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HUMAN ORIGINS
_HUMAN ORIGINS._
Published July 1892, 1500 copies.
Reprinted August 1892, 1500 copies.
Reprinted September 1892, 2000 copies.
HUMAN ORIGINS
BY
S. LAING
AUTHOR OF
"PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE," "MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT,"
"A MODERN ZOROASTRIAN," ETC.
With Illustrations
_FIFTH THOUSAND_
LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, LD.
1892
[_All rights reserved_]
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON & BUNGAY.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
PART I.--EVIDENCE FROM HISTORY.
CHAPTER I.
EGYPT.
Historical Standard of Time--Short Date inconsistent with
Evolution--Laws of Historical Evidence--History begins with
Authentic Records--Records of Egypt oldest--Manetho's
Lists--Confirmed by Hieroglyphics--Origin of Writing--The
Alphabet--Phonetic Writing--Clue to Hieroglyphics--The
Rosetta Stone--Champollion--Principles of Hieroglyphic
Writing--Language Coptic--Can be read with certainty--Confirmed
by Monuments--Manetho's Date for Menes 5004 B.C.--Old, Middle,
and New Empires--Old Empire, Menes, to end of Sixth Dynasty--Break
between Old and Middle Empires--Works of Twelfth
Dynasty--Fayoum--Thirteenth and Fourteenth Dynasties--Hyksos
Conquests--Duration of Hyksos Rule--Their Expulsion and Foundation
of New Empire--Conquests in Asia of Seventeenth and Eighteenth
Dynasties--Wars with Hittites and Assyrians--Persian and Greek
Dynasties--Summary of Evidence for Date of Menes--Period prior
to Menes--Horsheshu--Sphynx--Stone Age--Neolithic and Palæolithic
Remains--Horner, Haynes, and Pitt-Rivers 5
CHAPTER II.
CHALDÆA.
Chronology--Berosus--His Dates mythical--Dates in Genesis--Synchronisms
with Egypt and Assyria--Monuments--Cuneiform
Inscriptions--How deciphered--Behistan Inscription--Grotefend
and Rawlinson--Layard--Library of Koyunjik--How
preserved--Accadian Translations and Grammars--Historical
Dates--Elamite Conquest--Commencement of
Modern History--Ur-Ea and Dungi--Nabonidus--Sargon I.,
3800 B.C.--Ur of the Chaldees--Sharrukin's Cylinder--His
Library--His Son Naram-Sin--Semites and Accadians--Accadians
and Chinese--Period before Sargon I.--Patesi--De
Sarzec's find at Sirgalla--Gud-Ea, 4000 to 4500 B.C.--Advance
of Delta--Astronomical Records--Chaldæa and
Egypt give similar results---Historic Period 6000 or 7000
years--and no trace of a beginning 42
CHAPTER III.
OTHER HISTORICAL RECORDS.
_China_--Oldest existing Civilization--but Records much later
than those of Egypt and Chaldæa--Language and Traditions
Accadian--Communication how effected.
_Elam_--Very Early Civilization--Susa, an old City in First
Chaldæan Records--Conquered Chaldæa in 2280 B.C.--Conquered
by Assyrians 645 B.C.--Statue of Nana--Cyrus an
Elamite King--His Cylinder--Teaches Untrustworthiness
of Legendary History.
_Phoenicia_--Great Influence on Western Civilization--but Date
comparatively late--Traditions of Origin--First distinct
Mention in Egyptian Monuments 1600 B.C.--Great Movements
of Maritime Nations--Invasions of Egypt by Sea
and Land, under Menepthah, 1330 B.C., and Ramses III.,
1250 B.C.--Lists of Nations--Show Advanced Civilization
and Intercourse--but nothing beyond 2000 or 2500 B.C.
_Hittites_--Great Empire in Asia Minor and Syria--Turanian
Race--Origin Cappadocia--Great Wars with Egypt--Battle
of Kadesh--Treaty with Ramses II.--Power rapidly declined--but
only finally destroyed 717 B.C. by Sargon II.--Capital
Carchemish--Great Commercial Emporium--Hittite
Hieroglyphic Inscriptions and Monuments--Only
recently and partially deciphered--Results.
_Arabia_--Recent Discoveries--Inscriptions--Sabæa--Minæans--Thirty-two
Kings known--Ancient Commerce and Trade-routes--Incense
and Spices--Literature--Old Traditions--Oannes--Punt--Seat
of Semites--Arabian Alphabet--Older
than Phoenician--Bearing on Old Testament Histories.
_Troy and Mycenæ_--Dr. Schliemann's Excavations--Hissarlik--Buried
Fortifications, Palaces, and Treasures of Ancient Troy--Mycenæ
and Tiryns--Proof of Civilization and Commerce--Tombs--Absence
of Inscriptions and Religious Symbols--Date
of Mycenæan Civilization--School of Art--Pictures on
Vases--Type of Race 66
CHAPTER IV.
ANCIENT RELIGIONS.
Egypt--Book of the Dead--Its Morality--Metaphysical
Character--Origins of Religions--Ghosts--Animism--Astronomy
and Astrology--Morality--Pantheism and Polytheism--Egyptian
Ideas of Future Life and Judgment--Egyptian
Genesis--Divine Emanations--Plurality of Gods
and Animal Worship--Sun Worship and Solar Myths--Knowledge
of Astronomy--Orientation of Pyramids--Theory
of Future Life--the Ka--the Soul--Confession of
Faith before Osiris.
Chaldæan Religion--Oldest Form Accadian--Shamanism--Growth
of Philosophical Religion--Astronomy and Astrology--Accadian
Trinities--Anu, Mull-il, Ea--Twelve great
Gods--Bel-Ishtar--Merodach--Assur--Pantheism--Wordsworth--Magic
and Omens--Penitential Psalms--Conclusions
from 105
CHAPTER V.
ANCIENT SCIENCE AND ART.
