By 4300 B.C. the men of the Delta had divided the year into 365 days, and again into twelve months of thirty days each, with five extra days for sacred festival. For six thousand years, then, the calendar which we use has experienced little change. Take it all in all, the Egyptians of this age had traveled far from the state of savagery.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ROYAL CROWNS.]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Rawlinson; Ancient Egypt, p. 6.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CLEOPATRA.]
CHAPTER II.
SOURCES OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY.
The study of prehistoric man is largely a matter of conjecture and has little interest for any save the archaeologist and antiquarian. There is yet so much uncertainty regarding historic periods in Egypt that the general reader must leave prehistoric ages to others. Reaching authentic ages, in addition to the remains discovered within old tombs, we are aided by written records, and these fall into three cla.s.ses: facts regarding Egypt as recounted in the Old Testament; writings of the Greeks; inscriptions of the ancient Egyptians themselves. The light thrown upon the subject by old Hebrew writers is slight. They chronicled the history of their own people and mentioned other nations only when in some way the Hebrews came into contact with them. Hebrew traditions, customs, and religion differing wholly from those of Egypt, at best there would have been but little understanding between them. Biblical comment upon Egyptian life is slight. In connection with the story of Joseph we find that some facts concerning the land unwittingly creep into the narrative. Modern discovery has verified such facts as are recounted, and buried and forgotten cities have been sought and located from mere mention of them in some Old Testament pa.s.sage. Thus the Bible is rightly included with the sources of Egyptian history.
So far as treatment of Egypt by Greek writers is concerned, we can stop for only the most important. Best known are the works of Herodotus, who lived about five hundred years before the Christian era. He was the first to bring forward the historical style of writing and for this reason he has been called the Father of History.
Herodotus journeyed to Egypt and abode there some little time. He did not understand the language of the country and depended largely upon priests who spoke Greek for his information. He apparently believed all they told him, and likewise accepted the tales with which his guides entertained him, incorporating all their marvelous stories into his writings. Consequently much that is found in his works cannot be credited. Whatever he himself saw and understood he recounted with simplicity and truth, as recent discoveries have proved. It is easy today to point out the failings of Herodotus and to wonder that he was so ready to credit all he heard, but judged by the age in which he lived, his writings may be the better understood. We are told that portions of his works were read by him at the Olympian Games, and that those who listened received his stories with enthusiasm. To the imaginative Greeks no report was too fanciful to find credence. They delighted in the unusual and strange, and they made up the audiences for which Herodotus wrote. It is not surprising, then, that the Father of History brought back to his countrymen the unique stories he heard concerning the Egyptians--a people whose life and customs were thought by foreigners until long years after, to be deeply shrouded in mystery.
More valuable has proved the work of Manetho, an Egyptian priest who wrote in Greek. He is said to have made a complete list of Egyptian kings from records preserved in the temples. This list has been lost and only portions quoted from time to time by later writers have come down to us. These fragments have been of much service to students of Egyptology. It was Manetho who divided the history of his country into three periods: the Old Empire, Middle Empire, and New Empire. He also treated the past by dynasties rather than years. These general divisions have been retained by all subsequent historians. Those who are not specialists in Egyptology are apt to be confused by the widely divergent systems of chronology found in the different histories of Egypt, or they reach the conclusion that all is uncertainty in this field. This is not the place to enter into a discussion of this difficult technical problem. Suffice it to say that in the opinion of the best scholars, Eduard Meyer, the great historian of the Ancient Orient, has said the last word on this subject. Contrary opinions notwithstanding, the accession of Menes and the beginning of the dynasties cannot be placed before 3400 B.C., nor can the beginning of the twelfth dynasty have been earlier than 2000 B.C.*
Coming lastly to monumental inscriptions, we approach the difficulties of the Egyptian language. Let us try to understand why it proved so difficult for scholars who read Hebrew, Greek and Latin, together with some older tongues, to comprehend the language of the Nile dwellers.
In prehistoric times the Egyptians understood one another but it was long before they had any means of expressing their thoughts in writing.
It may have occurred to them finally that the pictures which they drew for decorative purposes might be used to convey messages, and thus they began to express simple meanings, using pictures rather than symbols.
