assyrians and Babylonians centuries before. This claim was never allowed by the Asiatics, it is true, and their kings wrote to the proudest Pharaoh as to an absolute equal. Even the King of Cyprus calls the King of Egypt his brother. But Palestine was admitted to be an Egyptian possession, and the Phoenicians were always energetic supporters of the Egyptian regime against the lawless Bedawen tribes, who were constantly intriguing with the Kheta or Hittite power to the north against Egypt.

The existence of this extra-Egyptian imperial possession meant that the eyes of the Egyptians were now permanently turned in the direction of Western Asia, with which they were henceforth in constant and intimate communication. The first Theban period and the Hyksos invasion, therefore, mark a turning-point in Egyptian history.

More Egyptian History (as known in 1900) (8)

These excavations at Hawara, Illahun, Kahun, and Gurob were carried out in the years 1887-9. Since then Prof. Petrie and his co-workers have revisited the same district, and Gurob has been re-examined (in 1904) by Messrs. Loat and Ayrton, who discovered there a shrine devoted to
the worship of fish. This work was carried on at the same time as Prof. Petrie's main excavation for the Egypt Exploration Fund at Annas, or Ahnas-yet el-Medina, the site of the ancient Henensu, the Herakleopolis of the Greeks. Prof. Naville had excavated there for the Egypt
Exploration Fund in 1892, but had not completely cleared the temple. This work was now taken up by Prof. Petrie, who laid the whole building bare. It is dedicated to Hershefi, the local deity of Herakleopolis. This god, who was called Ar-saphes by the Greeks, and identified with Herakles, was in fact a form of Horus with the head of a ram; his name means "Terrible-Face." The greater part of the temple dates to the time of the XIXth Dynasty, and nothing of the early period is left. We know, however, that the Middle Kingdom was the flourishing period of the
city of Hershefi. For a comparatively brief period, between the age of Memphite hegemony and that of Theban dominion, Herakleopolis was the capital city of Egypt. The kings of the IXth and Xth Dynasties were Herakleopolites, though we know little of them. One, Kheti, is said to have been a great tyrant. Another, Nebkauri, is known only as a figure in the "Legend of the Eloquent Peasant," a classical story much in vogue in later days. Another, Merikari, is a more real personage, for we have contemporary records of his days in the inscriptions of the tombs at
Asyet, from which we see that the princes of Thebes were already wearing down the Northerners, in spite of the resistance of the adherents of Herakleopolis, among whom the most valiant were the chiefs of Asyet. The civil war eventuated in favour of Thebes, and the Theban XIth Dynasty assumed the double crown. The sceptre passed from Memphis and the North, and Thebes enters upon the scene of Egyptian history.

With this event the Nile-land also entered upon a new era of development. The metropolis of the kingdom was once more shifted to the South, and, although the kings of the XIIth Dynasty actually resided in the North, their Theban origin was never forgotten, and Thebes was regarded as the chief city of the country. The XIth Dynasty kings actually reigned at Thebes, and there the later kings of the XIIIth Dynasty retired after the conquest of the Hyksos. The fact that with Thebes were associated all the heroic traditions of the struggle against the Hyksos ensured the final stability of the capital there when the hated Semites were finally driven out, and the national kingdom was re-established in its full extent from north to south. But for
occasional intervals, as when Akhunaten held his court at Tell el-Amarna and Ramses II at Tanis, Thebes remained the national capital for six hundred years, till the time of the XXIId Dynasty.

Another great change which differentiates the Middle Kingdom (XIth-XIIIth Dynasties) from the Old Kingdom was caused by Egypt's coming into contact with other outside nations at this period. During the whole history of the Old Kingdom, Egyptian relations with the outer world had been nil. We have some inkling of occasional connection with the Mediterranean peoples, the _Ha-nebu_ or Northerners; we haveaccounts of wars with the people of Sinai and other Bedawin and negroes; and expeditions were also sent to the land of Punt (Somaliland) by way
of the Upper Nile. But we have not the slightest hint of any connection with, or even knowledge of, the great nations of the Euphrates valley or the peoples of Palestine. The Babylonian king Narem-Sin invaded the Sinaitic peninsula (the land of Magan) as early as 3750 b. c, about the time of the IIId Egyptian Dynasty. The great King Tjeser, of that dynasty, also invaded Sinai, and so did Snefru, the last king of the dynasty. But we have no hint of any collision between Babylonians and Egyptians at that time, nor do either of them betray the slightest knowledge of one another's existence. It can hardly be that the two civilized peoples of the world in those days were really absolutely ignorant of each other, but we have no trace of any connection between
them, other than the possible one before the founding of the Egyptian monarchy.

This early connection, however, is very problematical. We have seen that there seems to be in early Egyptian civilization an element ultimately of Babylonian origin, and that there are two theories as to how it reached Egypt. One supposes that it was brought by a Semitic people of
Arab affinities (represented by the modern Grallas), who crossed the Straits of Bab el-Man-deb and reached Egypt either by way of the Wadi Hammamat or by the Upper Nile. The other would bring it across the Isthmus of Suez to the Delta, where, at Heliopolis, there certainly seems to have been a settlement of a Semitic type of very ancient culture. In both cases we should have Semites bringing Babylonian culture to Egypt. This, as we may remind the reader, was not itself of Semitic origin, but was a development due to a non-Semitic people, the Sumerians as they are called, who, so far as we know, were the aboriginal inhabitants of Babylonia. The Sumerian language was of agglutinative type, radically distinct both from the pure Semitic idioms and from Egyptian. The Babylonian elements of culture which the early
Semitic invaders brought with them to Egypt were, then, ultimately of Sumerian origin. Sumerian civilization had profoundly influenced the Semitic tribes for centuries before the Semitic conquest of Babylonia, and when the Sumerians became more and more a conquered race, finally amalgamating with their conquerors and losing their racial and linguistic individuality, they were conquered by an alien race but not by an alien culture. For the culture of the Semites was Sumerian, the Semitic races owing their civilization to the Sumerians. That is as much as to say that a great deal of what we call Semitic culture is fundamentally non-Semitic.

More Egyptian History (as known in 1900) (7)

It must be remembered that within the last few years we have learned from the excavations in Crete a new chapter of ancient history, which, it might almost seem, shows us Greece and Egypt in regular communication from nearly the beginnings of Egyptian history. As the excavations which have told us this were carried on in Crete, not in Egypt, to describe them does not lie within the scope of this book, though a short sketch of their results, so far as they affect Egyptian history in later days, is given in Chapter VII. Here it may suffice to say that, as far as the early period is concerned, Egypt and Crete were certainly in communication in the time of the XIIth Dynasty, and quite possibly in that of the VIth or still earlier. We have IIId Dynasty Egyptian vases from Knossos, which were certainly not imported in later days, for no ancient nation had antiquarian tastes till the time of the Saetes in Egypt and of the Romans still later. In fact, this communication seems to go so far back in time that we are gradually being led to perceive the possibility that the Minoan culture of Greece was in its origin an offshoot from that of primeval Egypt, probably in early Neolithic times. That is to say, the Neolithic Greeks and Neolithic Egyptians were both members of the same "Mediterranean" stock, which quite possibly may have had its origin in Africa, and a portion of which may have crossed the sea to Europe in very early times, taking with it the seeds of culture which in Egypt developed in the Egyptian way, in Greece in the Greek way. Actual communication and connection may not have been maintained at first, and probably they were not. Prof. Petrie thinks otherwise, and would see in the boats painted on the predynastic Egyptian vases the identical galleys by which, in late Neolithic times, commerce between Crete and Egypt was carried on across the Mediterranean. It is certain, however, that these boats are ordinary little river craft, the usual Nile _felekas_ and _gyassas_ of the time; they are depicted together with emblems of the desert and cultivated land, ostriches, antelopes, hills, and palm-trees,-and the thoroughly inland and Upper Egyptian character of the whole design springs to the
eye. There can be no doubt whatever that the predynastic boats were not seagoing galleys.

It was probably not till the time of the pyramid-builders that connection between the Greek Mediterraneans and the Nilotes was re-established. Thence-forward it increased, and in the time of the XIIth Dynasty, when the labyrinth of Amenemhat III was built, there seems to have been some kind of more or less regular communication between the two countries.