Evidence of Antiquity--Pyramids and Temples--Arithmetic--Decimal
and Duodecimal Scales--Astronomy--Geometry
reached in Egypt at earliest Dates--Great Pyramid--Piazzi
Smyth and Pyramid-Religion--Pyramids formerly Royal
Tombs, but built on Scientific Plans--Exact Orientation
on Meridian--Centre in 30° N. Latitude--Tunnel points to
Pole--Possible use as an Observatory--Procter--Probably
Astrological--Planetary Influences--Signs of the Zodiac--Mathematical
Coincidences of Great Pyramid--Chaldæan
Astronomy--Ziggurats--Tower of Babel--Different Orientation
from Egyptian Pyramids--Astronomical Treatise
from Library of Sargon I., 3800 B.C.--Eclipses and Phases
of Venus--Measures of Time from Old Chaldæan--Moon
and Sun--Found among so many distant Races--Implies
Commerce and Intercourse--Art and Industry--Embankment
of Menes--Sphynx--Industrial Arts--Fine Arts--Sculpture
and Painting--The Oldest Art the best--Chaldæan
Art--De Sarzec's Find at Sirgalla--Statues and Works of
Art--Imply long use of Bronze--Whence came the Copper
and Tin--Phoenician and Etruscan Commerce--Bronze
known 200 years earlier--Same Alloy everywhere--Possible
Sources of Supply--Age of Copper--Names of Copper and
Tin--Domestic Animals--Horse--Ox and Ass--Agriculture--All
proves Extreme Antiquity 134
CHAPTER VI.
PREHISTORIC TRADITIONS.
Short Duration of Tradition--No Recollection of Stone
Age--Celts taken for Thunderbolts--Stone Age in Egypt--Palæolithic
Implements--Earliest Egyptian Traditions--Extinct Animals
forgotten--Their Bones attributed to Giants--Chinese and American
Traditions--Traditions of Origin of Man--Philosophical Myths--Cruder
Myths from Stones, Trees, and Animals--Totems--Recent Events soon
forgotten--Autochthonous Nations--Wide Diffusion of Prehistoric
Myths--The Deluge--Importance of, as Test of Inspiration--More
Definite than Legend of Creation--What the Account of the Deluge
in Genesis really says--Date--Extent--Duration--All Life
destroyed except Pairs preserved in the Ark--Such a Deluge
impossible--Contradicted by Physical Science--By Geology--By
Zoology--By Ethnology--By History--How Deluge Myths arise--Local
Floods--Sea Shells on Mountains--Solar Myths--Deluge
of Hasisadra--Noah's Deluge copied from it--Revised
in a Monotheistic Sense at a comparatively Late
Period--Conclusion--Rational View of Inspiration 178
CHAPTER VII.
THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.
Moral and Religious distinct from Historical Inspiration--Myth and
Allegory--The Higher Criticism--All Ancient History unconfirmed by
Monuments untrustworthy--Cyrus--Old Testament and
Monuments--Jerusalem--Tablet of Tell-el-Amarna--Flinders Petrie's
Exploration of Pre-Hebrew Cities--Ramses and Pi-thom--First certain
Synchronism Rehoboam--Composite Structure of Old Testament--Elohist
and Jehovist--Priests' Code--Canon Driver--Results--Book of
Chronicles--Methods of Jewish Historians--Post-Exilic
References--Tradition of Esdras--Nehemiah and Ezra--Foundation
of Modern Judaism--Different from Pre-Exilic--Discovery of Book
of the Law under Josiah--Deuteronomy--Earliest Sacred
Writings--Conclusions--Aristocratic and Prophetic Schools--Triumph
of Pietism with Exile--Both compiled partly from Old
Materials--Crudeness and Barbarism of Parts--Pre-Abrahamic Period
clearly mythical--Derived from Chaldæa--Abraham--Unhistoric
Character--His Age--Lot's Wife--His double Adventure with
Sarah--Abraham to Moses--Sojourn in Egypt--Discordant
Chronology--Josephus' Quotation from Manetho--Small Traces of Egyptian
Influence--Future Life--Legend of Joseph--Moses--Osarsiph--Life
of Moses full of Fabulous Legends--His Birth--Plagues
of Egypt--The Exodus--Colenso--Contradictions and
Impossibilities--Immoralities--Massacres--Joshua and the
Judges--Barbarisms and Absurdities--Only safe Conclusion no
History before the Monarchy--David and Solomon--Comparatively
Modern Date 209
PART II.--EVIDENCE FROM SCIENCE.
CHAPTER VIII.
GEOLOGY AND PALÆONTOLOGY.
Proved by Contemporary Monuments--As in History--Summary of
Historical Evidence--Geological Evidence of Human Periods--Neolithic
Period--Palæolithic or Quaternary--Tertiary--Secondary and Older
Periods--The Recent or Post-Glacial Period--Lake-Villages--Bronze
Age--Kitchen-Middens--Scandinavian Peat-mosses--Neolithic Remains
comparatively Modern--Definition of Post-Glacial Period--Its
Duration--Mellard Read's Estimate--Submerged Forests--Changes
in Physical Geography--Huxley--Objections from
America--Niagara--Quaternary Period--Immense Antiquity--Presence of
Man throughout--First Glacial Period--Scandinavian and Laurentian
Ice-caps--Immense Extent--Mass of _Débris_--Elevation and
Depression--In Britain--Inter-Glacial and Second Glacial
Periods--Antiquity measured by Changes of Land--Lyell's
Estimate--Glacial _Débris_ and Loess--Recent
Erosion--Bournemouth--Evans--Prestwich--Wealden Ridge and
Southern Drift--Contain Human Implements--Evidence from New
World--California 260
CHAPTER IX.
THE GLACIAL PERIOD AND CROLL'S THEORY.
Causes of Glacial Periods--Actual Conditions of existing Glacial
Regions--High Land in High Latitudes--Cold alone insufficient--Large
Evaporation required--Formation of
Glaciers--They flow like Rivers--Icebergs--Greenland and
Antarctic Circle--Geographical and Cosmic Causes--Cooling
of Earth and Sun, Cold Spaces in Space, and Change
in Earth's Axis, reviewed and rejected--Precession alone
insufficient--Unless with High Eccentricity--Geographical
Causes, Elevation of Land--Aërial and Oceanic Currents--Gulf
Stream and Trade Winds--Evidence for greater
Elevation of Land in America, Europe, and Asia--Depression--Warmer
Tertiary Climates--Alps and Himalayas--Wallace's
_Island Life_--Lyell--Croll's Theory--Sir R. Ball--Former
Glacial Periods--Correspondence with Croll's
Theory--Length of the different Phases--Summary--Croll's
Theory a Secondary Cause--Conclusions as to Man's
Antiquity 293
CHAPTER X.
QUATERNARY MAN.