Sometimes to make doubly sure the meaning of several pictures, they added another which combined the meaning of all into one. These added pictures have been called determinitives, and the pictures used to convey meanings in this way are known as hieroglyphics. There was something very attractive and decorative about this method of writing by thus picturing out stories, and it was used extensively in tombs and temples. It became too elaborate, however, for daily use, and gradually only the _main outlines_ of the original pictures were used to represent the idea or word. This system of writing was more practical for constant, everyday needs than the more ornamental hieroglyphics. It is known as the hieratic writing. Finally, late in the history of Egypt, these hieratics were very much abbreviated, mere dots and lines being subst.i.tuted. This cursory system is known as _demotic_ writing. It was adopted by the people generally, and might perhaps be compared to modern shorthand. To make the whole more complicated still, all three methods were used for different purposes contemporaneously.
Hundreds of years pa.s.sed; the language of the ancient Egyptians was forgotten and so, indeed, were the people themselves. In modern times the learning of ancient peoples was revived and their writings eagerly read. Quite naturally students wished to know something of the earliest civilizations, particularly of the civilization of the Nile valley. Here they were confronted by what seemed baffling indeed. Three forms of writing used contemporaneously, even interchangeably, defied all effort to decipher them. Attempts were made to explain certain inscriptions, but these explanations were found later to have been far astray. In 1799, one of Napoleon"s soldiers, while excavating in the mouth of the Rosetta, came upon a stone which bore a royal decree written in three ways: in hieroglyphics, in demotic and in Greek. This supplied a key at last, and scholars set themselves to the task of deciphering ancient Egyptian writings. Other inscriptions written in two or more languages were found and verified the conclusions reached earlier in the translation of the Rosetta Stone.
In recent years a large number of inscriptions from tombs and temples have been read and many rolls of papyrus have been translated. This has enabled historians to read back, step by step, into far away ages, and to carry the thread of Egyptian civilization to its beginnings. Maspero, Eduard Meyer, Breasted, Petrie and other painstaking students of Egyptology have given their lives to the task of unraveling the past, both by deciphering inscriptions and unearthing forgotten cities. From the tireless efforts of men like these, tombs hidden for centuries have been recovered, temples and colonnades laid bare of drifting sands, inscriptions transcribed and translated, and volumes of scholarly material written for the special student, while at the same time the general reader may find much of interest concerning the life of a remarkable people whose works have borne testimony through the ages.
HERODOTUS.
The following lines are taken from the pages of Herodotus wherein he relates what he saw and heard when he visited Egypt nearly twenty-five hundred years ago.
"There is no country in all the whole world that hath in it more marvelous things or greater works of buildings and the like than hath the land of Egypt. And as the heavens in this land are such as other men know not--for in the upper parts there falls not rain but once in a thousand years or more, and in the lower parts not often--and the river is different from all other rivers in the earth, seeing that it overflows in the summer and is at its least in the winter, so also do the manners of the Egyptians differ from the manners of all other men.
For among them the women buy and sell in the market but the men sit at home and spin. And even in this matter of spinning they do not as others, for others push the shuttle in the loom from below upward, but these men push it from above downward. Also the men carry burdens on their heads, but the women carry them on their shoulders. And the women pray to none, neither G.o.d or G.o.ddess, but the men pray to all. And there is no duty laid on a son to succor father or mother, if it be not his pleasure to do it, but on a daughter there is laid, whether she will or no.
"In the matter of mourning for the dead, these folks have a strange custom, for they let grow the hair upon the head and chin when they mourn, but are shaven at other times. And whereas other men hold themselves better than the beasts, the Egyptians have these in great honor, keeping them in their houses, aye, and worshipping them. Nor do they eat the food of other men, holding it a shame to be fed on wheat and barley which others use, and eating the grain of millet only; and the dough that is made of it this they knead, trampling it with their feet; but mud and like things they are wont to take up with their hands....
"Now as to the beasts and the honor in which the Egyptians hold them, there are many strange things to be told. The crocodile some of the Egyptians hold to be sacred, but not all. And in every city where they hold it, as in Thebes and in the cities round the lake Moeris, they keep one crocodile to which they do special honor. This they train to be tame to the hand, and they put earrings of gla.s.s and gold into his ears, and bracelets on his forefeet, and give it a portion of food day by day, and make offerings to it, and when it dies they embalm it and bury it in the sacred sepulchres. But the people that dwell in the city of Elphantine count them not to be sacred at all, but slay and eat them....
"The cat the Egyptians hold in great honor. Of this beast there is a very marvelous thing to be told. When it chanceth that a house is burning a strange madness cometh upon the cats, for they are very desirous to leap into the fire. And the Egyptians set guards round the place if by any means they may keep the cats from their purpose; nor do they care to quench the fire, if so be that they may do this; but the cats nevertheless, making their way through them, or leaping over them, have their will and so perish. Over this the Egyptians make great lamentation. If a cat die in the course of nature, all that are in that house shave their eyebrows only, but all dwellers in a house where a dog dies shave their heads and whole bodies. The cats, when they are dead, they carry away for burial to the city of Bubastis, but the dogs they bury each in the city where he dies, only in the holy sepulchres....