It is certain that artistic ideas were exchanged between them at this period. How communication was carried on we do not know, but it was probably rather by way of Cyprus and the Syrian coast than directly across the open sea. We shall revert to this point when we come to describe the connection between Crete and Egypt in the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty, when Cretan ambassadors visited the Egyptian court and were depicted in tomb paintings at Thebes. Between the time of the XIIth Dynasty and that of the XVIIIth this connection seems to have been very considerably strengthened; for at Knossos have been found an Egyptian
statuette of an Egyptian named Abnub, who from his name must have lived about the end of the XIIIth Dynasty, and the top of an alabastron with the royal name of Khian, one of the Hyksos kings.

Quite close to Hawara, at Illahun, in the ruins of the town which was built by Usertsen's workmen when they were building his pyramid, Prof. Petrie found fragments of pottery of types which we now know well from excavations in Crete and Cyprus, though they were then unknown. They are fragments of the polychrome Cretan ware called, after the name of the
place where it was first found in Crete, Kamares ware, and of a black ware ornamented with small punctures, which are often filled up with white. This latter ware has been found elsewhere associated with XIIIth Dynasty antiquities. The former is known to belong in Crete to the
"early Minoan" period, long anterior to the "late Minoan" or "Palace" period, which was contemporary with the Egyptian XVIIIth Dynasty. We have here another interesting proof of a connection between XIIth Dynasty Egypt and early Minoan Crete. The later connection, under the XVIIIth and following dynasties, is also illustrated in the same reign by Prof. Petrie's finds of late Mycenaean objects and foreign graves at Medinet Gurob.*
* One man who was buried here bore the name An-Tursha, "Pillar of the Tursha." The Tursha were a people of the Mediterranean, possibly Tylissians of Crete.

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It used to be supposed that the Cretan labyrinth had taken its name from the Egyptian one, and the, word itself was supposed to be of Egyptian origin. An Egyptian etymology was found for it as "_Ro-pi-ro-henet_," "Temple-mouth-canal," which might be interpreted, with some violence to Egyptian construction, as "The temple at the mouth of the canal," i.e. the Bahr Yusuf, which enters the Fayyem at Hawara. But unluckily this word would have been pronounced by the natives of the vicinity as "Elphilahune," which is not very much like "_Ro-pi-ro-henet_" is, in fact, a mere figment of the philological imagination, and cannot be proved ever to have existed. The element _Ro-henet_, "canal-mouth" (according to the local pronunciation of the
Fayyem and Middle Egypt, called _La-huni_), is genuine; it is the origin of the modern Illahun (_el-Lahun_), which is situated at the "canal-mouth." However, now that we know that the word labyrinth can be explained satisfactorily with the help of Karian, as evidently of Greek
(pre-Aryan) origin, and as evidently the original name of the Knossian labyrinth, it is obvious that there is no need to seek a far-fetched explanation of the word in Egypt, and to suppose that the Greeks called the Cretan labyrinth after the Egyptian one.

The contrary is evidently the case. Greek visitors to Egypt found a resemblance between the great Egyptian building, with its numerous halls and corridors, vast in extent, and the Knossian palace. Even if very little of the latter was visible in the classical period, as seems possible, yet the site seems always to have been kept holy and free from later building till Roman times, and we know that the tradition of the mazy halls and corridors of the labyrinth was always clear, and was evidently based on a vivid reminiscence. Actually, one of the most prominent characteristics of the Knossian palace is its mazy and labyrinthine system of passages and chambers. The parallel between the two buildings, which originally caused the Greek visitors to give the
pyramid-temple of Hawara the name of "labyrinth," has been traced still further. The white limestone walls and the shining portals of "Parian marble," described by Strabo as characteristic of the Egyptian labyrinth, have been compared with the shining white selenite or gypsum used at Knossos, and certain general resemblances between the Greek architecture of the Minoan age and the almost contemporary Egyptian architecture of the XIIth Dynasty have been pointed out. Such resemblances may go to swell the amount of evidence already known, which tells us that there was a close connection between Egyptian and Minoan art and civilization, established at least as early as 2500 B.C.

More Egyptian History (as known in 1900) (5)

Some distance south of Dashir is Medem, where the pyramid of Sneferu reigns in solitude, and beyond this again is Lisht, where in the years 1894-6 MM. Gautier and Jequier excavated the pyramid of Usertsen (Sen-usret) I. The most remarkable find was a cache of the seated
statues of the king in white limestone, in absolutely perfect condition. They were found lying on their sides, just as they had been hidden. Six figures of the king in the form of Osiris, with the face painted red, were also found. Such figures seem to have been regularly set up in front of a royal sepulchre; several were found in front of the funerary temple of Mentu-hetep III, Thebes, which we shall describe later. A fine altar of gray granite, with representations in relief of the nomes bringing offerings, was also recovered. The pyramid of Lisht itself is not built of bricks, like those of Dashir, but of stone. It was not, however, erected in so solid a fashion as those of earlier days at Giza or Abusir, and nothing is left of it now but a heap of debris. The XIIth Dynasty architects built walls of magnificent masonry, as we have seen, and there is no doubt that the stone casing of their pyramids was originally very fine, but the interior is of brick or rubble; the wonderful system of building employed by kings of the IVth Dynasty at
Giza was not practised.

South of Lisht is Illahun, and at the entrance to the province of the Fayyem, and west of this, nearer the Fayyem, is Hawara, where Prof. Petrie excavated the pyramids of Usertsen (Senusret) II and Amenem-hat III. His discoveries have already been described by Prof. Maspero in his history, so that it will suffice here merely to compare them with the results of M. de Morgan's later work at Dashir and that of MM. Gautier and Jequier at Lisht, to note recent conclusions in connection with them, and to describe the newest discoveries in the same region.

Both pyramids are of brick, lined with stone, like those of Dash?r, with some differences of internal construction, since stone walls exist in the interior. The central chambers and passages leading to them were discovered; and in both cases the passages are peculiarly complex, with
dumb chambers, great stone portcullises, etc., in order to mislead and block the way to possible plunderers. The extraordinary sepulchral chamber of the Hawara pyramid, which, though it is over twenty-two feet long by ten feet wide over all, is hewn out of one solid block of hard
yellow quartzite, gives some idea of the remarkable facility of dealing with huge stones and the love of utilizing them which is especially characteristic of the XIIth Dynasty. The pyramid of Hawara was provided with a funerary temple the like of which had never been known in Egypt
before and was never known afterwards. It was a huge building far larger than the pyramid itself, and built of fine limestone and crystalline white quartzite, in a style eminently characteristic of the XIIth Dynasty. In actual superficies this temple covered an extent of ground within which the temples of Karnak, Luxor, and the Ramesseum, at Thebes, could have stood, but has now almost entirely disappeared, having been used as a quarry for two thousand years. In Roman times this destroying process had already begun, but even then the building was still magnificent, and had been noted with wonder by all the Greek visitors to Egypt from the time of Herodotus downwards. Even before his day it had received the name of the "Labyrinth," on account of its supposed resemblance to the original labyrinth in Crete.

That the Hawara temple was the Egyptian labyrinth was pointed out by Lepsius in the 'forties of the last century. Within the last two or three years attention has again been drawn to it by Mr. Arthur Evans's discovery of the Cretan labyrinth itself in the shape of the Minoan or early Mycenian palace of Knossos, near Candia in Crete. It is impossible to enter here into all the arguments by which it has been proved that the Knossian palace is the veritable labyrinth of the
Minotaur legend, nor would it be strictly germane to our subject were we to do so; but it may suffice to say here that the word has been proved to be of Greek-or rather of pre-Hellenic-origin, and would mean in Karian "Place of the Double-Axe," like La-braunda in
Karia, where Zeus was depicted with a double axe (labrys) in his hand. The non-Aryan, "Asianic," group of languages, to which certainly Lycian and probably Karian belong, has been shown by the German philologer Kretschmer to have spread over Greece into Italy in the period before the Aryan Greeks entered Hellas, and to have left undoubted traces of its presence in Greek place-names and in the Greek language itself. Before the true Hellenes reached Crete, an Asianic dialect must have been spoken there, and to this language the word "labyrinth" must
originally have belonged. The classical labyrinth was "in the Knossian territory." The palace of Knossos was emphatically the chief seat of the worship of a god whose emblem was the double-axe; it was the Knossian "Place of the Double-Axe," the Cretan "Labyrinth."