No longer doubted--Men not only existed, but in numbers and
widely spread--Palæolithic Implements of similar Type found
everywhere--Progress shown--Tests of Antiquity--Position
of Strata--Fauna--Oldest Types--Mixed Northern and
Southern Species--Reindeer Period--Correspondence of
Human Remains with these Three Periods--Advance of
Civilization--Clothing and Barbed Arrows--Drawing and
Sculpture--Passage into Neolithic and Recent Periods--Corresponding
Progress of Physical Man--Distinct Races--How tested--Tests applied
to Historical, Neolithic, and Palæolithic Man--Long Heads and Broad
Heads--Aryan Controversy--Primitive European Types--Canon
Taylor--Huxley--Preservation of Human Remains depends mainly
on Burials--About forty Skulls and Skeletons known from
Quaternary Times--Summary of Results--Quatrefages and
Hamy--Races of Canstadt--Cro-Magnon--Furfooz--Truchere--Skeletons
of Neanderthal and Spy--Canstadt Type oldest--Cro-Magnon Type
next--Skeleton of Cro-Magnon--Broad-headed and Short Race resembling
Lapps--American Type--No Evidence from Asia, Africa, India,
Polynesia, and Australia--Negroes, Negrillos, and Negritos--Summary
of Results 317
CHAPTER XI.
TERTIARY MAN.
Definition of Periods--Passage from Pliocene to Quaternary--Scarcity
of Human Remains in Tertiary--Denudation--Evidence
from Caves wanting--Tertiary Man a necessary
inference from widespread existence of Quaternary Man--Both
equally inconsistent with Genesis--Was the first
great Glaciation Pliocene or Quaternary?--Section of
Perrier--Confirms Croll's Theory--Elephas Meridionalis--Mammoth--St.
Prest--Cut Bones--Instances of Tertiary
Man--Halitherium--Balæonotus--Puy-Courny--Thenay--Evidence
for--Proofs of Human Agency--Latest Conclusions--Gaudry's
Theory--Dryopithecus--Type of Tertiary
Man--Skeleton of Castelnedolo--Shows no approach
to the Missing Link--Contrary to Theory of Evolution--Must
be sought in the Eocene--Evidence from the New
World--Glacial Period in America--Palæolithic Implements--Quaternary
Man--Similar to Europe--California--Conditions
different--Auriferous Gravels--Volcanic Eruptions--Enormous
Denudation--Great Antiquity--Flora and
Fauna--Point to Tertiary Age--Discovery of Human
Remains--Table Mountain--Latest Finds--Calaveras Skull--Summary
of Evidence--Other Evidence--Tuolumne--Brazil--Buenos
Ayres--Nampa Images--Take us farther
from First Origins and the Missing Link--If Darwin's
Theory applies to Man, must go back to the Eocene 343
CHAPTER XII.
RACES OF MANKIND.
Monogeny or Polygeny--Darwin--Existing Races--Colour--Hair--Skulls
and Brains--Dolichocephali and Brachycephali--Jaws
and Teeth--Stature--Other Tests--Isaac Taylor--Prehistoric
Types in Europe--Huxley's Classification--Language no Test of
Race--Egyptian Monuments--Human and Animal Races unchanged for 6000
years--Neolithic Races--Palæolithic--Different Races of Man as far
back as we can trace--Types of Canstadt, Cro-Magnon, and
Furfooz--Oldest Races Dolichocephalic--Skulls of Neanderthal and
Spy--Simian Characters--Objections--Evidence confined to
Europe--American Man--Calaveras Skull--Tertiary Man--Skull
of Castelnedolo--Leaves Monogeny or Polygeny an open
Question--Arguments on each side--Old Arguments from the Bible
and Philology exploded--What Darwinian Theory requires--Animal
Types traced up to the Eocene--Secondary Origins--Dog and
Horse--Fertility of Races--Question of Hybridity--Application
to Man--Difference of Constitutions--Negro and White--Bearing
on Question of Migration--Apes and Monkeys--Question of Original
Locality of Man--Asiatic Theory--Eur-African--American--Arctic--None
based on sufficient Evidence--Mere Speculations--Conclusion--Summary
of Evidence as to Human Origins 391
ILLUSTRATIONS
TABLET OF SNEFURA AT WADY MAGERAH 17
SPECIMEN OF HIEROGLYPHIC ALPHABET 19
PYRAMIDS OF GIZEH AND SPHYNX 24
FELLAH WOMAN AND HEAD OF SECOND HYKSOS STATUE 28
HYKSOS SPHYNX 28
STATUE OF PRINCE RAHOTEP'S WIFE 38
KHUFU-ANKH AND HIS SERVANTS--EARLY EGYPTIANS 39
CUNEIFORM 46
SYMBOLS 48
CYLINDER SEAL OF SARGON I 56
HEAD OF ANCIENT CHALDÆAN 60
STATUE OF GUD-EA, WITH INSCRIPTION 61
SEA-FIGHT IN THE TIME OF RAMSES III 79
KING OF THE HITTITES 82
CHIEF OF PUNT AND TWO MEN 93
QUEEN SENDING WARRIOR TO BATTLE 102
ADAM, EVE, AND THE SERPENT 103
JUDGMENT OF THE SOUL BY OSIRIS 113
PYRAMID 141
ZIGGURAT RESTORED 151
THE VILLAGE SHEIK 164
PALÆOLITHIC CELT 319
PALÆOLITHIC CELT IN ARGILLITE 319
PALÆOLITHIC FLINT CELT 322
PALÆOLITHIC CELT OF QUARTZITE FROM NATAL 322
PORTRAIT OF MAMMOTH 328
EARLIEST PORTRAIT OF A MAN WITH SERPENTS
AND HORSES' HEADS 328
REINDEER FEEDING 328
ARROW-HEADS 352
CUTS WITH FLINT KNIFE ON RIB OF
BALÆONOTUS--PLIOCENE 354
CUT MAGNIFIED BY MICROSCOPE 354
FLINT SCRAPER FROM HIGH LEVEL DRIFT, KENT 358
UPPER MIOCENE IMPLEMENTS. PUY COURNY 359
COPARE QUATERNARY IMPLEMENTS 360
SECTION AT THENAY 362
MIDDLE MIOCENE IMPLEMENTS 364
MIDDLE MIOCENE IMPLEMENTS 365
COMPARE QUATERNARY IMPLEMENTS 367
SECTION OF GREAT CALIFORNIAN LAVA STREAM,
CUT THROUGH BY RIVERS 377
SECTION ACROSS TABLE MOUNTAIN, TUOLUMNE
COUNTY, CALIFORNIA 381
THE NAMPA IMAGE 387
L'HOMME AVANT L'HISTOIRE 402
HUMAN ORIGINS.
INTRODUCTION.
