 Preface of History of Egypt. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Rick Veena. History of Egypt by F. C. H. Wendell. Preface. In presenting to the public this little book which treats of the history of ancient Egypt from the earliest times to the conquest by Alexander the Great, my object has been twofold. First, to give to American readers a brief account of Egyptian history which would be as reliable as the present state of Egyptological science permits. And second, to create a deeper interest in the study of ancient Egypt. The study of Egyptology is of the greatest importance to the theologist, the historian, the student of civilization, and the art student. In science and art, Egypt was the teacher of Greece. Even the Greek alphabet is derived from the Egyptian through the medium of the Phoenician. And Greece was the teacher of Europe. The basis of a rational study of Egyptology will always be a thorough knowledge of Egyptian history. Without this, the student cannot properly understand the development of Egypt's civilization, of its science, its religion, its art, its language, and its literature. I have in the following pages given as complete a history as the space allotted would permit. In the introductory chapter, I have not been able to give as much space as I should have wished to the subjects there treated and have been compelled to confine myself to what was absolutely necessary. Science, art, and literature could not be treated as even a partial account of them would have required too much space. In regard to the sources of my book, I have, as a rule, confined myself to the Egyptian monuments using foreign sources only in emergencies, where no native sources are extant for the period in question. It may appear strange to some readers that I have not treated of the Exodus. This event does not, however, properly belong to Egyptian history. It did not at all affect Egypt, however important it may have been to the Israelites. In my chronology, I have followed Eduard Meyer, the famous German historian, who introduced a system of so-called approximate dates, which are always the latest dates that can be given for an era. Thus, when we say that King Mena ruled about 3200 BC, that King Snefru ruled about 2830 BC, and Pepe I, 2530 BC, we would not by any means imply that these dates are absolutely correct. But we would merely imply that these monarchs could not have ruled after the dates given, though we cannot say how long before these dates they did live. Snefru may even have ruled 500 years before 2830 BC, but we have no means of knowing his exact date. From the date of Achmes I's accession to the throne, about 1530 BC, Meyer's dates are approximately correct. We know that King Nacho ruled 609-595 BC, that Che-shong I lived about 930 BC, that Ramses II lived in the 13th, and Tutmosis III in the 15th century BC. But we know, as an absolute certainty, nothing more. These approximate dates are, however, such a convenience that it would be well to adopt them until we can give the exact dates. The maps here given have been most carefully prepared and will, I hope, greatly assist the reader in understanding the history of the great campaigns. With these few prefatory remarks, I submit this booklet to the judgment of the public, and if I succeed in the twofold object of spreading the truth so far as discoverable, and creating a deeper interest in ancient Egypt, I shall rest content. F-C-H Wendell A-M-P-H-D End of preface. Chapter 1 Part 1 of History of Egypt This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Rick Veena History of Egypt by F-C-H Wendell Chapter 1 Part 1 Introductory Section 1 The Ancient Geography of Egypt Egypt lies in the northeastern corner of Africa between the twenty-fourth and the thirty-second degrees of north latitude. It is bounded on the east by Asia and the Red Sea, on the south by a line drawn east and west through Aswan on the first cataract, on the west by the desert of Sahara, and on the north by the Mediterranean Sea. This tract of country is five hundred and twenty miles long and on an average one hundred and sixty miles wide. The area of the entire country is about one hundred thousand square miles, or about two and a half times that of Ohio. But the whole of this country is not cultivable. By far the larger part is desert, on the west a low arid sandy plain, on the east an arid mountain region. Only the immediate valley of denial is arable soil, and this is a very narrow strip which between Aswan and Delta never exceeds fifteen miles in width, and at places is only two miles wide. In the Delta there is a far wider stretch of cultivable land, owing to the fact that the Nile here divides into numerous branches. But even here all the land is not available for cultivation, owing to numerous great swamps and large lakes. In antiquity the greater part of the Delta was swamp and meadowland, and its chief value lay in the fact that it was a good grazing country, and that its swamps and lakes made fine hunting grounds, abounding as they did in all sorts of aquatic birds. The lakes were full of fish, so that fishing was added to grazing and hunting, and thus the country possessed considerable resources even before agriculture became profitable. It is well known that Egypt owes this strip of good land to the Nile. This remarkable river, which rises in the Nianza Lakes in tropical Africa, and has several branches which come from the Ethiopic Highlands, is annually swollen by the rains which prevail in the tropics during the rainy season. Already in June the river begins to rise and continues to swell until about September 15th when it reaches the High Water Mark. It then remains stationary until late in October when it begins to fall, and by January the river is again at its old level. So important was this rise of the Nile to the entire population that the ancient Egyptians made the day on which the river attained its highest level, September 15th, their New Year's Day, called in Egyptian, Up Rampet. The inundation brought coolness, humidity, and fertility. The river brought down from the Ethiopian Highlands vast masses of mud which it deposited on the Egyptian soil when it inundated the land, and which remained there when the water receded. Thus an alluvial soil of great depth and richness was produced. The full benefits of the inundation could not, however, be gained without hard work on the part of the dwellers in the Nile Valley. As rain was, in antiquity, almost entirely wanting in Egypt, a carefully arranged system of irrigation was necessary to convey the much needed moisture to the more remote fields. The digging of canals from the river and building of reservoirs were not easy work, and moreover, the overflow had to be carefully regulated in accordance with the character of the various fields should the full results be obtained. Thus we see that the Egyptian farmer could not sit with folded arms and let his generous river do the work for him. He had to be up and doing from early morning to late at night to reap the full benefits obtainable from his wonderful stream. Before we touch the old geographical division of the country, we may well say a few words of the character of the rocky highlands that