More Egyptian History (as known in 1900) (4)

The identification of the owners of the three western pyramids of Dashir is due to M. de Morgan and his assistants, Messrs. Legrain and Jequier, who excavated them from 1894 till 1896. The northern pyramid, that of Usertsen (Senusret) III, is not so well preserved as the southern. It is
more worn away, and does not present so imposing an appearance. In both pyramids the outer casing of white stone has entirely disappeared, leaving only the bare black bricks. Each stood in the midst of a great necropolis of dignitaries of the period, as was usually the case. Many of the mastabas were excavated by M. de Morgan. Some are of older periods than the XIIth Dynasty, one belonging to a priest of King Snefru, Aha-f-ka ("Ghost-fighter"), who bore the additional titles of "director of prophets and general of infantry." There were pluralists even in those days. And the distinction between the privy councillor (Geheimrat) and real privy councillor (Wirk-licher-Greheimrat) was quite familiar; for we find it actually made, many an old Egyptian officially priding himself in his tomb on having been a real privy councillor! The Egyptian bureaucracy was already ancient and had its survivals and its anomalies even as early as the time of the pyramid-builders.

In front of the pyramid of Usertsen (Senusret) III at one time stood the usual funerary temple, but it has been totally destroyed. By the side of the pyramid were buried some of the princesses of the royal family, in a series of tombs opening out of a subterranean gallery, and in this gallery were found the wonderful jewels of the princesses Sit-hathor and Merit, which are among the greatest treasures of the Cairo Museum. Those who have not seen them can obtain a perfect idea of their appearance from the beautiful water-colour paintings of them by M. Legrain, which
are published in M. de Morgan's work on the "Fouilles ? Dahchour" (Vienna, 1895). Altogether one hundred and seven objects were recovered, consisting of all kinds of jewelry in gold and coloured stones. Among the most beautiful are the great "pectorals," or breast-ornaments, in
the shape of pylons, with the names of Usertsen II, Usertsen III, and Amenemhat III; the names are surrounded by hawks standing on the sign for gold, gryphons, figures of the king striking down enemies, etc., all in cloisonne work, with beautiful stones such as lapis lazuli, green
felspar, and carnelian taking the place of coloured enamels. The massive chains of golden beads and cowries are also very remarkable. These treasures had been buried in boxes in the floor of the subterranean gallery, and had luckily escaped the notice of plunderers, and so by a
fortunate chance have survived to tell us what the Egyptian jewellers could do in the days of the XIIth Dynasty. Here also were found two great Nile barges, full-sized boats, with their oars and other gear complete. They also may be seen in the Museum of Cairo. It can only be supposed that they had served as the biers of the royal mummies, and had been brought up in state on sledges. The actual royal chamber was not found, although a subterranean gallery was driven beneath the centre of the pyramid.

The southern brick pyramid was constructed in the same way as the northern one. At the side of it were also found the tombs of members of the royal house, including that of the king Hor, already mentioned, with its interesting contents. The remains of the mummy of this ephemeral
monarch, known only from his tomb, were also found. The entrails of the king were placed in the usual "canopic jars," which were sealed with the seal of Amenemhat III; it is thus that we know that Hor died before him. In many of the inscriptions of this king, on his coffin and stelo, a
peculiarly affected manner of writing the hieroglyphs is found,--the birds are without their legs, the snake has no tail, the bee no head. Birds are found without their legs in other inscriptions of this period; it was a temporary fashion and soon discarded.

In the tomb of a princess named Nubhetep, near at hand, were found more jewels of the same style as those of Sit-hathor and Merit. The pyramid itself contained the usual passages and chambers, which were reached with much difficulty and considerable tunnelling by M. de Morgan. In fact, the search for the royal death-chambers lasted from December 5, 1894, till March 17, 1895, when the excavators' gallery finally struck one of the ancient passages, which were found to be unusually extensive, contrasting in this respect with the northern pyramid. The royal tomb-chamber had, of course, been emptied of what it contained. It must be remembered that, in any case, it is probable that the king was not actually buried here, but in the pyramid of Hawara.

The pyramid of Amenemhat II, which lies between the two brick pyramids, was built entirely of stone. Nothing of it remains above ground, but the investigation of the subterranean portions showed that it was remarkable for the massiveness of its stones and the care with which the masonry was executed. The same characteristics are found in the dependent tombs of the princesses Ha and Khnumet, in which more jewelry was found. This splendid stonework is characteristic of the Middle Kingdom; we find it also in the temple of Mentuhetep III at Thebes.

More Egyptian History (as known in 1900) (3)

It would thus appear that though the Egyptians cannot be said to have used iron generally and so to have entered the "Iron Age" before about 1300 B.C. (reign of Ramses II), yet iron was well known to them and had been used more than occasionally by them for tools and building purposes as early as the time of the IVth Dynasty, about 3500 B.C. Certainly dated examples of its use occur under the IVth, VIth, and XIIIth Dynasties. Why this knowledge was not communicated to Europe before about 1000 B.C. we cannot say, nor are Egyptologists called upon to find the reason. So the Great Pyramid has played an interesting part in the settlement of a very important question.

It was supposed by Prof. Petrie that the piece of iron from the Great Pyramid had been part of some arrangement employed for raising the stones into position. Herodotus speaks of the machines, which were used to raise the stones, as made of little pieces of wood. The generally
accepted explanation of his meaning used to be that a small crane or similar wooden machine was used for hoisting the stone by means of pulley and rope; but M. Legrain, the director of the works of restoration in the Great Temple of Karnak, has explained it differently. Among the "foundation deposits" of the XVIIIth Dynasty at Dir el-Bahari and elsewhere, beside the little plaques with the king's name and the model hoes and vases, was usually found an enigmatic wooden object like a small cradle, with two sides made of semicircular pieces of wood, joined along the curved portion by round wooden bars. M. Legrain has now explained this as a model of the machine used to raise heavy stones from tier to tier of a pyramid or other building, and illustrations of the method of its use may be found in Choisy's _Art de Bitir chez les anciens Egyptiens_. There is little doubt that this primitive machine is that to which Herodotus refers as having been used in the erection of the pyramids.

The later historian, Diodorus, also tells us that great mounds or ramps of earth were used as well, and that the stones were dragged up these to the requisite height. There is no doubt that this statement also is correct. We know that the Egyptians did build in this very way, and the system has been revived by M. Legrain for his work at Karnak, where still exist the remains of the actual mounds and ramps by which the great western pylon was erected in Ptolemaic times. Work carried on in this way is slow and expensive, but it is eminently suited to the country and understood by the people. If they wish to put a great stone architrave weighing many tons across the top of two columns, they do not hoist it up into position; they rear a great ramp or embankment of earth against the two pillars, half-burying them in the process, then drag the architrave up the ramp by means of ropes and men, and put it into position. Then the ramp is cleared away. This is the ancient system which is now followed at Karnak, and it is the system by which, with the further aid of the wooden machines, the Great Pyramid and its compeers
were erected in the days of the IVth Dynasty. _Plus cela change, plus c'est la mime chose_.

The brick pyramids of the XIIth Dynasty were erected in the same way, for the Egyptians had no knowledge of the modern combination of wooden scaffolding and ladders. There was originally a small stone pyramid of the same dynasty at Dashir, half-way between the two brick ones, but this has now almost disappeared. It belonged to the king Amenemhat II, while the others belonged, the northern to Usertsen (Sen-usret) III, the southern to Amenemhat III. Both these latter monarchs had other tombs elsewhere, Usertsen a great rock-cut gallery and chamber in the cliff at Abydos, Amenemhat a pyramid not very far to the south, at Hawara, close to the Fayyim. It is uncertain whether the Hawara pyramid or that of Dashir was the real burial-place of the king, as at neither place is his name found alone. At Hawara it is found in conjunction with that of his daughter, the queen-regnant Se-bekneferuri (Skemiophris), at Dashir with that of a king Auabri Hor, who was buried in a small tomb near that of the king, and adjoining the tombs of the king's children. Who King Hor
was we do not quite know. His name is not given in the lists, and was unknown until M. de Morgan's discoveries at Dashir. It is most probable that he was a prince who was given royal honours during the lifetime of Amenemhat III, whom he predeceased. In the beautiful wooden statue of him found in his tomb, which is now in the Cairo Museum, he is represented as quite a youth. Amenemhat III was certainly succeeded by Amenemhat IV, and it is impossible to intercalate Hor between them.