The reception which has been given to my former works leads me to
believe that they have had a certain educational value for those who,
without being specialists, wish to keep themselves abreast of the
culture of the day, and to understand the leading results and pending
problems of Modern Science. Of these results the most interesting are
those which bear upon the origin and evolution of the human race.
In my former works I have treated of these mainly from the point of
view of geology and palæontology, and have hardly touched on the
province which lies nearest to us, that of history and of prehistoric
traditions. In this province, however, a revolution has been effected
by the discoveries of the present century, which is no less important
than that made by geological research and by the doctrine of
Evolution.
Down to the middle of the nineteenth century, and to a considerable
extent down to the present day, the Hebrew Bible was held to be the
sole and sufficient authority as to the early history of the human
race. It was believed, with a certainty which made doubt impious,
that the first man Adam was created in or about the year 4004 B.C.,
or not quite 6000 years ago; and that all human and other life
was destroyed by a universal Deluge, 1656 years later, with the
exception of Noah and his wife, their sons and their wives, and pairs
of all living creatures, by whom the earth was repeopled from the
mountain-peak of Ararat as a centre.
The latest conclusions of modern science show that uninterrupted
historical records, confirmed by contemporary monuments, carry
history back at least 1000 years before the supposed Creation of Man,
and 2500 years before the date of the Deluge, and show then no trace
of a commencement; but populous cities, celebrated temples, great
engineering works, and a high state of the arts and of civilization,
already existing. This is of the highest interest, both as bearing on
the dogma of the Divine inspiration of the historical and scientific,
as distinguished from the moral and religious, portions of the Bible,
and on the still more important question of the true theory of
Man's origin and relations to the Universe. The so-called conflict
between Religion and Science is at bottom one between two conflicting
theories of the Universe--the first that it is the creation of a
personal God who constantly interferes by miracles to correct His
original work; the second, that whether the First Cause be a personal
God or something inscrutable to human faculties, the work was
originally so perfect that the whole succession of subsequent events
has followed by Evolution acting by invariable laws. The former is
the theory of orthodox believers, the latter that of men of science,
and of liberal theologians who, like Bishop Temple, find that the
theory of "original impress" is more in accordance with the idea
of an Omnipotent and Omniscient Creator, to whom "a thousand years
are as a day," than the traditional theory of a Creator constantly
interfering to supplement and amend His original Creation by
supernatural interferences.
It is evidently important for all who desire to arrive at truth,
and to keep abreast of the culture of the day, to have some clear
conception of what historical and geological records really
teach, and what sort of a standard or measuring-rod they supply
in attempting to carry back our researches into the depths of
prehistoric and of geological time.
I have therefore in this work begun with the historic period, as
giving us a solid foundation and standard of time, by which to gauge
the vastly longer periods which lie behind, and ascended from this
by successive steps through the Neolithic and Palæolithic ages,
and the Quaternary and Tertiary periods, so far as the most recent
discoveries throw any light on the mysterious question of "Human
Origins."
If I have succeeded in stimulating some minds, especially those of my
younger readers, and of the working-classes who are striving after
culture, to feel an interest in these subjects, and to pursue them
further, my object will have been attained. They have been to me
the solace of a long life, the delight of many quiet days, and the
soother of many troubled ones, and I should be glad to think that I
had been the means, however humble, of introducing to others what I
have found such a source of enjoyment, and enlisting, if it were
only a few, in the service of that "divine Philosophy," in which I
have ever found, as Wordsworth did in Nature,
"The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being."
PART I.--HISTORY.
CHAPTER I.
EGYPT.
Historical Standard of Time--Short Date inconsistent with
Evolution--Laws of Historical Evidence--History begins
with Authentic Records--Records of Egypt oldest--Manetho's
Lists--Confirmed by Hieroglyphics--Origin of Writing--The
Alphabet--Phonetic Writing--Clue to Hieroglyphics--The
Rosetta Stone--Champollion--Principles of Hieroglyphic
Writing--Language Coptic--Can be read with certainty--Confirmed
by Monuments--Manetho's Date for Menes 5004 B.C.--Old,
Middle, and New Empires--Old Empire, Menes, to end of
Sixth Dynasty--Break between Old and Middle Empires--Works
of Twelfth Dynasty--Fayoum--Thirteenth and Fourteenth
Dynasties--Hyksos Conquests--Duration of Hyksos Rule--Their
Expulsion and Foundation of New Empire--Conquests in Asia of
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Dynasties--Wars with Hittites and
Assyrians--Persian and Greek Dynasties--Summary of Evidence for
Date of Menes--Period prior to Menes--Horsheshu--Sphynx--Stone
Age--Neolithic and Palæolithic Remains--Horner, Haynes, and
Pitt-Rivers.
In measuring the dimensions of space we have to start from some
fixed standard, such as the foot or yard, taken originally from
the experience of our ordinary senses and capable of accurate
verification. From this we arrive by successive inductions at the
size of the earth, the distance of the sun, moon, and planets, and
finally at the parallax of the fixed stars. So in speculations as
to the origin and evolution of the human race, history affords the
standard from which we start, through the successive stages of
prehistoric, neolithic, and palæolithic man, until we pass into the
wider ranges of geological time.
Any error in the original standard becomes magnified indefinitely,
whether in space or time, as we extend our researches backwards into
remoter regions.
Thus whether the authentic records of history extend only for some
4500 years backwards from the present time to the scriptural date of
Noah's flood, as was universally assumed to be the case until quite
recently; or whether Egyptian and Chaldæan records carry us back for
7000 years, and show us then a dense population, powerful empires,
large cities, and generally a highly advanced civilization already
existing, makes a wonderful difference in the standpoint from which
we view the course of human evolution.
To begin with, a short date necessitates supernatural interferences.
It is quite impossible that if man and all animal life were created
only about 4000 years B.C., and were then all destroyed save the
few pairs saved in Noah's ark, and made a fresh start from a single
centre some 1500 years later, there can be any truth in Darwin's
theory of evolution. We know for a certainty from the concurrent
testimony of all history, and from Egyptian monuments, that the
different races of men and animals were in existence 5000 years ago
as they are at the present day; and that no fresh creations or marked
changes of type have taken place during that period. If then all
these types, and all the different races and nations of men, sprung
up in the interval of less than 1000 years, which is the longest that
can by any possibility be allowed between the Biblical date of the
Deluge and the clash of the mighty monarchies of Assyria and Egypt
in Palestine, the date of which is proved both by the Bible and by
profane historians, it is obviously impossible that such a state of
things could have been brought about by natural causes.