fringe the Nile Valley. At the first cataract, the river breaks through a vast granite barrier that here crosses the Nubian sandstone deposit. At this place, the Egyptians had established, already in the times of King Chufu, about 2,800 B.C., great quarries from which they took their supply of granite. In the same neighborhood, Basalt, too, was quarried about this time. The Nubian sandstone then continues as far north as Silsile, where the Egyptians early worked sandstone quarries. The character of the hills now changes, a little to the north of Silsile, the sandstone giving place to a tertiary pneumolytic limestone, which formation continues on both sides of the Nile, on the west to the Mediterranean, on the east to Memphis, whence it strikes off to the northeast. These rocky hills seldom reach and never exceed the moderate height of 600 to 800 feet. The character of the mountain region between the Nile and the Red Sea is, however, vastly different. Here we meet with grand and imposing mountain scenery, the bold, many-colored mountain peaks, often reaching a height of 6,000 feet. These mountains consist of crystalline rock, granite, niece, porphyry, diorite, and others. Several valleys lead from the Nile into this region. The most important of these is the Wadi Hamamat, the Rohanu of the ancient Egyptians, a valley extending from Kenai on the Nile to Kosur on the Red Sea. This valley was used in antiquity as a trade route between the Nile valley and the sea, the point of departure being, in olden times, the city of Kebti, the Coptos of the Greeks, the modern Kouft, and the Red Sea port being someplace near the modern Kosur. For a time it was at the extremity of the Wadi Gassous, north of Kosur. This valley had, in antiquity, a further significance. Midway between the Nile and the Red Sea, the Egyptians worked in very early times diorite quarries of considerable extent. So much for the general character of the land. We now turn to a consideration of the ancient geography. The Egyptian official name of the state was Taoui, both lands, that is, both north and south Egypt. The name Kemet, the black land, was also often used, though not in state documents. From this name was derived the Coptic name of the country, Keme and Sahidic, Shemi and Boharic, from which the latter form was derived the Hebrew Ham. The country was divided into two parts, the south, known in Egyptian as Res, or Kemet, the south, and as Patres, the south land. Which latter name gave rise to the Hebrew, Patros, the, Peter's note, name in Greek letters, of the Septuaginta, and the north, designated in the Egyptian as Meta, the north, and Patamera. The south included all the land from Aswan to Memphis, the north, all of the delta. Why this division was made we shall see in section 3. Each of these countries was divided into a number of small districts, which we are accustomed to designate as gnomes, generally given as 42 in number, 22 in upper, and 20 in lower Egypt. I here enumerate the 22 upper Egyptian and the principal lower Egyptian gnomes, going from south to north, and stating as briefly as possible what interest attaches to each. One, the southernmost gnome, Tachont, extended from Aswan to Silsile. Its chief town was the city of Abu, Greek Elephantine, situated on an island in the Nile. Opposite this city on the riverbank lay the town of Swen, where the old granite quarries were situated. Swen became in Greek Syen, and from this, by prefixing the article, the Arabs made As-Swan. On the northern boundary of the gnome lay the sandstone quarries of Silsile. The deity worshiped in this gnome was the god Knum. Two, the second gnome was called Tess Hore. Its capital and religious center was the famous old town of Dabot, the modern Edfu, where the well-preserved ruins of the temple erected by the Ptolemies to the local divinity, Hore de Beti, a form of the god Horus, still excite the admiration of the beholder. Three, the third gnome, Ten, with the capital Nekabet, the modern Elkab, Greek Elethea, the home of the old Tuchelar deity of Upper Egypt, the goddess Nekabet, had for local deity the god Chinum. Two other cities of importance were situated in this gnome, Enet, the modern Esne, where there stands a fairly preserved temple built in Ptolemaic times, and the city of An, called An of the god Mont, in contra-distinction to An Heliopolis, the city of Ra in Lower Egypt. It is the Greek Hermontes, an Arabic hermit. Four, now follows the fourth gnome, Oeset, the capital of which was the famous city of Oeset, commonly known by its Greek name Thebes. Its chief divinity was Amon. Mentu was worshipped in the southern portion. Five, Horui, the capital of which was the city of Kabti, situated on the Nile at the entrance to the Wadi Hamamat, of which we have spoken above. The local divinity was the god Min. Six, Eati, had chiefly religious importance. Its capital, Ta-ent Terair, modern Dendera, Greek Tentiras, was the home of the great goddess Hathor. Her temple, built by the Ptolemies, is fairly preserved. Seven, the gnome Setchum, the capital of which was Hath. Diaspolis Parva had the same local divinity, Hathor. Eight, Opt was one of the most important gnomes. Its capital was Abdu, Abedas, the seat of the Assyrus religion, an alleged burial place of the god. Nine, the ninth gnome, Min, with the capital Pur Min, house of Min, Greek Panopolis, had but little importance. Ten, this gnome called Ootget, the capital of which was Debu, Aphroditopolis, worshiped the goddess Hathor, the district Natarui, with the capital Duka, and the god Horus, formed part of it. Eleven, the eleventh gnome Set, the capital of which was Shashhotep, was devoted to the god Shnum. Twelve, Duaefu, had as capital the town of Nutt and Beck, and worshiped the god Horus. The chief importance of this gnome lay in its valuable alabaster quarries, which were worked in very early times near the ancient city of Hathnub, the modern Ebnub. Thirteen, the gnome Atefchont, the capital of which was the old city of Sayut, Sayet, a town that in the Middle Empire, 2100 to 1900 B.C., was of considerable importance, owing to the influential and powerful position depied by its nomarchoi. It was the chief seat of the cult of the jackal-headed god of the dead, Anubis. Fourteen, Atefpe, was unimportant, its capital was Kesi, Kusse, and its deity Hathor. Fifteen, the gnome of Owen, had for capital the city of Chamunu, Greek Hermopolis, modern Eshmunin, which derived its name from the fact that it was the seat of the eight gods of the elements, so called. The chief divinity of the gnome was the god of wisdom, thought. Sixteen, Memahit was of great importance in the times of the Middle Empire, owing to its influential and mighty nomarchoi, whose tombs were discovered at Bani Hassan. To these tombs which are hewn into the living rock, and the walls of which are covered with important representations and inscriptions, we owe much of what we know of this period. The capital was Hebenu, and the local divinity Horus. Seventeen, the capital of the gnome Anbu was Kasa, Sinanpolis, its god was Anubis. Eighteen, Sopet, the capital of which was Hotbenu, Alibastronpolis, one of the seats of the Anubis cult, was important for its alabaster quarries, which were