More Egyptian History (as known in 1900) (2)

We may perhaps trace this misleading habit of thought to the influence of the professors of natural science over the students of Stone Age and Bronze Age antiquities. Because nature moves by steady progression and develops on even lines,_nihil facit per sal-tum_,it seems to have been assumed that the works of man's hands have developed in the same way, in a regular and even scheme all over the world. On this supposition it would be impossible for the great discovery of the use of iron to have been known in Egypt as early as 3500 B.C. for this knowledge to have remained dormant there for two thousand years, and then to have been suddenly communicated about 1000 B.C. to Greece, spreading with lightning-like rapidity over Europe and displacing the use of bronze everywhere. Yet, as a matter of fact, the work of man does develop in exactly this haphazard way, by fits and starts and sudden leaps of progress after millennia of stagnation. Throwsback to barbarism are just as frequent. The analogy of natural evolution is completely inapplicable and misleading.

Prof. Montelius, however, following the "evolutionary" line of thought, believed that because iron was not known in Europe till about 1000 B.C. it could not have been known in Egypt much earlier; and in an important article which appeared in the Swedish ethnological journal _Ymer_ in 1883, entitled _Bronsaldrn i Egypten_ ("The Bronze Age in Egypt"), he essayed to prove the contrary arguments of the Egyptologists wrong. His main points were that the colour of the weapons in the frescoes was of no importance, as it was purely conventional and arbitrary, and that the evidence of the piece of iron from the Great Pyramid was insufficiently authenticated, and therefore valueless, in the absence of other definite archaeological evidence in the shape of iron of supposed early date. To this article the Swedish Egyptologist, Dr. Piehl, replied in the same periodical, in an article entitled _Bronsaldem i Egypten_, in which he traversed Prof. Montelius's conclusions from the Egyptological point of view, and adduced other instances of the use of iron in Egypt, all, it is true, later than the time of the IVth Dynasty. But this protest
received little notice, owing to the fact that it remained buried in a Swedish periodical, while Prof. Montelius's original article was translated into French, and so became well-known.

For the time Prof. Montelius's conclusions were generally accepted, and when the discoveries of the prehistoric antiquities were made by M. de Morgan, it seemed more probable than ever that Egypt had gone through a regular progressive development from the Age of Stone through those of copper and bronze to that of iron, which was reached about 1100 or 1000 B.C. The evidence of the iron fragment from the Great Pyramid was put on one side, in spite of the circumstantial account of its discovery which had been given by its finders. Even Prof. Petrie, who in 1881
had accepted the pyramid fragment as undoubtedly contemporary with that building, and had gone so far as to adduce additional evidence for its authenticity, gave way, and accepted Montelius's view, which held its own until in 1902 it was directly controverted by a discovery of Prof. Petrie at Abydos. This discovery consisted of an undoubted fragment of iron found in conjunction with bronze tools of VIth Dynasty date; and it settled the matter. The VIth Dynasty date of this piece of iron, which was more probably worked than not (since it was buried with tools), was held to be undoubted by its discoverer and by everybody else, and, if this were undoubted, the IVth Dynasty date of the Great Pyramid fragment was also fully established. The discoverers of the earlier fragment had no doubt whatever as to its being contemporary with the pyramid, and were supported in this by Prof. Petrie in 1881. Therefore it is now
known to be the fact that iron was used by the Egyptians as early as 3500 B.C.

More Egyptian History (as known in 1900) (1)

The other two pyramids, those nearest the cultivation, are of very different appearance. They are half-ruined, they are black in colour, and their whole effect is quite different from that of the stone pyramids. For they are built of brick, not of stone. They are pyramids, it is true, but of a different material and of a different date from those which we have been describing. They are built above the sepulchres of kings of the XIIth Dynasty, the Theban house which transferred its residence northwards to the neighbourhood of the ancient Northern capital. We have, in fact, reached the end of the Old Kingdom at Sakkera; at Dashir begin the sepulchres of the Middle Kingdom. Pyramids are still built, but they are not always of stone; brick is used, usually with stone in the interior. The general effect of these brick pyramids, when new, must have been indistinguishable from that of the stone ones, and even now, when it has become half-ruined, such a great brick pyramid as that of Usertsen (Senusret) III at Dashir is not
without impressiveness. After all, there is no reason why a brick building should be less admirable than a stone one. And in its own way the construction of such colossal masses of bricks as the two eastern pyramids of Dashir must have been as arduous, even as difficult, as that of building a moderate-sized stone pyramid. The photograph of the brick pyramids of Dashir on this page shows well the great size of these masses of brickwork, which are as impressive as any of the great brick structures of Babylonia and Assyria.

The XIIth Dynasty use of brick for the royal tombs was a return to the custom of earlier days, for from the time of Aha to that Tjeser, from the 1st Dynasty to the Hid, brick had been used for the building of the royal mastaba-tombs, out of which the pyramids had developed.

At this point, where we take leave of the great pyramids of the Old Kingdom, we may notice the latest theory as to the building of these monuments, which has of late years been enunciated by Dr. Borchardt, and is now generally accepted. The great Prussian explorer Lepsius, when he
examined the pyramids in the 'forties, came to the conclusion that each king, when he ascended the throne, planned a small pyramid for himself. This was built in a few years' time, and if his reign were short, or if he were unable to enlarge the pyramid for other reasons, it sufficed for
his tomb. If, however, his reign seemed likely to be one of some length, after the first plan was completed he enlarged his pyramid by building another and a larger one around it and over it. Then again, when this addition was finished, and the king still reigned and was in possession
of great resources, yet another coating, so to speak, was put on to the pyramid, and so on till colossal structures like the First and Second Pyramid of Giza, which, we know, belonged to kings who were unusually long-lived, were completed. And finally the aged monarch died, and was
buried in the huge tomb which his long life and his great power had enabled him to erect. This view appeared eminently reasonable at the time, and it seemed almost as though we ought to be able to tell whether a king had reigned long or not by the size of his pyramid, and even to obtain a rough idea of the length of his reign by counting the successive coats or accretions which it had received, much as we tell the age of a tree by the rings in its bole. A pyramid seemed to have
been constructed something after the manner of an onion or a Chinese puzzle-box.

Prof. Petrie, however, who examined the Griza pyramids in 1881, and carefully measured them all up and finally settled their trigonometrical relation, came to the conclusion that Lepsius's theory was entirely erroneous, and that every pyramid was built and now stands as it was
originally planned. Dr. Borchardt, however, who is an architect by profession, has examined the pyramids again, and has come to the conclusion that Prof. Petrie's
statement is not correct, and that there is an element of truth in Lepsius's hypothesis. He has shown that several of the pyramids, notably the First and Second at Giza, show unmistakable signs of a modified, altered, and enlarged plan; in fact, long-lived kings like Khufu seem to have added considerably to their pyramids and even to have entirely remodelled them on a larger scale. This has certainly been the case with the Great Pyramid. We can, then, accept Lepsius's theory as modified by Dr. Borchardt.

Another interesting point has arisen in connection with the Great Pyramid. Considerable difference of opinion has always existed between Egyptologists and the professors of European archaeology with regard to the antiquity of the knowledge of iron in Egypt. The majority of the Egyptologists have always maintained, on the authority of the inscriptions, that iron was known to the ancient Egyptians from the earliest period. They argued that the word for a certain metal in old Egyptian was the same as the Coptic word for "iron." They stated that in the most ancient religious texts the Egyptians spoke of the firmament of heaven as made of this metal, and they came to the conclusion that it was because this metal was blue in colour, the hue of iron or steel; and they further pointed out that some of the weapons in the tomb-paintings were painted blue and others red, some being of iron, that is to say, others of copper or bronze. Finally they brought forward as incontrovertible evidence an actual fragment of worked iron, which had been found between two of the inner blocks, down one of the air-shafts, in the Great Pyramid. Here was an actual piece of iron of the time of the IVth Dynasty, about 3500 B.C.