But if authentic historical records carry us back not for 3000
or 4000, but for 6000 or 7000 years, and then show no trace of a
beginning, the case is altered, and we may assume an almost unlimited
duration of time, through historical, prehistoric, neolithic, and
palæolithic ages, during which evolution may have operated. It is of
the first importance therefore to inquire what these records really
teach in the light of modern research, and what is the evidence for
the longer dates which are now generally accepted.
Furnished with such a measuring-rod it becomes easier to attempt to
bring into some sort of co-ordination the vast mass of facts which
have been accumulated in recent years as to prehistoric, neolithic,
and palæolithic man; and the glimpses of light respecting the origin,
antiquity, and early history of the human race, which have come
in from other sciences such as astronomy, geology, zoology, and
philology.
To do this exhaustively would be an encyclopædic task which I do
not pretend to accomplish, but I am not without hope that the
following chapters, connected as they are by the one leading idea of
tracing human origins backward to their source, may assist inquiry,
and create an interest in this most interesting of all questions,
especially among the young who are striving after knowledge, and
the millions who, not having the time and opportunity for reading
technical works, feel a desire to keep themselves abreast of modern
thought and of the advanced culture of the close of the nineteenth
century.
Before examining these records in detail it is well to begin with the
general laws upon which historical evidence is based. History begins
with writings. All experience shows that what may be transmitted
by memory and word of mouth, consists mainly of hymns and portions
of ritual, such as the Vedas of the Hindoos; and to a certain
extent of heroic poems and ballads in which the historical element
is so overlaid by mythology and poetry, that it is impossible to
discriminate between fact and fancy. Thus the legend of Hercules
is evidently in the main a solar myth, and his twelve labours are
related to the signs of the zodiac, but it is possible that there
may have been a real Hercules, the actual or eponymic ancestor of
the tribe of Heraclides. So, at a later period, the descent of the
Romans from the pious Æneas, and of the Britons from another Trojan
hero Brute, are obviously fabulous; and at a still more recent date,
our own Arthurian legends are evidently a mediæval romance, though
it is possible that there may have been a chief of that name of the
Christianized Romano-Britons, who opposed a gallant resistance to the
flood of Saxon invasion.
But to make real history we require something very different;
concurrent and uninterrupted testimony of known historians; absence
of impossible and obviously fabulous dates and events; and, above
all, contemporary records, written or engraved on tombs, temples, and
monuments, or preserved in papyri or clay cylinders.
Another remark is, that these authentic records of early history
only begin to appear when civilization is so far advanced as to
have established powerful dynasties and priestly organizations.
The history of a nation is at first the history of its kings, and
its records are enumerations of their genealogies, successive
reigns, foundation or repair of temples, great industrial works, and
warlike exploits. These are made and preserved by special castes
of priestly colleges and learned scribes, and they are to a great
extent precise in date and accurate in fact. Before the establishment
of such historical dynasties we have nothing but legends and
traditions, which are vague and mythical, the mythological element
rapidly predominating as we go backwards in time, until we soon
arrive at reigns of gods, and lives of thousands of years. But as
we approach the period of historical dynasties the mythological
element diminishes, and we pass from gods reigning 10,000 years,
and patriarchs living to 900, to later patriarchs living 150 or 200
years, and finally to mortal men, living, and kings reigning, to
natural ages.
In fact, with the first appearance of authentic records the
supernatural disappears, and the average duration of lives, reigns,
and dynasties, and the general course of events, are much the same as
at present, and fully confirm, the statement of the Egyptian priests
to Herodotus, that during the long succession of ages of the 345 high
priests of Heliopolis, whose statues they showed him in the great
temple of the sun, there had been no change in the length of human
life or in the course of nature, and each one of the 345 had been a
_piromis_, or mortal man, the son of a _piromis_. The first question
is how far back these authentic historical records can be traced, and
Egypt affords the first answer.
The first step in the inquiry as to Egyptian antiquity is afforded
by the history of Manetho. Ptolemy Philadelphus, whose reign began
284 B.C., was an enlightened king. He founded the great Alexandrian
library, and was specially curious in collecting everything which
bore on the early history of his own and other countries. With this
view he had the Greek translation, known as the Septuagint, made
of the sacred books of the Hebrews, and he commissioned Manetho
to compile a history of Egypt from the earliest times, from the
most authentic temple records and other sources of information.
Manetho was eminently qualified for such a task, being a learned and
judicious man, and a priest of Sebennytus, one of the oldest and most
famous temples.
The history of Manetho is unfortunately lost, being probably
the greatest loss the world has sustained by the burning of the
Alexandrian library, but fragments of it have been preserved in
the works of Josephus, Eusebius, Julius Africanus and Syncellus,
of whom Eusebius and Africanus profess to give Manetho's lists and
dates of dynasties and kings from the first King Menes down to the
conquest of Alexander the Great in 332 B.C. With the curious want of
critical faculty of almost all the Christian fathers, these extracts,
though professing to be quotations from the same book, contain many
inconsistencies, and in several instances they have obviously been
tampered with, especially by Eusebius, in order to bring their
chronology more in accordance with that of the Old Testament. But
enough remains to show that Manetho's lists comprised thirty-one
dynasties, and about 370 kings, whose successive reigns extended over
a period of about 5500 years, from the accession of Menes to the
conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C., making the date
of the first historical king who united Upper and Lower Egypt, about
5800 B.C. There may be some doubt as to the precise dates, for the
lists, of Manetho have obviously been tampered with to some extent
by the Christian fathers who quoted them, but there can be no doubt
that his original work assigned an antiquity to Menes of over 5500
B.C.
The only other historical information as to the history of Ancient
Egypt was gleaned from references to it in the extant works of
Josephus and of Greek authors, especially Homer, Herodotus, and
Diodorus Siculus. Josephus, in his _Antiquity of the Jews_, quotes
passages from Manetho, but they only extend to the period of the
Hyksos invasion, the Captivity of the Jews, and the Exodus, which are
all comparatively recent events in Manetho's annals. Homer's account
of hundred-gated Thebes does not carry us back beyond the echo
which had reached Ionian Greece of the splendours of the nineteenth
dynasty. Herodotus visited Egypt about 450 B.C., and wrote a
description of it from what he saw and heard on the spot. It contains
a good deal of valuable information, for he was a shrewd observer.
But he was credulous, and not very critical in distinguishing between
fact and fable, and it is evident that his sources of information
were often not much better than vague popular traditions, or the
tales told by guides, and even the more authentic information is so
disconnected and mixed with fable, that it can hardly be accepted
as material for history. As far as it goes, however, it tends to
confirm Manetho, as, for instance, in giving the names correctly of
the kings who built the three great pyramids, and in saying that he
saw the statues of 342 successive high priests of the great Temple of
Heliopolis, which correspond very well with Manetho's lists of 370
kings.