opened in early times. Nineteen, Oab, the capital of which was the city of Permachit, Aksur Hinchos, was the only gnome where set was worshipped. From this gnome led the roads to the oasis of the eastern Sahara. Twenty, this gnome bore the name Atefchont, its capital was Chen'en-suten, Heracleopolis Magna, a city of great importance in the religion of Egypt, as the god Ra was supposed to have made his first appearance here. The local divinity of the gnome was Horsha, a form of Horus. Twenty-one, Atefpe, had for capital the city of Semenhor, and for local deity the god Chinam. The western part was known as Tash'e, Lakeland, the modern name of the region being Fayum, which is derived from the ancient word Payum, the sea, through the medium of the Bohiric dialect of the Coptic, in which it became Fayum. Here was situated the great reservoir built by Amenhotep, the third. Twenty-two, the northernmost gnome of Upper Egypt was known as Maten, its capital was Tepah, and its local deity, the goddess Hathor. Of the twenty lower Egyptian gnomes, I shall enumerate only the principal ones. One, Anbu Hetched, the gnome of Menephor, Memphis, the city of Ta. Four, Sepires, the gnome of Cheka, Canopus, where Amun Ra was worshipped. Five, Sepiemhet, the gnome of Sa. Saes, where the great goddess Naet was worshipped, the home of the Sametix. Nine, Atchi, the gnome of Per Ussiri, Bucyrus, the city of Osiris. Twelve, Kachip, the gnome of Jebniter, Sabanithos, the home of the god Anher. Thirteen, Hakkad, the gnome of An, Heliopolis, the great seat of the Ra religion. Fourteen, Shantabed, the gnome of Jan, Tannis, where Horus was worshipped. Sixteen, Char, the gnome of Per Banebded, Mendes, the god of which was the sacred ram Banebded. Eighteen, Amchint, the gnome of Per Bastet, Bubastis, the city of the cat-headed goddess Bastet. Nineteen, Ampe, the name of Per Owatje, Buto, where Owatje, the tutular deity of lower Egypt, had her home. Section Two, The Sources of Egyptian History It is needful in a history of Egypt to give a brief summary of the sources from which our knowledge of the facts is derived. These sources are A. National, B. Asiatic, and C. Classical. A. National Sources Before we give any account of the monuments and documents on which by far the greatest part of Egyptian history is based, it may be well to review rapidly the history of the decipherment of the hieroglyphics and to give a brief sketch of the Egyptian system of writing. Already in the Middle Ages, men like Athanasius Kircher attempted to decipher the mysterious picture writing of ancient Egypt, but their interpretations, proceeding from an utter misconception of the true nature of the hieroglyphics, were fantastical and utterly useless. The results attained by these men discredited the study of hieroglyphics, and scholars turned rather to Coptic, the liturgic language of the Christian Church of Egypt, a descendant of the Egyptian tongue, and at the time still a living language. The results attained in this study were later on of great value to the decipherers of the ancient tongue. In August 1799, there was unearthed at Rosetta, a block of black basalt bearing a decree of Ptolemy epiphanies in Greek, hieroglyphics and Demotic, the celebrated Rosetta Stone. Immediately scholars set to work at deciphering the inscription. Thomas Young, an English mathematician, and François Champollion, a French savant, working independently of one another, succeeded at about the same time in deciphering the royal names and the hieroglyphical part. And, to the surprise of all, it was found that the writing was largely phonetic. Champollion's results were by far the more important, and when, ten years after his first great discovery, he died in 1832, he had already, correctly given the contents of entire inscriptions and papery, and had laid down the elements of a grammar. Ten years later, Richard Carlepsis, the great German Egyptologist who died some years ago, carried further the work so ably begun by Champollion, and through him the final proof was given that the results so far attained were correct. He discovered in 1867, at Tannis, a trilingual inscription, the so-called Decree of Canopus, the study of which document finally confirmed the results hitherto obtained from the study of the Egyptian texts. Thus the stage of decipherment came to a close. Since then, Abel scholars in all parts of Europe have been adding to our knowledge of Egyptian matters. The Egyptian system of writing appears at first glance to be highly complicated, but it is, in reality, far simpler than it looks. It is a combination of the phonetic, alphabetic, and syllabic, and ideographic systems, to which is added a system of determinatives. The alphabet consists of twenty-two consonants. Vowels are, as in all other, old Semitic languages, not written. The alphabetic and syllabic signs are by far the oldest, the most ancient texts being purely phonetic, containing neither ideograms nor determinatives. Owing to the fact that the vowels were not written, confusion early arose among words having the same consonants, but different significations, and in all probability, pronounced with different vowels. To obviate this difficulty, the Egyptians early invented a system of determinatives. A determinative is the picture of an object placed after the word, signifying the object in question. Determinatives are either generic or specific. The generic determinative is the picture of some object which is characteristic of a group. Thus, after the names of animals, we frequently find the picture of a piece of skin. After abstract words and verbs, we find the picture of a papyrus roll. And after the names of foreign countries, we find the picture of a range of hills. The specific determinative is the picture of the object that the word denotes. Thus, after the word hetra, signifying horse, the picture of a horse was often placed. After the word abu, denoting panther, we often find a picture of that animal. After the word romet, man, we find the picture of a man, as also after the names of males. After the word suten, king, we find the picture of a king. After the word hemet, woman, the names of females and goddesses, we find the picture of a woman. And after the names of cities, we find the plan of a city. From these determinatives arose, in course of time, ideograms or word pictures. Thus, the plan of a city, originally the determinative of the word nut, city, came with time to stand for the word itself, which is never written phonetically. The picture of a bee, originally the determinative of the word afet, honey, came with time to be used as the ideogram for that word. The figure of a man walking with a long staff, originally the determinative of the word sir, prince, later on was used as an ideogram. Many other examples could be given, but these will illustrate the general principle. In Ptolemaic times, the ideograms were greatly multiplied, many texts being written almost entirely in ideograms. It must, however, always be borne in mind that the writing was originally phonetic and not ideographic. The writing, too, has a history of its own. In the oldest times, the writing was purely hieroglyphical. Hieroglyphics were written as early as 4000 BC, if not