This conclusion was never accepted by the students of the development of the use of metal in prehistoric Europe, when they came to know of it. No doubt their incredulity was partly due to want of appreciation of the Egyptological evidence, partly to disinclination to accept a conclusion
which did not at all agree with the knowledge they had derived from their own study of prehistoric Europe. In Southern Europe it was quite certain that iron did not come into use till about 1000 B.C.; in Central Europe, where the discoveries at Hallstatt in the Salzkammergut exhibit the transition from the Age of Bronze to that of Iron, about 800 B.C. The exclusively Iron Age culture of La Tine cannot be dated earlier than the eighth century, if as early as that. How then was it possible that, if iron had been known to the Egyptians as early as 3500 B.C., its
knowledge should not have been communicated to the Europeans until over two thousand years later? No; iron could not have been really known to the Egyptians much before 1000 B.C. and the Egyptological evidence was all wrong. This line of argument was taken by the distinguished
Swedish archaeologist, Prof. Oscar Montelius, of Upsala, whose previous experience in dealing with the antiquities of Northern Europe, great as it was, was hardly sufficient to enable him to pronounce with authority on a point affecting far-away African Egypt. And when dealing with Greek prehistoric antiquities Prof. Montelius's views have hardly met with that ready agreement which all acknowledge to be his due when he is giving us the results of his ripe knowledge of Northern antiquities. He has, in fact, forgotten, as most "prehistoric" archaeologists do forget, that the antiquities of Scandinavia, Greece, Egypt, the Semites, the bronze-workers of Benin, the miners of Zimbabwe, and the Ohio mound-builders are not to be treated all together as a whole, and that hard and fast lines of development cannot be laid down for them, based on the experience of Scandinavia.

Memphis (of ancient) Eygpt (6)

The stele is always in the form of a door with pyloni-form cornice. On either side is a figure of the deceased, and at the sides are carved prayers to Anubis, and at a later date to Osiris, who are implored to give the funerary meats and "everything good and pure on which the god there (as the dead man in the tomb has been constituted) lives;" often we find that the biography and list of honorary titles and dignities of the deceased have been added.

Sakkera was used as a place of burial in the latest as well as in the earliest time. The Egyptians of the XXVIth Dynasty, wearied of the long decadence and devastating wars which had followed the glorious epoch of the conquering Pharaohs of the XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties, turned for a new and refreshing inspiration to the works of the most ancient kings, when Egypt was a simple self-contained country, holding no intercourse with outside lands, bearing no outside burdens for the sake of pomp and glory, and knowing nothing of the decay and decadence which follows in
the train of earthly power and grandeur. They deliberately turned their backs on the worn-out and discredited imperial trappings of the Thothmes and Ramses, and they took the supposed primitive simplicity of the Snefrus, the Khufus, and the Ne-user-Res for a model and ensampler to their lives. It was an age of conscious and intended archaism, and in pursuit of the archaistic ideal the Mem-phites of the Saete age had themselves buried in the ancient necropolis of Sakkera, side by side with their ancestors of the time of the Vth and VIth Dynasties. Several of these tombs have lately been discovered and opened, and fitted with modern improvements. One or two of them, of the Persian period, have wells (leading to the sepulchral chamber) of enormous depth, down which the modern tourist is enabled to descend by a spiral iron staircase. The Serapeum itself is lit with electricity, and in the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes nothing disturbs the silence but the steady thumping pulsation of the dynamo-engine which lights the ancient sepulchres of the Pharaohs. Thus do modern ideas and inventions help us to see and so to understand better the works of ancient Egypt. But it is perhaps a little too much like the Yankee at the Court of King Arthur. The interiors of the later tombs are often decorated with reliefs which imitate those of the early period, but with a kind of delicate grace which at once marks them for what they are, so that it is impossible to confound them with the genuine ancient originals from which they were adapted.

Riding from Sakkera southwards to Dashir, you pass on the way the gigantic stone mastaba known as the _Mastabat el-Fara'en_, "Pharaoh's Bench." This was considered to be the tomb of the Vth Dynasty king, Unas, until his pyramid was found by Prof. Maspero at Sakkera. From its
form it might be thought to belong to a monarch of the Hid Dynasty, but the great size of the stone blocks of which it is built seems to point rather to the XIIth. All attempts to penetrate its secret by actual excavation have been unavailing.

Further south across the desert we see from the Mastabat el-Fara'en four distinct pyramids, symmetrically arranged in two lines, two in each line. The two to the right are great stone erections of the usual type, like those of Giza and Abusir, and the southernmost of them has a
peculiar broken-backed appearance, due to the alteration of the angle of inclination of its sides during construction. Further, it is covered almost to the ground by the original casing of polished white limestone blocks, so that it gives a very good idea of the original appearance of the other pyramids, which have lost their casing. These two pyramids very probably belong to kings of the Hid Dynasty, as does the Step-Pyramid of Sakkera. They strongly resemble the Giza type, and
the northernmost of the two looks very like an understudy of the Great Pyramid. It seems to mark the step in the development of the royal pyramid which was immediately followed by the Great Pyramid. But no excavations have yet proved the accuracy of this view. Both pyramids
have been entered, but nothing has been found in them. It is very probable that one of them is the second pyramid of Snefru.

Memphis (of ancient) Eygpt (5)

Other buildings have been excavated by the Germans at Abusir, notably the usual town of mastaba-tombs belonging to the chief dignitaries of the reign, which is always found at the foot of a royal pyramid of this period. Another building of the highest interest, belonging to the same
age, was also excavated, and its true character was determined. This is a building at a place called er-Regha or Abe Ghuraib, "Father of Crows," between Abusir and Giza. It was formerly supposed to be a pyramid, but the German excavations have shown that it is really a temple of the Sun-god Ra of Heliopolis, specially venerated by the kings of the Vth Dynasty, who were of Heliopolitan origin. The great pyramid-builders of the IVth Dynasty seem to have been the last true Memphites. At the end of the reign of Shepseskaf, the last monarch of the dynasty, the sceptre passed to a Heliopolitan family. The following VIth Dynasty may again have been Memphite, but this is uncertain. The capital continued to be Memphis, and from the beginning of the Hid Dynasty to the end of the Old Kingdom and the rise of Herakle-opolis and Thebes, Memphis remained the chief city of Egypt.

The Heliopolitans were naturally the servants of the Sun-god above all other gods, and they were the first to call themselves "Sons of the Sun," a title retained by the Pharaohs throughout all subsequent history. It was Ne-user-Ra who built the Sun-temple of Abu Ghuraib, on the edge of the desert, north of his pyramid and those of his two immediate predecessors at Abusir. As now laid bare by the excavations of 1900, it is seen to consist of an artificial mound, with a great court in front to the eastward. On the mound was erected a truncated obelisk, the stone emblem of the Sun-god. The worshippers in the court below looked towards the Sun's stone erected upon its mound in the west, the quarter of the sun's setting; for the Sun-god of Heliopolis was primarily the setting sun, Tum-Ra, not Ra Harmachis, the rising sun, whose emblem is the Great Sphinx at Giza, which looks towards the east. The sacred emblem of the Heliopolitan Sun-god reminds us forcibly of the Semitic _bethels_ or _baetyli_, the sacred stones of Palestine, and may give yet another hint of the Semitic origin of the Heliopolitan cult.
In the court of the temple is a huge circular altar of fine alabaster, several feet across, on which slain oxen were offered to the Sun, and behind this, at the eastern end of the court, are six great basins of the same stone, over which the beasts were slain, with drains running out of them by which their blood was carried away. This temple is a most interesting monument of the civilization of the "Old Kingdom" at the time of the Vth Dynasty.