Diodorus gives us very much the same narratives as those of
Herodotus; and, on the whole, we had to fall back on Manetho as the
only authority for anything like precise dates and connected history.
Manetho's dates, however, were so inconsistent with preconceived
ideas based on the chronology of the Bible, that they were
universally thought to be fabulous. They were believed either
to represent the exaggerations of Egyptian priests desirous of
magnifying the antiquity of their country, or, if historical, to give
in succession the names of a number of kings and dynasties who had
really reigned simultaneously in different provinces. So stood the
question until the discovery of reading hieroglyphics enabled us to
test the accuracy of Manetho's lists by the light of contemporary
monuments and manuscripts. This discovery is of such supreme
importance that it may be well to begin at the beginning, and lay a
solid foundation by showing how it was made, and the demonstration on
which it rests.
Reading presupposes writing, as writing presupposes speech. Ideas
are conveyed from one mind to another in speech through the ear,
in writing through the eye. The origin of the latter method is
doubtless to be found in picture-writing. The palæolithic savage who
drew a mammoth with the point of a flint on a piece of ivory, was
attempting to write, in his rude way, a record of some memorable
chase. And the accounts of the old Empires of Mexico and Peru at
the time of the Spanish Conquest, show that a considerable amount
of civilization can be attained and information conveyed by this
primitive method. But for the purpose of historical record more is
required. It is essential to have a system of signs and symbols
which shall be generally understood, and by which knowledge shall
be handed down unchanged to successive generations. All experience
shows that before knowledge is thus fixed and recorded, anything that
may be transmitted by memory and word of mouth, fades off almost
immediately into myth, and leaves no certain record of time, place,
and circumstance. A few religious hymns and prayers like those of the
Vedas, a few heroic ballads like those of Homer, a few genealogies
like those of Agamemnon or Abraham, may be thus preserved, but
nothing definite or accurate in the way of fact and date. History,
therefore, begins with writing, and writing begins with the invention
of fixed signs to represent words. A system of writing is possible,
like the Chinese, in which each separate word has its own separate
sign, but this is extremely cumbrous, and quite unintelligible to
those who have not got a living key to explain the meaning of each
symbol. It is calculated that an educated Chinese has to learn by
heart the meaning of some 15,000 separate signs before he can read
and write correctly. We have a trace of this ideographic system in
our own language, as where arbitrary signs such as 1, 2, 3, represent
not the sounds of one, two, and three, but the ideas conveyed by
them. But for all practical purposes, intelligible writing has to be
phonetic, that is, representing spoken words, not by the ideas they
convey, but by the sounds of which they are composed. In other words
there must be an Alphabet.
The alphabet is the first lesson of childhood, and it seems such a
simple thing that we are apt to forget that it is one of the most
important and original inventions of the human intellect. Some
prehistoric genius, musing on the meaning of spoken words, has seen
that they might all be analyzed into a few simple sounds. To make
this more easily intelligible, I will suppose the illustrations to be
taken from our own language. "Dog" and "dig" express very different
ideas; but a little reflection will show that the primary sounds
made by the tongue, teeth, and palate, viz. 'd' and 'g,' are the
same in each, and that they differ only by a slight variation in the
soft breathing or vowel, which connects them and renders them vocal.
The next step would be to see that such words as "good" or "God,"
consisted of the same root-sounds, only transposed and connected with
a slight vowel difference. Pursuing the analysis, it would finally
be discovered that the many thousand words of spoken language could
all be resolved into a very small number of radical sounds, each of
which might be represented and suggested to the mind through the eye
instead of the ear by some conventional sign or symbol. Here is the
alphabet, and here the art of writing.
This great achievement of the human intellect appears to have been
made in prehistoric times; and where not obviously imported from a
foreign source, as in the Phoenician alphabet from the Egyptian and
the Greek from the Phoenician, it is attributed to some god, that is,
to an unknown antiquity.
Thus in Egypt, Thoth the Second, known to the Greeks as Hermes
Trismegistus, a fabulous demi-god of the period succeeding the reign
of the great gods, is said to have invented the alphabet and the
art of writing. The analysis of primary sounds varies a little in
different times and countries in order to suit peculiarities in the
pronunciation of different races and convenience in writing; but
about sixteen primitive sounds, which is the number of the letters
of the first alphabet brought by Cadmus to Greece, are always its
basis. In our own alphabet it is easy to see that it is not formed on
strictly scientific principles, some of the letters being redundant.
Thus the soft sound of 'c' is expressed by 's,' and the hard sound by
'k'; and 'x' is an abbreviation of three other letters, 'eks.' Some
letters also express sounds which run so closely into one another
that in some alphabets they are not distinguished, as 'f' and 'v,'
'd' and 't', 'l' and 'r'; while some races have guttural and other
sounds, such as 'kh' and 'sj,' which occur so frequently as to
require separate signs, while they baffle the vocal organs of other
races, and in some cases syllables which frequently occur, instead
of being spelt out alphabetically, are represented by single signs.
But these are mere details, the question substantially is this--if a
collection of unknown signs is phonetic, and we can get any clue to
its alphabet, it can be read; if not it must remain a sealed book.
To apply this to hieroglyphics; it had been long known that the
monuments of ancient Egypt were carved with mysterious figures,
representing commonly birds, animals, and other natural objects,
but all clue to their meaning had been lost. It seemed more natural
to suppose that they were ideographic; that a lion for instance
represented a real lion, or some quality associated with him, such as
fierceness, valour, and kingly aspect, rather than that his picture
stood simply for our letter 'l.' The long-desired clue was afforded
by the famous Rosetta stone. This is a mutilated block of black
basalt, which was discovered in 1799 by an engineer officer of the
French expedition, in digging the foundations of a fort near Rosetta.
It was captured, with other trophies, by the British army, when the
French were driven out of Egypt, and is now lodged at the British
Museum. It bears on it three inscriptions, one in hieroglyphics, the
second in the demotic Egyptian character employed for popular use,
and the third in Greek. The Greek can of course be read, and it is
an inscription commemorating the coronation of Ptolemy Epiphanes and
his Queen Arsinoe, in the year 196 B.C. It was an obvious conjecture
that the two Egyptian inscriptions were to the same effect, and that
the Greek was a literal translation of this. To turn this conjecture,
however, into a demonstration, a great deal of ingenuity and patient
research were required. The principle upon which all interpretation
of unknown signs rests may be most easily understood by taking an
illustration from our own language. The first step in the problem
is to know whether these unknown signs are ideographic or phonetic.