earlier, and continued in use, far into the times of the Roman emperors. These hieroglyphics were originally finely executed in every detail, and this remained a custom on all government monuments so long as hieroglyphics were used. But it was early found that the full hieroglyphics, while admirably adapted for inscriptions on stone, were too cumbersome for writing on papyrus, or mummy-bands, which were of linen. So an abridged or cursive form that we call linear hieroglyphics was invented. These linear hieroglyphics are merely the characteristic outlines of the full signs. They remained in use all through Egyptian history for religious texts written on papyrus and mummy-bands. About 1700 BC, a new method of writing came into vogue for profane writings. This new method, which still further abridged the hieroglyphics, is called hieratic. The older form of this hieratic, still in some measure, resembles the linear hieroglyphical writing from which it was derived. Some 400 years this method seems to have been in use, when a new system came into being, which is also called hieratic, but differs materially from the older style, from which it is abridged. In that, it is far less cumbersome, omitting many of the details found in the older hieratic, and being thus far more suitable for rapid writing. From this newer hieratic was derived the phonation alphabet, from which the Greek alphabet was derived. This form of the hieratic is thus the ancestor of our alphabet. This style of writing remained in fashion many hundred years as the cursive script used on papyrus, and sometimes even on mummy-bands. The last stage in the development of Egyptian script was reached in the Demotic, in the fifth century before the Christian era. This was a still further abridgment of the new hieratic, but it eliminated so many details that very many letters and syllabic signs that had been kept distinct in hieratic became one and the same sign. A fact that renders the reading of Demotic very difficult. The new system had, however, the advantage of being very rapid, and thus it quickly supplanted the hieratic. It remained in use up to the Christian times, when it was supplanted by the Coptic script, which was modeled after the Greek. The reader must not, however, imagine that these changes were sudden. One led gradually to the other. Thus the old full hieroglyphics were abridged in the linear hieroglyphics. From these was developed the old hieratic, from this the new hieratic, and this becoming gradually more and more cursive led over to the Demotic. We now pass to a consideration of the Egyptian sources from which our knowledge of the facts of Egyptian history is derived. The texts, which are of primary importance, are the lists of kings compiled in antiquity. The most important of these is the so-called Turin Papyrus of kings, which gives a list of Egyptian kings from the earliest times to the times of the 16th dynasty, about 1700 B.C. Including the earlier kings of this dynasty, in which it was most probably written. This list is chronological. The duration of the reign of each king in years, months, and days being given after his name. Unfortunately, however, the Papyrus is fragmentary, having been broken into 164 small pieces on the way to Turin. Professor Seyfarth conferred a lasting benefit on historical science by arranging, numbering, and mounting these fragments, thus preserving this valuable document. The second list of importance is that discovered in the Temple of Osiris in Abidus. This list contains the names of 75 predecessors of Sedi I, about 1320 B.C., arranged in chronological order. The third list was discovered in a private tomb dating from the time of Ramses II, 1300-1230 B.C. It enumerates 47 kings. The last important list is that found in Carnac, which enumerates 61 predecessors of Tutmosis III, 1480-1430. Besides these, a number of smaller and less important lists have been discovered. Next in importance to the lists stand the official inscriptions of the kings. The pharaohs were in the habit of inscribing on the walls of the temples they erected to the gods, long accounts of their deeds. In order to be able to give a full account of their campaigns, the kings were accompanied by scribes, specially detailed to write down the history of these campaigns. Their accounts were then copied on the temple walls. Great paintings illustrating the principal events of a campaign covered the space not occupied by the inscriptions in that part of the temple allotted to the annals. These inscriptions were divided into two parts, the date on which followed as a rule, a laudatory hymn to the king, and the account of the campaign. These texts give a chronological account of the campaigns of the king, often going into the details of the march and of the various battles. Among the most interesting of these inscriptions is a copy of the Treaty of Peace and Alliance between Ramses II and Chedasar, King of the Chedda, which was originally engraved on a silver plate, and from this was copied on the outer wall of the temple of Karnak, where it has been completely preserved. Of importance are further royal decrees, which are frequently found inscribed on stelae and temple walls. Reports of buildings erected by the kings and of expeditions undertaken at their command are not unfrequent. Several of the latter the reader will meet with later on. The most important report of all is that which Ramses III, about 1180 to 1148 BC, gave of his reign, and which is preserved in the so-called Papyrus Harris I. It is a comprehensive account of Ramses' architectural enterprises, his expeditions, and his gifts to the temples. In addition, it gives a brief review of the state of Egypt immediately before the reign of the king's father, Settnecht. Lists of conquered nations are also of frequent occurrence, but often possess very little value. The most valuable of these lists is that of Tutmosis III, which gives the names of from 300 to 400 conquered nations and cities, lying mostly in Asia. Later lists, as those of Settie I and Ramses II, enumerating over a hundred countries, and that of Sheshong I, which gives an equal number, are frequently copied in part from the lists of Tutmosis III, and can be used only with the utmost caution. The oldest example of such a list is a stell of Ussertesen I, which enumerates the Negro tribes conquered by him. Scarabe are seldom of historical value, though some belonging to the reign of Amenhotep III are important, namely those noticing his marriage with Queen T, and those giving accounts of his hunting exploits. Of great importance are the tombs of the nobles. These tombs had attached to them funereal chapels, the walls of which were covered with paintings and inscriptions, giving a brief biographical sketch of the individual buried in the tomb, enumerating his titles, his possessions, and all his exploits. These inscriptions are of great value. To them we owe all that we know of the Egyptian civilization, and often all the historical knowledge we possess of entire epics. CONFER THE CASE OF THE UNA INSCRIPTION, PAGE 42 END OF CHAPTER I, PART I RECORDING BY RICK VINA HISTORY OF EGYPT BY F. C. H. WENDELL First among these we must mention the Bible. The sacred writings