"For food the Egyptians have bread made of millet as has been said before. They have wine made of barley, for the vine groweth not in their land. Of birds they eat doves and pigeons, and such small kinds as there are in the country.
"... Such of the Egyptians as dwell in the marshes of the river have also for food the seed of the water-lilies, which grow abundantly when the river overfloweth the plains. This seed is like to the seed of a poppy, and they make of it loaves which they bake with fire, having first dried it in the sun. Also the root of this water-lily (which they call the lotus) may be eaten, being round, and of the bigness of an apple. Other lilies there are growing in the river, like to roses, which have a fruit very like to a wasp"s comb, and in it many seeds of the bigness of an olive, which the men eat both green and dry. Also these marsh folk gather the reeds, and use the upper part for other things, as for the making of paper and the like, but the lower part, as much as a cubit"s length from the ground they eat.
"All the Egyptians worship not the same G.o.ds, but Isis and Osiris they all worship and this Osiris is the same as he whom the Greeks call Bacchus or Dionysus, and his feast is in all things like to that which the Greeks keep to their G.o.d, only that there is no acting of plays. As for Isis the Greeks call her Demeter, that is to say, being interpreted, Mother Earth....
"Let so much then be said about the Egyptians and their customs and manner of life, and the G.o.ds whom they worship."
[Ill.u.s.tration: EGYPTIAN NUMERATION.]
CHAPTER III.
THE PYRAMID AGE.
Menes was the king who succeeded in accomplishing the unification of Egypt. We are told by Manetho that he was at first chief or governor of the eighth nome of Upper Egypt, whose capital city was Thinis, and being ambitious, subdued the surrounding nomes, until at last all Egypt was brought under his control. No doubt earlier chieftains had begun the work of conquest and left the completion to Menes, whose personality and executive strength were sufficient to efface the reigns of his predecessors.
Having brought the Delta under his control and crowned himself with the white crown of Upper and the red crown of Lower Egypt, Menes realized that a capital for such a straggling kingdom as his would best be centrally located. He therefore fixed upon a site just south of the apex of the delta and built the city of Memphis. Quite possibly there was a settlement here before this time.
It happened that the Nile flowed close to the western hills in this locality. The king knew well that his capital would be safer and the more easily protected were the river between it and possible Asiatic invaders on the east. So he undertook what has ever since been regarded as a bold feat of engineering; he built a high embankment across the Nile and compelled the stream to seek a new course farther east. Filling in the old channel, he built a wall around the new city, caused a temple to be at once erected to Ptah, the ancient deity of the locality, and shortly a town grew up around it. Thus we see the beginnings of the Old Empire, so called by Manetho and subsequent historians. For convenience scholars sometimes group Dynasties I. and II. and Dynasties III. to VI.
together. The first period (3400-2980 B.C.) is called the Thinite age because the rulers of these two dynasties came from Thinis. The name Old Kingdom is then limited to Dynasties III. to VI. (2980-2475 B.C.)
It would be useless for us to attempt to become familiar with all these early kings--some fifty in number--with reigns varying from one to many years. Should we succeed in collecting the meager facts known of each we would have little to repay us for our trouble. It is more to the purpose that we know something about the period as a whole--its general characteristics and attainments.
During this period hieroglyphic writing became widely used, having been but rarely known before the age of Menes. A line of forts was built along the Isthmus of Suez to stay invaders from Asia. Tribes on the south were brought into subjection and pledged service to Egypt in time of war. Stone quarries and mines were developed and granite ranges sought and found. In the sixth dynasty one man-of-war sufficed to accompany the transports sent to bring granite for the kings" tombs from the southland--a fact recorded with pride by the pharaohs, since it gave proof of their far reaching might.
From earliest times the Egyptian kings were builders, particularly of tombs, which during the Old Empire took the form of pyramids. Of far greater importance than the earthly abode was thought to be the tomb--the dwelling place for eternal years, consequently tombs and temples received the attention of Egypt"s kings in early as well as later times.