Thus if we have two groups of signs, one of which we have reason to
know stands for "Ptolemy" and the other for "Cleopatra," if they are
phonetic, the first sign in Ptolemy will correspond with the fifth in
Cleopatra; the second with the seventh, the third with the fourth,
the fourth with the second, and the fifth with the third; and we
shall have established five letters of the unknown alphabet, 'p, t,
o, l,' and 'e.' Other names will give other letters, as if we know
"Arsinoe," its comparison with "Cleopatra" will give 'a' and 'r,' and
confirm the former induction as to 'o' and 'e.'
And it will be extremely probable that the two last signs in Ptolemy
represent 'm' and 'y'; the first in Cleopatra 'c'; and the third,
fourth, and fifth in Arsinoe, 's, i,' and 'n.' Suppose now that we
find in an inscription on an ancient temple at Thebes, a name which
begins with our known sign for 'r,' followed by our known 'a,' then
by our conjectural 'm,' then by the sign which we find third in
Arsinoe, or 's,' then by our known 'e,' and ending with a repetition
of 's,' we have no difficulty in reading "Ramses," and identifying it
with one of the kings of that name mentioned by Manetho as reigning
at Thebes. The identification of letters was facilitated by the
custom of inclosing the names of kings in what is called a cartouche
or oval.
[Illustration: TABLET OF SNEFURA AT WADY MAGERAH.
(The oldest inscription in the world, probably 6000 years old.
The king conquering an Arabian or Asiatic enemy.)]
This name reads "Snefura," which is the name of the king of the third
dynasty who reigned about 4000 B.C., or before the building of the
Great Pyramids, which inscription is the earliest contemporary one
of an Egyptian king as yet discovered. It was found at the copper
mines of Wady Magerah, in the peninsula of Sinai, and represents the
victory of the king over an Arabian or Asiatic enemy.
The first step towards the decipherment of the hieroglyphics on the
Rosetta stone was made in 1819 by Dr. Young, who was one of the
most ingenious and original thinkers of the nineteenth century, and
is also famous as the first discoverer of the undulatory theory of
light. But in both cases he merely indicated the right path and
laid down the correct principles. The development of his theories
was reserved for two Frenchmen; Fresnel in the case of Light, and
Champollion in that of Hieroglyphics. The task was one which required
immense patience and ingenuity, for the hieroglyphic alphabet turned
out to be one of great complexity. Not only were many of the signs
not phonetic, but ideographic or determinative; and some of them
standing for syllables and not letters; but the letters themselves
were not represented, as in modern languages, each by a single sign
or at most by two signs, as A and a, but by several different signs.
The Egyptian alphabet was in fact constructed very much as young
children often learn theirs, by--
A was an apple-pie,
B bit it,
C cut it;
with this difference, that several objects, whose names begin with A
and other letters, might be used to represent them. Thus some of the
hieroglyphic letters had as many as twenty-five different signs or
homophones. It is as if we could write for 'a,' the picture either of
an apple, or of an ass, archer, arrow, anchor, or any word beginning
with 'a.'
However, Champollion with infinite difficulty, and aided by the
constant discovery of fresh inscriptions, solved the problem,
and succeeded in producing a complete alphabet of hieroglyphics
comprising all the various signs, thus enabling us to translate every
hieroglyphic sign into its corresponding sound or spoken word.
The next question was, what did these words mean, and could they
be recognized in any known language? The answer to this was easy;
the Egyptians spoke Egyptic, or as it is abbreviated Coptic, a
modern form of which is almost a living language, and is preserved
in translations of the Bible still in use and studied by the aid
of Coptic dictionaries and grammars. This enabled Champollion to
construct a hieroglyphic dictionary and grammar, which have been so
completed by the labours of subsequent Egyptologists, that it is not
too much to say that any inscription or manuscript in hieroglyphics
can be read with nearly as much certainty as if it had been written
in Greek or in Hebrew.
[Illustration: SPECIMEN OF HIEROGLYPHIC ALPHABET. (From
Champollion's _Egypt_.)]
The above illustrations from English characters are only given as
the simplest way of conveying to the minds of those who have had no
previous acquaintance with the subject, an idea of the nature of
the process and force of the evidence, upon which the decipherment
of hieroglyphic inscriptions is based. In reality the process was
far from being so simple. Though many of the hieroglyphics are
phonetics, like our letters of the alphabet, they are not all so,
and many of them are purely ideographic, as when we write 1, 2, 3,
for one, two, and three. All writing has begun with picture-writing,
and each character was originally a likeness of the object which it
was wished to represent. The next stage was to use the character not
only for the material object, but as a symbol for some abstract idea
associated with it. Thus the picture of a lion might stand either
for an actual lion, or for fierceness, courage, majesty, or other
attribute of the king of animals. In this way it became possible to
convey meanings to the mind through the eye, but it involved both an
enormous number of characters, and the use of homophones, _i.e._ of
single characters standing for a number of separate ideas. To obviate
this, what are called "determinatives" were invented, _i.e._ special
signs affixed to characters or groups of characters to determine the
sense in which they were to be taken. For instance, the picture of a
star (*) affixed to a group of hieroglyphics may be used to denote
that they represent the name of a god, or some divine or heavenly
attribute; and the picture of rippling water ~~~~~~~~ to show that
the group means something connected with water, as a sea or river.
Beyond this the Chinese have hardly gone, and it is reckoned that it
requires some 1358 separate characters, or conventionalized pictures,
taken in distinct groups, to be able to read and write correctly the
40,000 words in the Chinese language. Even for the ordinary purposes
of life a Chinaman instead of committing to memory twenty-six letters
of the alphabet, like an English child, has to learn by heart some
6000 or 7000 groups of characters often distinguished only by slight
dots and dashes. Such a system is cumbrous in the extreme, and
involves spending many of the best years of life in acquiring the
first rudiments of knowledge. Indeed it is only possible when not
only writing but speech has been arrested at the first stage of its
development, and a nation speaks a language of monosyllables. In the
case of Egypt and other ancient nations the standpoint of writing
went further, and the symbolic pictures came to represent phonograms,
_i.e._ sounds or spoken words instead of ideas or objects; and these
again were further analyzed into syllabaries, or the component
articulate sounds which make up words; and these finally into their
ultimate elements of a few simple sounds, or letters of an alphabet,
the various combinations of which will express all the complex sounds
or words of a spoken language.