are, as may be expected from their character, not the most copious or important sources of Egyptian history. The first two books, Genesis and Exodus, frequently mention Egypt, but they are concerned only with the fate of the Hebrews who dwelt in Egypt, and do not go into Egyptian history. In the books of the kings, and in chronicles, frequent allusions are made to Egyptian history, and what we find here is always confirmed by the monuments. The prophets, especially Ezekiel and Jeremiahs, frequently allude to contemporaneous Egyptian history. Of greater importance are the Assyrian inscriptions. These inscriptions shed light on a period of Egyptian history, of which we know nothing from the national monuments. I refer to the period of the Assyrian invasions in the 7th century B.C. The Assyrian kings, whose inscriptions are of importance in this connection, are Tiglath Pilisar III, Sargon II, San Herib, and Assurbanipal. Next in importance are the inscriptions of King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon, who invaded Egypt in the 6th century B.C. C. Classical Sources Of the host of classical writers who wrote on Egypt, I give in the following only the principal ones. The book that long stood unchallenged as a source of Egyptian history is the Historia of Herodotus of Hallucarnassus. The study of the monuments has, however, revealed great errors in this work, and has proved it to be utterly untrustworthy as history. Herodotus' great fault was that he believed all the stories his guides told him, some of which are so improbable, that we are surprised to find that so intelligent a man, as our author was, should have believed them at all. He visited Egypt about 450 B.C. at a time when it was under Persian rule, and probably never got farther south than Memphis. What he saw he described accurately, and that part of his history, which relates to the times of the last Sametics and the Persian rulers of the land, is perfectly reliable. His book is the book of a tourist, and all his faults are the faults of a tourist who travels in a strange and wonderful land without any knowledge of the language, and having but a short time to do the sites. Another reason why the book is in great part unreliable is because the Greeks, believing the Egyptians possessed of a deep and mysterious learning, and having some dim tradition of the fact that their arts and sciences were originally derived from Egypt, though they had already far surpassed their teachers, sought to derive their entire civilization, their religion and philosophy, which were purely native, as well as art and science, which had indeed received their first impulse from Egypt, from the mystic lore of that most ancient land. The Egyptian priests, with whom the Greek tourists came into contact, naturally strengthened them in this belief and gave themselves a very mysterious air, thus still more increasing their reputations for learning. One word on the subject of castes may well be said here before we leave Herodotus. From his work, an erroneous impression has crept into many modern books on Egypt that the ancient Egyptians were divided into so-called castes. In ancient Egypt, there existed, of course, the same classes that existed in all ancient monarchies. There was the king and the royal family, the hereditary nobility, the middle class consisting of merchants, farmers, mechanics, from which government officials and priests were recruited as well as from the princes and nobles, the laborers and the slaves. No one was, however, compelled to follow in the footsteps of his father. Thus, if the father was a government official, a priest, an officer, a merchant, a farmer, or a mechanic, the son need not necessarily also be a government official, a priest, an officer, a merchant, a farmer, or a mechanic, but was free to choose his vocation. We have even instances of men of humble birth rising to the highest position in the gift of the crown, and that does not look as though the Egyptians had possessed a system of castes. The most important of these writers is Manetho of Sebenethos. He lived in the third century before the common era, and his book was written about 271 BC, as tradition asserts at the instance of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Manetho was a high priest and temple scribe of Sebenethos, and was thus familiar with the Egyptian language. He was also an Abel classical scholar. Thus, he was fitted for the work of writing an Egyptian history as perhaps no other man than living, his learning giving him access alike to the native monuments and the classic authors, the errors of which latter he attacked. The chief value of the work lay in the fact that, being based on the native sources, it must have been quite reliable. Manetho divided all the kings from Mena to Alexander the Great into 31 so-called dynasties, stating from what part of Egypt the various dynasties came. On what his division is based, we cannot say. It is important to note that the Turin papyrus makes a somewhat different division from his. He also divided Egyptian history into three periods. 1. Old Empire. Dynasties 1-11. 2. Middle Empire. Dynasties 12-19. 3. New Empire. Dynasties 20-30. We retain his terms, but make a somewhat different division, as will be seen in the course of this book. Unfortunately, this important work is lost, and only fragmentary extracts of it have been preserved. The historians who made these extracts were not guided by a true scientific spirit, but took only what happened to suit their immediate purpose, and the extracts frequently conflict with one another in important details. These copyists were Josephus, the Jewish historian, Africanus and Eusebius. Of course, we can form no just estimate of a work preserved in so fragmentary a condition. Deodorus Siculus, who visited Egypt about 57 BC, wrote an account of the country. His work is, however, but little more trustworthy than that of Herodotus. Deodorus seems to have had all of Herodotus' faults, but none of his virtues. Manetho he does not seem to have known. At all events he does not refer to his book. Strabo and Pliny both touch Egyptian history incidentally, but are not trustworthy. Plutarch, who lived in the 2nd century AD, wrote a fair work on Egyptian religion, under the title of Peri Isidos Cae Osiridos. Heropolon Nilois wrote between the years 379 and 395 AD, a work under the title Hieroglyphica, in which he gives mostly correct explanations of such hieroglyphics as frequently occur and Ptolemaic inscriptions. He knew, however, merely the ideographic and not the phonetic value of these hieroglyphs. When we first come upon Egypt, it is a full grown state possessed of a well ordered government, a well organized society, and a civilization of a high order. At the dawn of history the formative period of the nation was over, and Egypt was a finished product. How many centuries the formative period lasted, we cannot say, but we can, from facts observed in the later development of the land and its religion, make some deductions as to the prehistoric conditions of the country. We can even, and that is of great importance, trace in general outline the formative process, the result of which was the Egyptian state. Egypt was not always