At Sakkera itself, which lies a short distance south of Abusir, no new royal tombs have, as has been said, been discovered of late years. But a great deal of work has been done among the private mastaba-tombs by the officers of the _Service des Antiquitis_, which reserves to itself the right of excavation here and at Dasher. The mastaba of the sage and writer Kagernna (or rather Gemnika, "I-have-found-a-ghost," which sounds very like an American Indian appellation) is very fine. "I-have-found-a-ghost" lived in the reign of the king Tatkare Assa, the
"Tancheres" of Manetho, and he wrote maxims like his great contemporary Phtahhetep ("Offered to Phtah"), who was also buried at Sakk?ra. The officials of the _Service des Antiquitis_ who cleaned the tomb unluckily misread his name Ka-bi-n (an impossible form which could only mean, literally translated, "Ghost-soul-of" or "Ghost-soul-to-me"), and they
have placed it in this form over the entrance to his tomb. This mastaba, like those, already known, of Mereruka (sometimes misnamed "Mera") and the famous Ti, both also at Sakkera, contains a large number of chambers, ornamented with reliefs. In the vicinity M. Grebaut, then
Director of the Service of Antiquities, discovered a very interesting Street of Tombs, a regular Via Sacra, with rows of tombs of the dignitaries of the VIth Dynasty on either side of it. They are generally very much like one another; the workmanship of the reliefs is fine, and the portrait of the owner of the tomb is always in evidence.

Several of the smaller mastabas have lately been disposed of to the various museums, as they are liable to damage if they remain where they stand; moreover, they are not of great value to the Museum of Cairo, but are of considerable value to various museums which do not already
possess complete specimens of this class of tombs. A fine one, belonging to the chief Uerarina, is now exhibited in the Assyrian Basement of the British Museum; another is in the Museum of Leyden; a third at Berlin, and so on. Most of these are simple tombs of one chamber. In the centre of the rear wall we always see the _stele_ or gravestone proper, built into the fabric of the tomb. Before this stood the low table of offerings with a bowl for oblations, and on either side a tall incense-altar. From the altar the divine smoke (_senetr_) arose when the _hen-ka_, or priest of the ghost (literally, "Ghost's Servant"), performed his duty of venerating the spirits of the deceased, while the _Kher-heb_, or cantor, enveloped in the mystic folds of the leopard-skin
and with bronze incense-burner in hand, sang the holy litanies and spells which should propitiate the ghost and enable him to win his way to ultimate perfection in the next world.

Memphis (of ancient) Eygpt (4)

One of the most noteworthy discoveries was that of the funerary temple of Ne-user-Re, which stood at the base of his pyramid. The plan is interesting, and the granite lotus-bud columns found are the most ancient yet discovered in Egypt. Much of the paving and the wainscoting of the walls was of fine black marble, beautifully polished. An interesting find was a basin and drain with lion's-head mouth, to carry away the blood of the sacrifices. Some sculptures in relief were
discovered, including a gigantic representation of the king and the goddess Isis, which shows that in the early days of the Vth Dynasty the king and the gods were already depicted in exactly the same costume as they wore in the days of the Ramses and the Ptolemies. The hieratic art of Egypt had, in fact, now taken on itself the final outward appearance which it retained to the very end. There is no more of the archaism and absence of conventionality, which marks the art of the earliest dynasties.

We can trace by successive steps the swift development of Egyptian art from the rude archaism of the Ist Dynasty to its final consummation under the Vth, when the conventions became fixed. In the time of Khesekhemui, at the beginning of the IId Dynasty, the archaic character of the art has already begun to wear off. Under the same dynasty we still have styles of unconventional naeveti, such as the famous Statue "No. 1" of the Cairo Museum, bearing the names of Kings Hetepahaui, Neb-re, and Neneter. But with the IVth Dynasty we no longer look for
unconventionality. Prof. Petrie discovered at Abydos a small ivory statuette of Khufu or Cheops, the builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza. The portrait is a good one and carefully executed. It was not till the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty, indeed, that the Egyptians ceased to portray their kings as they really were, and gave them a purely conventional type of face. This convention, against which the heretical King Amenhetep IV (Akhunaten) rebelled, in order to have himself
portrayed in all his real ungainliness and ugliness, did not exist till long after the time of the IVth and Vth Dynasties.

The kings of the XIIth Dynasty especially were most careful that their statues should be accurate portraits; indeed, the portraits of Usertsen (Senusret) III vary from a young face to an old one, showing that the king was faithfully depicted at different periods of his life.

But the general conventions of dress and deportment were finally fixed under the Vth Dynasty. After this time we no longer have such absolutely faithful and original presentments as the other little ivory statuette found by Prof. Petrie at Abydos (now in the British Museum), which shows
us an aged monarch of the Ist Dynasty. It is obvious that the features are absolutely true to life, and the figure wears an unconventionally party-coloured and bordered robe of a kind which kings of a later day may have worn in actual life, but which they would assuredly never be
depicted as wearing by the artists of their day. To the end of Egyptian history, the kings, even the Roman emperors, were represented on the monuments clothed in the official costume of their ancestors of the IVth and Vth Dynasties, in the same manner as we see Khufu wearing his robe in the little figure from Abydos, and Ne-user-Re on the great relief from Abusir. There are one or two exceptions, such as the representations of the original genius Akhunaten at Tell el-Amarna and the beautiful statue of Ramses II at Turin, in which we see these kings wearing the real costume of their time, but such exceptions are very rare.

The art of Abusir is therefore of great interest, since it marks the end of the development of the priestly art. Secular art might develop as it liked, though the crystallizing influence of the ecclesiastical canon is always evident here also. But henceforward it was an impiety, which only
an Akhunaten could commit, to depict a king or a god on the walls of a temple otherwise (except so far as, the portrait was concerned) than as he had been depicted in the time of the Vth Dynasty.

Memphis (of ancient) Eygpt (3)

Where the kings of the XIIIth Dynasty and the Hyksos or "Shepherds" were buried, we do not know. The kings of the restored Theban empire were all interred at Thebes. There are, in fact, no known royal sepulchres between the Fayyem and Abydos. The great kings were mostly buried in the neighbourhood of Memphis, Abydos, and Thebes. The sepulchres of the
"Middle Empire"--the XIth to XIIIth Dynasties--in the neighbourhood of the Fayyem may fairly be grouped with those of the same period at Dasher, which belongs to the necropolis of Memphis, since it is only a mile or two south of Sakkera.

It is chiefly with regard to the sepulchres of the kings that the most momentous discoveries of recent years have been made at Thebes, and at Sakkera, Abusir, Dasher, and Lisht, as at Abydos. For this reason we deal in succession with the finds in the necropoles of Abydos, Memphis, and Thebes respectively. And with the sepulchres of the "Old Kingdom," in the Memphite necropolis proper, we have naturally grouped those of the "Middle Kingdom" at Dasher, Lisht, Illahun, and Hawara.

Some of these modern discoveries have been commented on and illustrated by Prof. Maspero in his great history. But the discoveries that have been made since this publication have been very important,--those at Abusir, indeed, of first-rate importance, though not so momentous as
those of the tombs of the Ist and IId Dynasties at Abydos, already described. At Abu Roash and at Geza, at the northern end of the Memphite necropolis, several expeditions have had considerable success, notably those of the American Dr. Reisner, assisted by Mr. Mace, who excavated the royal tombs at Umm el-Ga'ab for Prof. Petrie, those of the German Drs. Steindorff and Borchardt, the latter working for the Beutsch-Orient Gesellschaft and those of other American excavators. Until the full publication of the results of these excavations appears,
very little can be said about them. Many mastaba-tombs have, it is understood, been found, with interesting remains. Nothing of great historical importance seems to have been discovered, however. It is otherwise when we come to the discoveries of Messrs. Borchardt and Schefer at Abusir, south of Geza and north of Sakkera. At this place results of first-rate historical importance have been attained.

The main group of pyramids at Abusir consists of the tombs of the kings Sahuri, Neferarikari, and Ne-user-Ri, of the Vth Dynasty. The pyramids themselves are smaller than those of Geza, but larger than those of Sakkera. In general appearance and effect they resemble those of Geza,
but they are not so imposing, as the desert here is low. Those of Geza, Sakkera, and Dasher owe much of their impressiveness to the fact that they are placed at some height above the cultivated land. The excavation and planning of these pyramids were carried out by Messrs. Borchardt and Schefer at the expense of Baron von Bissing, the well-known Egyptologist
of Munich, and of the Deutsch-Orient Gesell-schaft of Berlin. The antiquities found have been divided between the museums of Berlin and Cairo.