In 1897 the tomb of Menes was discovered. It was a brick-lined pit containing an inner chamber of wood. Around the mummy of the pharaoh had been placed the bodies of different members of his household. Similar to this were royal tombs until the Third dynasty, when stone was first used. To the kings of the Fourth dynasty belong the famous pyramids, unsurpa.s.sed by any subsequently built, and still today the wonder of the world.
The Egyptians always located their cemeteries toward the west. Into the west the sun sank at night, and by the same way the soul started upon its long journey to the realm of Osiris, G.o.d of the future world. The irregularity of the Nile usually made it possible for the city of the living to grow up on its eastern bank, while across the stream, on the west sh.o.r.e, lay the City of the Dead. To the west of Memphis lay its cemetery or Necropolis, and while this remained the capital of Egypt, the pyramid-shaped tomb remained in favor. Sometimes the pyramid tombs were small; sometimes they were large. More than sixty have been found, and large numbers have doubtless disappeared for all time. Three, however, were made so prodigious in size as to cast into obscurity all the rest, and these have come to be called the "three Pyramids of Gizeh," quite as though they were sole examples of their kind. Khufu was builder of the largest; this is generally called "the Great Pyramid."
His son Khafre built the one next in size, known as the "Second Pyramid," while the third, much smaller than these, was built by Menkure. Were we indifferent to the political development of Egypt, we would still wish to learn about these mammoth structures which are scaled each season by wondering tourists, and have excited the admiration and awe of travelers since the time of Herodotus.
It is difficult to realize the vast size of these piles, and we can do so only by comparing them to things with which we are familiar. The base of the largest pyramid covers thirteen acres of ground, solid masonry; it was originally 482 feet high. Since it is almost one solid ma.s.s of stone, it is not difficult to credit the statement of Herodotus that it took 100,000 men twenty years to build it, an additional ten years being necessary to quarry the stone and bring it to the chosen site.
"The tradition recorded by Herodotus as to the labor employed, is so entirely reasonable for the execution of such work, that we cannot hesitate to accept it. It is said that a hundred thousand men were levied for three months at a time (i. e. during the three months of the inundation, when ordinary labor is at a standstill); and on this scale the pyramid-building lasted twenty years."
How complete must have been the organization of a government which could promote such an extensive project as this! How entirely were the resources of the empire at the disposal of the king when free citizens could be impressed to satisfy the vanity of the proud pharaoh! To have supported 100,000 non-producing men must of itself have taxed the treasury. The rulers who built these majestic tombs wished to make their names immortal, as well as to preserve their bodies from harm and decay.
This first they certainly accomplished, but in light of modern investigation, when each stone lifted into place has been estimated to have cost at least one human life, these proud pharaohs elicit less admiration and commendation than they doubtless thought to win.
Three kinds of stone were used in the construction of these pyramids.
The inner part, or core, was formed of material plentiful near the building site. This was a spongy limestone that was not durable if exposed to the elements, but adequate when covered with other stone. The successive layers, put on in the form of steps, were of stone brought from across the river, having been quarried in the mountains on the east. It has been conjectured that a causeway was laid from the mountains to the side of the pyramid, and that blocks of stone were dragged by men this distance. Finally, the beautiful granite used for outer casing was found near the southern border of Egypt, floated down the stream when the water was high, and having been polished like a mirror, was fitted over the rougher stone. 2,300,000 blocks, averaging two and one-half tons each, were used for the construction of the largest pyramid.
"If we had so much stone, what could one do with it?" is asked in The Boy Travelers in Egypt. And it is answered: "You could build a wall four feet high and two feet thick--a good wall for a farm or a garden--all the way from New York to Salt Lake City, and were New York in danger of an attack and desired to surround the whole of Manhattan Island--21 miles--with a wall forty feet high and twenty feet thick, here would be material to do it." Rawlinson tries to bring its size home to us by comparing it to structures with which we are familiar. He says: "In height it exceeds the capitol at Washington by nearly 200 feet, and its cubic contents would provide a city of 22,000 houses solidly built of stone having walls a foot thick, twenty feet frontage and thirty feet deep, thirty feet high, allowing one-third for dividing walls."
For several hundred years the Mohammedans have occupied Egypt and they have taken away quant.i.ties of stone from the lesser pyramids, from temples and other ancient structures of Memphis, to be used in their mosques and buildings in Cairo, near-by. The outer casing of the Great Pyramid, beautiful granite as hard as iron, was removed to build the large mosque of this comparatively modern city. The removal of this casing has left the under layers bare, and these, step-like in appearance, are annually scaled by tourists. With the help of Arab guides, one may ascend to the very top of the huge pile, gaining thence a splendid view of the surrounding country.