a single united country, as it was in historic times, but was, for a long time, previous to MENA, divided into two countries, which were entirely independent of one another, and remained so until King MENA united them and founded the Egyptian state about 3200 BC. These two countries were known, even after the Union, as the North and the South, and the official name of the United Kingdom was Taui, both lands, thus preserving the memory that there were originally two countries where in historical times there was but one. One of the King's titles was Sam Taui, uniter of both lands. We can even say what cities were the capitals of the two states. The capital of the South was in all probability, the city of Nekabet, that of the North was the city of Buto. We deduce these facts from the fact that the goddess of Nekabet, whose name was also Nekabet, was regarded in all epics of Egyptian history as the tutular divinity of Upper Egypt, the South, and the goddess of Buto, known originally as the double city of Peh and Deph, and in later times as Per watch, watch was regarded in all epics of Egyptian history as the tutular deity of Lower Egypt, the North. Each of these two countries had its own crown. Lower Egypt a curiously shaped red crown and Upper Egypt a peculiar white crown shaped like one of the pieces used in playing nine pins. When the two countries were united, these two crowns were combined into one as the patient or double crown, the white crown being put inside of the red. These two countries were in themselves composite products resulting from the union of various small districts which we designate as gnomes. That these gnomes were originally independent of one another we can deduce with some degree of certainty from the fact that they retained their autonomy through all epics of Egyptian history, had their own hereditary rulers known as Nomarchoi, their own local governments, and what is most important in this inquiry, their own peculiar religious beliefs. Egyptian tradition naturally ignores this state of things, asserting that the first pharaohs of the land were the gods, that on these succeeded the Shemsuhor, followers of Horus, a sort of Demigods, and on these finally King Mena, that in Mena's time the two countries were united into one was a fact that could not be spirited away by any amount of tradition, so a legend arose to explain the fact that the country was divided before Mena's time, that Horus and Set had divided the country between them. Such a legend which seeks to explain existing conditions we call ideological. The question whether or not the Egyptians were Aborigines has been frequently discussed. The most probable solution of the problem is this. The Egyptians as a race were Aborigines and they always looked upon themselves as such. They designate only their own people as Ramatu, men. The other peoples may be Syrians, Negroes, or Asiatics, but men they are not. It seems probable, however, that these Aborigines were subdued by a small band of invaders who came from southwestern Asia and who, though not strong enough to influence the race, yet were sufficiently powerful to force on the conquered people their language and perhaps some of their religious conceptions. The relations between conqueror and conquered were then pretty much the same as those between the Anglo-Saxons and Aboriginal Brightons and those between the conquering Arabs and the modern Egyptians. Of course this is merely a hypothesis, though it is a very probable one. To speak of a stone age in prehistoric Egypt is entirely out of the way. Stone implements were used for many centuries, even in historic times, and the stone age, if we may speak of one at all, falls within the historic periods. Section 4 A brief sketch of the ancient Egyptian religion. To understand the development of Egyptian religion we must understand the prehistoric conditions sketched above and must have a thorough knowledge of Egyptian history. We would therefore advise our readers to read the history before they read this sketch of the religion of Egypt. The Egyptians were originally what is called animists. That is to say, they believed that just as man is endowed with a soul, so every animal, every plant, I, every inanimate object, is also endowed with a soul, or rather is possessed of a spirit, or demon, which is the cause of the good or evil qualities the animal, plant, or thing in question possesses. The animal, plant, or thing in question thus became the object of a primitive cult with a view to propitiating the same. The two great motives of primitive cults are always love and fear, and of the two, fear is the stronger. The savage is quicker at propitiating an evil spirit in order to preserve himself from harm than at showing gratitude to a benignant one. The early Egyptians worshipped animals and trees with a special fervor. Of the tree cult we do not know more than that every gnome had its sacred trees. That the sycamore was sacred to the goddess Hathor, and that one of the gods bore the name Cheri Baqev, he in his oil tree. That is, the spirit dwelling in the oil tree. Of the animal worship we know a little more. Both motives of primitive cults, love and fear, must have operated on the Egyptian mind in this cult. The evil spirits that dwell in the lion, the crocodile, the hippopotamus, must be propitiated, and to this end the animal must be worshipped. The primitive mind cannot abstract the spirit from the animal it has chosen for a dwelling place. Again it can scarce have been fear that impelled the worship of the bull, the cow, and such useful scavengers as the ebby, the vulture, and the sparrow-hawk. Even in later times, when animism no longer prevailed, some traces of this early animal cult still remained in that various animals were looked upon as sacred to the gods. How the sacred animals came to be connected with their divinities we do not undertake to say. We shall here confine ourselves to an enumeration of the various sacred animals. The oldest and chief of these were the apis, bull sacred to ta, and the nevis, bull sacred to reharmakas. The cow was sacred to isis, hathor, and neptis, the ram to amon and chnum, the cat to ra, soket, bast and tefnut, the lion to poket and soket, the ebby and synocephalus were sacred to thought, the jackal was sacred to anibis, the sparrow-hawk to horus, the vulture to necobet, the asp to watch, and the crocodile to sebac. Frequently the deities were depicted with the heads of their sacred animals, thus horus always has the head of a sparrow-hawk, chnum that of a ram, thought that of an ebby, neptis and hathor are cow-headed, a solar disk being fixed between the horns. Other examples could be given, but these will suffice. From this early animism was developed, in the course of time, a poly-demonism, that is, a belief in many demons or spirits. This is the second stage in religious development. The spirit has been abstracted from the animal, plant, or thing it inhabited and possessed, and has been given a separate, independent existence. From this poly-demonism was later on developed polytheism, or the belief in many gods. How these changes came about we cannot say, for when we first come upon the Egyptian religion, it has gone through all of