Memphis (of ancient) Eygpt

It may be that a town of the Northerners existed here before the time of the Southern Conquest, for Phtah, the local god of Memphis, has a very marked character of his own, quite different from that of Khen-tamenti, the Osiris of Abydos. He is always represented as a little bow-legged hydrocephalous dwarf very like the Phoenician _Kabeiroi_. It may be that here is another connection between the Northern Egyptians and the Semites. The name "Phtah," the "Opener," is definitely Semitic. We may then regard the dwarf Phtah as originally a non-Egyptian god of the Northerners, probably Semitic in origin, and his town also as antedating
the conquest. But it evidently was to the Southerners that Memphis owed its importance and its eventual promotion to the position of capital of the united kingdom. Then the dwarf Phtah saw himself rivalled by another Phtah of Southern Egyptian origin, who had been installed at Memphis by the Southerners. This Phtah was a sort of modified edition of Osiris, in mummy form and holding crook and whip, but with a refined edition of the Kabeiric head of the indigenous Phtah. The actual god of "the White Wall" was undoubtedly confused vith the dead god of the necropolis, whose name was Seker or Sekri (Sokari), "the Coffined." The original
form of this deity was a mummied hawk upon a coffin, and it is very probable that he was imported from the South, like the second Phtah, at the time of the conquest, when the great Northern necropolis began to grow up as a duplicate of that at Abydos. Later on we find Seker
confused with the ancient dwarf-god, and it is the latter who was afterwards chiefly revered as Phtah-Socharis-Osiris, the protector of the necropolis, the mummied Phtah being the generally recognized ruler of the City of the White Wall.

It is from the name of Seker that the modern Sak-kera takes its title. Sakkera marks the central point of the great Memphite necropolis, as it is the nearest point of the western desert to Memphis. Northwards the necropolis extended to Griza and Abu Roesh, southwards, to Daslmr;
even the necropoles of Lisht and Medem may be regarded as appanages of Sakkera. At Sakkera itself Tjeser of the IIId Dynasty had a pyramid, which, as we have seen, was probably not his real tomb (which was the great mastaba at Bet Khallef), but a secondary or sham tomb
corresponding to the "tombs" of the earliest kings at Umm el-Ga'ab in the necropolis of Abydos. Many later kings, however, especially of the Vith Dynasty, were actually buried at Sakkera. Their tombs have all been thoroughly described by their discoverer, Prof. Maspero, in his history. The last king of the Hid Dynasty, Snefru, was buried away down south at Medem, in splendid isolation, but he may also have had a second pyramid at Sakkera or Abu Roash.

The kings of the IVth Dynasty were the greatest of the pyramid builders, and to them belong the huge edifices of Griza. The Vth Dynasty favoured Abuser, between Ceza and Sakkera; the Vith, as we have said, preferred Sakkera itself. With them the end of the Old Kingdom and of Memphite dominion was reached; the sceptre fell from the hands of the Memphite kings and was taken up by the princes of Herakleopolis (Ahnasyet el-Medina, near Beni Suef, south of the Eayyem) and Thebes. Where the Herakleopolite kings were buried we do not know; probably somewhere in the local necropolis of the Gebel es-Sedment, between Ahnasya and the Fayyem. The first ThePublish Postbans (the XIth Dynasty) were certainly buried at Thebes, but when the Herakleopolites had finally disappeared, and all Egypt was again united under one strong sceptre, the Theban kings seem to have been drawn northwards. They removed to the seat of the dominion of those whom they had supplanted, and they settled in the neighbourhood
of Herakleopolis, near the fertile province of the Fayyem, and between it and Memphis. Here, in the royal fortress-palace of Itht-taui, "Controlling the Two Lands," the kings of the XIIth Dynasty lived, and they were buried in the necropoles of Dasher, Lisht, and Illahun (Hawara), in pyramids like those of the old Memphite kings. These facts, of the situation of Itht-taui, of their burial in the southern an ex of the old necropolis of Memphis, and of the fori of their tombs (the
true Upper Egyptian and Thebian form was a rock-cut gallery and chamber driven deep into the hill), show how solicitous were the Amenemhats and Senusrets of the suffrages of Lower Egypt, how anxious they were to conciliate the ancient royal pride of Memphis.

Memphis (of ancient) Eygpt

Memphis, the "beautiful abode," the "City of the White Wall," is said to have been founded by the legendary Menes, who in order to build it diverted the stream of the Nile by means of a great dyke constructed near the modern village of Koshesh, south of the village of Mitrahena,
which marks the central point of the ancient metropolis of Northern Egypt. It may be that the city was founded by Aha or Narmer, the historical originals of Mena or Menes; but we have another theory with regard to its foundation, that it was originally built by King Merpeba Atjab, whose tomb was also discovered at Abydos near those of Aha and Narmer. Merpeba is the oldest king whose name is absolutely identified with one occurring in the XIXth Dynasty king lists and in Manetho. He is certainly the "Merbap" or "Merbepa" ("Merbapen") of the lists and the _Miebis_ of Manetho. In both the lists and in Manetho he stands fifth in order from Mena, and he was therefore the sixth king of the Ist Dynasty. The lists, Manetho, and the small monuments in his own tomb agree in making him the immediate successor of Semti Den (Ousaphaes), and from the style of these latter it is evident that he comes after Tja, Tjer,
Narmer, and Aha. That is to say, the contemporary evidence makes him the fifth king from Aha, the first original of "Men?s."

Now after the piety of Seti I had led him to erect a great temple at Abydos in memory of the ancient kings, whose sepulchres had probably been brought to light shortly before, and to compile and set up in the temple a list of his predecessors, a certain pious snobbery or snobbish
piety impelled a worthy named Tunure, who lived at Memphis, to put up in his own tomb at Sakkera a tablet of kings like the royal one at Abydos. If Osiris-Khentamenti at Abydos had his tablet of kings, so should Osiris-Seker at Sakkera. But Tunure does not begin his list with Mena;
his initial king is Merpeba. For him Merpeba was the first monarch to be commemorated at Sakkera. Does not this look very much as if the strictly historical Merpeba, not the rather legendary and confused Mena, was regarded as the first Memphite king? It may well be that it was in the reign of Merpeba, not in that of Aha or Narmer, that Memphis was founded.

The XIXth Dynasty lists of course say nothing about Mena or Merpeba having founded Memphis; they only give the names of the kings, nothing more. The earliest authority for the ascription of Memphis to "Menes", is Herodotus, who was followed in this ascription, as in many other matters, by Manetho; but it must be remembered that Manetho was writing for the edification of a Greek king (Ptolemy Philadelphus) and his Greek court at Alexandria, and had therefore to evince a respect for the great Greek classic which he may not always have really felt. Herodotus is not, of course, accused of any wilful misstatement in this or in any other matter in which his accuracy is suspected. He merely wrote down what he was told by the Egyptians themselves, and Merpeba was sufficiently near in time to Aha to be easily confounded with him by the scribes of the Persian period, who no doubt ascribed everything to "Mena" that was done by the kings of the Ist and IId Dynasties. Therefore it may be considered quite probable that the "Menes" who founded Memphis was Merpeba, the fifth or sixth king of the Ist Dynasty, whom Tunure, a thousand years before the time of Herodotus and his informants, placed at the head of the Memphite "List of Sakkera." The reconquest of the North by Khesekhemui doubtless led to a further strengthening of Memphis; and it is quite possible that the deeds of this king also contributed to make up the sum total of those ascribed to the Herodotean and Manethonian Menes.

THREE EGYPTIAN DYNASTIES ( of 1900) (Pt.9)

In 1904 Prof. Petrie was despatched to Sinai by the Egypt Exploration Fund, in order finally to record the inscriptions of the early kings in the Wadi Maghara, which had been lately very much damaged by the operations of the turquoise-miners. It seems almost incredible that ignorance and vandalism should still be so rampant in the twentieth century that the most important historical monuments are not safe from desecration in order to obtain a few turquoises, but it is so. Prof. Petrie's expedition did not start a day too soon, and at the suggestion of Sir William Garstin, the adviser to the Ministry of the Interior, the majority of the inscriptions have been removed to the Cairo Museum for safety and preservation. Among the new inscriptions discovered is one of Sa-nekht, which is now in the British Museum. Tjeser and Sa-nekht were
not the first Egyptian kings to visit Sinai. Already, in the days of the 1st Dynasty, Semerkha had entered that land and inscribed his name upon the rocks. But the regular annexation, so to speak, of Sinai to Egypt took place under the Memphites of the Hid Dynasty.

With the Hid Dynasty we have reached the age of the pyramid-builders. The most typical pyramids are those of the three great kings of the IVth Dynasty, Khufu, Khafra, and Menkaura, at Giza near Cairo. But, as we have seen, the last king of the Hid Dynasty, Snefru, also had one
pyramid, if not two; and the most ancient of these buildings known to us, the Step-Pyramid of Sakkera, was erected by Tjeser at the beginning of that dynasty. The evolution of the royal tombs from the time of the 1st Dynasty to that of the IVth is very interesting to trace. At the
period of transition from the predynastic to the dynastic age we have the great mastaba of Aha at Nakeda, and the simplest chamber-tombs at Abydos. All these were of brick; no stone was used in their construction. Then we find the chamber-tomb of Den Semti at Abydos with a granite floor, the walls being still of brick. Above each of the Abydos tombs was probably a low mound, and in front a small chapel, from which a flight of steps descended into the simple chamber. On one of the little plaques already mentioned, which were found in these tombs, we
have an archaic inscription, entirely written in ideographs, which seems to read, "The Big-Heads (i. e. the chiefs) come to the tomb." The ideograph for "tomb" seems to be a rude picture of the funerary chapel, but from it we can derive little information as to its construction. Towards the end of the Ist Dynasty, and during the lid, the royal tombs became much more complicated, being surrounded with numerous chambers for the dead slaves, etc. Khesekhemui's tomb has thirty-three such chambers, and there is one large chamber of stone. We know of no other
instance of the use of stone work for building at this period except in the royal tombs. No doubt the mason's art was still so difficult that it was reserved for royal use only.

Under the Hid Dynasty we find the last brick mastabas built for royalty, at Bet Khallef, and the first pyramids, in the Memphite necropolis. In the mastaba of Tjeser at Bet Khallef stone was used for the great portcullises which were intended to bar the way to possible plunderers
through the passages of the tomb. The Step-Pyramid at Sakkera is, so to speak, a series of mastabas of stone, imposed one above the other; it never had the continuous casing of stone which is the mark of a true pyramid. The pyramid of Snefru at Medem is more developed. It also originated in a mastaba, enlarged, and with another mastaba-like erection on the top of it; but it was given a continuous sloping casing of fine limestone from bottom to top, and so is a true pyramid. A discussion of recent theories as to the building of the later pyramids of the IVth Dynasty will be found in the next chapter.

In the time of the Ist Dynasty the royal tomb was known by the name of Protection around the Hawk, i.e. the king"(_Sa-ha-heru_); but under the Hid and IVth Dynasties regular names, such as "the Firm," "the Glorious," "the Appearing," etc., were given to each pyramid.

We must not omit to note an interesting point in connection with the royal tombs at Abydos, In that of King Khent or Tjer (the reading of the ideograph is doubtful) M. Amelineau found a large bed or bier of granite, with a figure of the god Osiris lying in state sculptured in high relief upon it. This led him to jump to the conclusion that he had found the tomb of the god Osiris himself, and that a skull he found close by was the veritable cranium of the primeval folk-hero, who,
according to the euhemerist theory, was the deified original of the god. The true explanation is given by Dr. Wallis Budge in his History of Egypt, i, p. 19. It is a fact that the tomb of Tjer was regarded by the Egyptians of the XIXth Dynasty as the veritable tomb of Osiris. They thought they had discovered it, just as M. Amelineau did. When the ancient royal tombs of Umm el-Ga'ab were rediscovered and identified at the beginning of the XIXth Dynasty, and Seti I built the great temple of Abydos to the divine ancestors in honour of the discovery, embellishing it with a relief of himself and his son Ramses making offerings to the names of his predecessors (the "Tablet of Abydos "), the name of King Khent or Tjer (which is perhaps the really correct original form) was read by the royal scribes as "Khent" and hastily identified with the
first part of the name of the god _Khent-amenti_ Osiris, the lord of Abydos. The tomb was thus regarded as the tomb of Osiris himself, and it was furnished with a great stone figure of the god lying on his bier, attended by the two hawks of Isis and Nephthys; ever after the site was
visited by crowds of pilgrims, who left at Umm el-Ga'ab the thousands of little votive vases whose fragments have given the place its name of the "Mother of Pots." This is the explanation of the discovery of the "Tomb of Osiris." We have not found what M. Amelineau seems rather naively to have thought possible, a confirmation of the ancient view that Osiris was originally a man who ruled over Egypt and was deified after his death; but we have found that the Egyptians themselves were more or less euhemerists, and did think so.

It may seem remarkable that all this new knowledge of ancient Egypt is derived from tombs and has to do with the resting-places of the kings when dead, rather than with their palaces or temples when living. Of temples at this early period we have no trace. The oldest temple in
Egypt is perhaps the little chapel in front of the pyramid of Snefru at Medem. We first hear of temples to the gods under the IVth Dynasty, but of the actual buildings of that period we have recovered nothing but one or two inscribed blocks of stone. Prof. Petrie has traced out the plan
of the oldest temple of Osiris at Abydos, which may be of the time of Khufu, from scanty evidences which give us but little information. It is certain, however, that this temple, which is clearly one of the oldest in Egypt, goes back at least to his time. Its site is the mound called Kom es-Sultan, "The Mound of the King," close to the village of el-Kherba, and on the borders of the cultivation northeast of the royal tombs at Umm el-Oa'ab.

Of royal palaces we have more definite information. North of the Kom es-Sultan are two great fortress-enclosures of brick: the one is known as Senet es-Zebeb, "the Storehouse of Dried Orapes;" the other is occupied by the Coptic monastery of Der Anba Muses. Both are certainly
fortress-palaces of the earliest period of the Egyptian monarchy. We know from the small record-plaques of this period that the kings were constantly founding or repairing places of this kind, which were always great rectangular enclosures with crenelated brick walls like those of
early Babylonian buildings.

We have seen that the Northern Egyptian possessed similar fortress-cities which were captured by Narmer. These were the seats of the royal residence in various parts of the country. Behind their walls was the king's house, and no doubt also a town of nobles and retainers, while the peasants lived on the arable land without.

The Shenet ez-Zebeb and its companion fortress were evidently the royal cities of the 1st and IId Dynasties at Abydos. The former has been excavated by Mr. E. R. Ayrton for the Egypt Exploration Fund, under the supervision of Prof. Petrie. He found jar-sealings of Khesekhemui and Perabsen. In later times the place was utilized as a burial-place for ibis-mummies (it had already been abandoned as a city before the time of the XIIth Dynasty), and from this fact it received the name of _Shenet deb-hib_, or "Storehouse of Ibis Burials." The Arab invaders adapted this name to their own language in the nearest form which would have any meaning, as _Shenet ez-Zebeb_, "the Storehouse of Dried Grapes." The Arab word _shena_ ("Barn" or "Storehouse") was, it should be noted, taken over from the Coptic _sheune,_ which is the old-Egyptian _shenet_. The identity of _sheune_ or _shena_ with the German "Scheune" is a
quaint and curious coincidence. In the illustration of the Shenet ez-Zebib the curved line of crenelated wall, following the contour of the hill, should be noted, as it is a remarkable example of the building of this early period.

It will have been seen from the foregoing description of what far-reaching importance the discoveries at Abydos have been. A new chapter of the history of the human race has been opened, which contains information previously undreamt of, information which Egyptologists
had never dared to hope would be recovered. The sand of Egypt indeed conceals inexhaustible treasures, and no one knows what tomorrow's work may bring forth.