these stages, but it has retained numerous traces of this early development. This development must have taken place in the various gnomes before their union and independently in each, for they present to us very varied religious beliefs. Each gnome had its own peculiar local divinities and its own local theosophy. The head of the local pantheon had his temple in the local capital. These local divinities were all supreme in their own localities, and it is them that the people worshipped, whatever divinity might be the head of the national pantheon. Every house had attached to it a chapel in which the local divinities were worshipped. These local deities were all, as a matter of policy, recognized by the national government as the guardian deities of their respective localities. The national religion was, in return, recognized by the various local governments, and the head of the national pantheon had dedicated to him a chapel in each of the local temples. The various religions of these gnomes, all in themselves polytheistic, united after the union to form that composite whole, the Egyptian religion, which we may well designate as an agglomerated polytheism. Thus we see that, just as from the union of the gnomes, and finally of upper and lower Egypt, resulted the Egyptian state. So, from a union of the local religions of these gnomes resulted the Egyptian religion. It has been already mentioned above that Necobet was regarded as the garganty divinity of the south, and Wacha as that of the north. In many localities the head of the local pantheon had associated with him two other divinities who shared his eminence and formed with him what we call a triad. Such a triad consisted generally of father, mother, and son. Thus the triad of Memphis embraced Ta, his wife Soket, and their son Imhotep, that of Abidos, Osiris, his wife Isis, and their son Horus, and that of Thebes, Amon, his wife Mut, and their son Chonsu. But we also find triads consisting of one male and two female members, possibly father, mother, and daughter. For example, that of Elephantine, Chinam, Satet, and Anuket. Another combination of gods is the Ennead, or circle of nine gods. The Ennead first appears in the fourth dynasty, about 3000 BC. It consists of nine members, combined in an apparently arbitrary manner. One, Shu, Two, Tefnut, Three, Keb, Four, Nut, Five, Osiris, Six, Isis, Seven, Horus, Eight, Set, Nine, Nephthys. Where Shu and Tefnut are brother and sister, Keb and Nut, man and wife, parents of Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys. Osiris, Isis, and Horus are father, mother, and son, and Set and Nephthys, man and wife. The Ennead was originated by the priests of An Heliopolis, in order to bring into closer connection the various local religions. These priests claim that it was originated by Tum, a solar deity, who was an Heliopolis considered the leader of the Ennead, though standing outside of it. In fact, the Ennead, which had national acceptance, was everywhere assigned a different deity, the head of the local Pantheon as leader, though its membership remained fixed. Except that in later times, Set was eliminated in Horwer, a form of the god Horus, or thought, put in his place. To many of the Egyptian gods, there has been ascribed a cosmological origin. Thus, Ta, of Memphis and Chinum, of Elephantine, were in the very first line considered as world builders, or to use the scientific term as Demi-Urgoy, while the priests of An Heliopolis ascribed the same function to Ra and Tum. But we must not wonder at this multitude of world builders. It is but consistent with the entire character of the Egyptian religion. It is but natural that the important office of world builder should be ascribed in every locality to the head of the local Pantheon. These were not, however, the cosmological gods proper. There was a number of other gods of undoubted cosmological origin that had not the slightest connection with any Pantheon, some of which were worshipped by the people generally, while others were mere speculative deities, the full import of which was known to the priesthood alone. One of the chief divinities of the former class was Ranutet, the goddess of the harvest, who was recognized and worshipped throughout the land. She had her chapels and the granaries and her altars in the open field, and was ardently worshipped by the great landowners as well as by the small farmers. Of her official cult we know nothing. Another popular cosmological figure was Ha Pi, the god of the Nile, of whose cult in the times of the New Empire, B.C. 1530-1050, we are well informed. Hundreds of hymns addressed to him have come down to us, all expressing a fervent devotion and sincere gratitude for his many good offices. Thousands of statuettes representing the god have also been preserved. With time he assumed a national importance rivaled only by the heads of the great national religions, Ta, Ra, Osiris, and Amon. This is but natural, for it is to this stream that Egypt owes all its prosperity, I, its very existence. Min, the agricultural god of Kebti, Coptos V upper Egyptian gnome, also belongs to this class of divinities. A typical representative of the second class is Cepra, the god of the mysterious Becoming. He was a purely theosophical figure and had no hold on the popular mind. Results of cosmological speculation are likewise the eight gods of the elements, so called the Agdoas of Chamunu Hermopolis, the home of thought. They appear in four couples. Keck and Kecket, and four, Nenu and Nenut. Originally, there were only the four male divinities, as they appear in the paintings on the walls of the tomb of Sedi I, died about 1300 B.C. The goddesses are later additions, their names being merely the feminine forms of those of the male divinities. The meaning ascribed to them is this. None is the male generative principle of the universe, the father of Ra. Nut is the female conceptive principle, while together they personify the original chaos. Two, He and Hehet personify eternity. Three, Keck and Kecket, darkness. And four, Nenu and Nenut, moisture. The full development of this curious cosmological doctrine seems to belong to a later theosophy. Another cosmological couple are Shu and his sister, Tefnut. Shu is the god that supports the heavens, and is in all probability a personification of the atmosphere. His sister, Tefnut, owes her existence merely to the desire of giving every god a female companion. Keb and Nut, his wife, are also a cosmological couple. He is a personification of the earth, she of the heavens. They are given a place in one of the acknowledged national religions as parents of Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthis. Egyptian name Nebhat. There were several deities that owed their existence to pure speculation and had, as a rule, no connection with the Pantheons. The most important of these was Mat, the goddess of truth and justice, who is the personification of these qualities. She had national importance as lady patroness of justice and its ministers, the judges, who were all priests of Mat. There is little reason to doubt the statement of Herodotus that the judges wore her picture on their breasts. Of her cult, however, we know nothing. Safcet, the goddess of wisdom, of which she is a personification, was regarded as the wife of thought and was no doubt a very old figure in the Theosophy of Chamunu Hermopolis. Thought himself as a result of speculation, the personification of learning and wisdom, the scribe of the gods, and as such the patron of scribes. He has in this capacity national recognition. His home, Chamunu, seems to have been a great seat of speculative Theosophy. Besides these many divinities, in our space has not permitted us to name more than the most important ones. Untold legions of demons, some attached to a particular Pantheon, others floating about in wild and unrestrained freedom, help to complicate the religion. Osiris alone had forty-two demons attached to his person as associate judges in the court that sat in the lower world, in that part of it known as the Hall of the Two Truths, and tried the departed souls to judge of their worthiness to enter the blessed abodes. Each of these had a peculiarly absurd name, which the dead man had to know, and to each one he had to make a special negative confession. Besides these forty-two judges, unnumbered good and evil spirits, peopled the lower world, all of which the dead man had to know and name at sight. It is only of these spirits of the amentee, as the Egyptians called the lower world, that we know the names, and to some extent the natures. It was, by the by, far more important to know the former than the latter, for by merely calling him by name the dead man could bring to his aid a good spirit or exercise an evil one. To know the demon was to have power over him, so that the outlook of the poor soul was not so bad after all. The rite of circumcision, so extensively practiced by the ancient Egyptians, has been brought into connection with this belief in demons. It is conjectured that this rite was originally a substitute for human sacrifice, which may have been practiced in prehistoric times. Now we inquire in what relation the various local religions stood to one another. Part of them remained in obscurity, having only local significance. Part came with time to have national import, and it is now our object to inquire into the cause of this. Eight of these religions came with time to have national sway, those of Ta of Memphis, of Ra of Heliopolis, Osiris of Abedas, Amon of Thebes, Sebeck of Crocodile Olopolis, Nayit of Seis, Hathor of Dendera, and Horus of Edfu. The causes of this lay partly in the character of the religion itself, partly in the history of the nation. Three religions seemed to have come into prominence much at the same time, those of Ra, Osiris, and Ta. Ra owes his early prominence to the fact that he was the solar deity Par excellence. He was looked upon as the first divine king of Egypt. His religion is of peculiar interest to us, for it finally culminated in a solar monotheism under Amenhotep IV, about 1382 through 1370 BC, who set up Aten, the solar disk, as the supreme and, to a certain extent, the only god of Egypt. After the suppression of this reform, Ra seems rapidly to have lost his national prestige, and to have sunk to the rank of the local deity of Heliopolis, becoming merged with Amon, as Amon Ra. Osiris also owes his early prominence to religious reasons. He was God of the Dead, the ruler of the Amenthi, and as such was a prominent figure in all epics of Egyptian history. Together with him, Horus, and his mother Isis, and Nebat, Nephthys, the sister of Osiris, came into prominence. Set, his brother gained an unenviable notoriety through the Osiris mythology as the evil god, the great enemy of his brother Osiris. Anubis is also drawn into the circle by being made the son of Osiris and Nebat. Ta was originally merely the head of the memphitic pantheon, and as such was no more than the head of any other local pantheon. The rise of Menna, however, the Union of the North and South, and the fact that through this Union, Memphis became the capital of the United Kingdom, gave him a commanding place in the national pantheon. He became the God of the government, and as such the chief God of the nation. And even after Amon had succeeded him in this position, he held a high place in the religion, until under the Ptolemies, he was merged with Osiris into the new God, Serapis, who was imported from Asia Minor and given out as a Union of Osiris and the Apis Bowl, the sacred animal of Ta. The close of the Old Empire, about 2400 BC, there is a gap in Egyptian history, and it is not until 2100 BC that we again stand on firm ground, and then it is Thebes that is the capital of Egypt, and as a consequence the head of its local pantheon, Amon, a deity hitherto obscure, is the official head of the national pantheon. He retained this position throughout the 11th and 12th dynasties, but in the 13th dynasty, about 1930 BC, he seems to have surrendered the supremacy to Sabaq of Crocodilopolis in the Fayyum. Sabaq did not retain his position long, for the 13th dynasty ended in anarchy, and soon after its fall, the Hixos invaded Egypt. For several centuries, the foreign invaders ruled supreme, but about 1530 BC, they were driven out by Achmes I, a Theban king, and Thebes again became the capital of Egypt. As one consequence of this, Amon again became the official head of the pantheon. But about 1400 BC, he was again dethroned, when King Amenhetep IV, Chouinaten, instituted the religious reform above mentioned. Unfortunately, the reform was short-lived, dying soon after its founder. Again, Amon, now called Amonrah, ruled supreme. Through all the vicissitudes of Egyptian history, he held his own, even extending his sway to the neighboring kingdom of Napata, founded in Ethiopia, early in the 10th century BC, probably by the descendants of the priest-kings of dynasty 21, who had been driven from Egypt by Sheshong I, until finally, when Semtec I founded the 26th dynasty, he gave way to Nayit of Seis. She seems to have retained the place at the head of the national pantheon until the times of the Ptolemies, when Hathor of Dendurah and Horus of Edfu shared the supremacy with Serapis. They too finally passed away with the advent of Christianity. Alone, of all the old deities, Isis retained her sway, even in Christian times, well into the 4th century AD, on the island of Philae, but she too finally yielded and passed away before the new religion. Such is as adequate a sketch of the Egyptian religion as can be given in the space allotted. The reader will observe that the religion was not a homogenous whole, the result of a continuous development along one line of thought, but a heterogeneous mass, the resultant of the union of a large number of religions, each of itself polytheistic in nature, and that with so little fusion of the component parts, that we have, all through the history of this curious religion, three or four, and in later times as many as eight, essentially different religions having national recognition, and a large number of local religions running side by side. The reader will further observe that there is no trace of an original monotheism, and that the monotheism which was developed from the Ra religion was a very imperfect one, and was far from being original, the result of many centuries of thought and speculation.