Now in the hieroglyphic writing of ancient Egypt, along with those
pure phonetics or letters of an alphabet, are found numerous
survivals of the older systems from which they sprung, and
Champollion, who first attempted the task of forming a hieroglyphic
dictionary and grammar, had to contend with all the difficulties of
ideograms, polyphones, determinatives, and other obstacles.
Those who wish to pursue this interesting subject further will do
well to read Dr. Isaac Taylor's book on the Alphabet, and Sayce on
the Science of Writing; but for my present purpose it is sufficient
to establish the scientific certainty of the process by which
hieroglyphic texts are read. With this key a vast mass of constantly
accumulating evidence has been brought to light, illustrating not
only the chronology and history of ancient Egypt, but also its
social and political condition, its literature and religion, science
and art. The first question naturally was how far the monuments
confirmed or disproved the lists of Manetho. Manetho was a learned
priest of a celebrated temple, who must have had access to all the
temple and royal records and other literature of Egypt, and who must
have been also conversant with foreign literature, to have been
selected as the best man to write a complete history of his native
country for the royal library in Greek. Manetho's lists of the reigns
of dynasties and kings when summed up show a date of 5867 B.C. for
the foundation of the united Egyptian Empire by Menes, a date which
is of course absolutely inconsistent with those given by Genesis, not
only for the Deluge, but for the original Creation.
It is evident that the monuments alone could confirm or contradict
these lists, and give a solid basis for Egyptian chronology and
history. This has now been done to such an extent that it may
fairly be said that Manetho has been confirmed, and it is fully
established, as a fact acquired by science, that nearly all his
kings and dynasties are proved by monuments to have existed, and
that successively and not simultaneously, so that the margin of
uncertainty as to the date of Menes is reduced to one of a few
hundred years on one side or other of 5000 B.C.
Mariette, who is the best and latest authority, and who has done
so much to discover monuments of the earlier dynasties, concludes,
as the result of a careful revision of Manetho's lists, and of the
authentic records from temples, tombs, and papyri, that 5004 B.C. is
the most probable date for the accession of Menes, and this date
is generally adopted by modern Egyptologists. Some make it rather
longer, as Boeck 5702 B.C., and Unger 5613 B.C.; while others make
it a little shorter, as Maspero 4500 B.C., and Brugsch[1] 4455;
but it is to be observed that the date has always lengthened with
the progress of discovery. Thus the earlier Egyptologists such as
Wilkinson, Birch, and Poole assigned a date not exceeding 3000
B.C. for the accession of Menes; twenty years later Bunsen and
Lepsius gave respectively 3623 and 3892 B.C.; and since the latest
discoveries, no competent scholar assigns a lower date than 4500
B.C., while some go up to 5702 B.C., and that most generally accepted
is 5004 B.C. It is safe to conclude, therefore, that about 5000 B.C.,
or very nearly 7000 years before the present time, may be taken
provisionally as the date of the commencement of authentic Egyptian
history, and that if this date be corrected by future discoveries it
is more likely to be increased than diminished.
[1] Brugsch, however, confines himself mainly to kings whose
names are confirmed by monuments, and takes no account of the
numerous names of unknown kings in royal genealogies, of which no
confirmation has yet been found, so that practically his estimate
is not inconsistent with that of Mariette.
This immensely long period of Egyptian history is divided into three
stages--the Old, the Middle, and the New Empires. The Old Empire
began with Menes, and lasted without interruption for about 1500
years, under six dynasties of kings, who ruled over the whole of
Egypt. It was a period of peace, prosperity, and progress, during
which the pyramids, the greatest of all human works, were built,
literature flourished, and the industrial and fine arts attained a
high degree of perfection.
At the very commencement of this period we find the first King Menes
carrying out a great work of hydraulic engineering, by which the
course of the Nile was diverted, and a site obtained on its western
banks for the new capital of Memphis. His immediate successor is said
to have written a celebrated treatise on Medicine, and the extremely
life-like portrait-statues and wooden statuettes, which were never
equalled in any subsequent stage of Egyptian art, date back to the
fourth dynasty.
[Illustration: PYRAMIDS OF GIZEH AND SPHYNX. (From Champollion's
_Egypt_.)]
It is singular that this extremely ancient period is the one of
which, although the oldest, we know most, for the monuments,
the papyri, and especially the tombs in the great cemeteries of
Sakkarah and Ghizeh, give us the fullest details of the political
and social life of Egypt during the fourth, fifth, and sixth
dynasties, with sufficient information as to the three first
dynasties to check and confirm the lists of Manetho. We really
know the life of Memphis 6000 years ago better than we do that of
London under the Saxon kings, or of Paris under the descendants
of Clovis.
The sixth dynasty was succeeded by a period which seems to have
been one of civil war and anarchy, during which there was a
complete cessation of monuments; or, if they existed, they have
not yet been discovered. The probable duration of this eclipse of
Egyptian records is somewhat uncertain, as we cannot be sure, in
the absence of monuments, that the four dynasties of short reigns
assigned to the interval between the sixth and the eleventh
dynasties by Manetho, and the numerous names of unknown kings on
the tablets, were successive sovereigns who reigned over united
Egypt, or local chiefs who got possession of power in different
parts of the Empire. All we can see is that the supremacy of
Memphis declined, and that its last great dynasty was replaced,
either in whole or in part, by a rebellion in Upper Egypt which
introduced two dynasties whose seat was at Heracleopolis on the
Middle Nile, In any case the duration of this period must have
been very long, for the eclipse was very complete, and when
we once more find ourselves in the presence of records in the
eleventh dynasty, the seat of empire is established at Thebes,
and the state of the arts, religion, and civilization are
different and much ruder than they were at the close of the great
Memphite Empire with the sixth dynasty. Mariette says, "When
Egypt, with the eleventh dynasty, awoke from its long sleep, the
ancient traditions were forgotten. The proper names of the kings
and ancient nobility, the titles of the high functionaries, the
style of the hieroglyphic writing, and even the religion, all
seemed new. The monuments are rude, primitive, and sometimes
even barbarous, and to see them one would be inclined to think
that Egypt under the eleventh dynasty was beginning again the
period of infancy which it had already passed through 1500 years
earlier under the third." The tomb of one of these kings of the
eleventh dynasty, Entef I., is remarkable as showing on a funeral
pillar the sportsman-king surrounded by his four favourite dogs,
whose names are given, and which are of different breeds, from a
large greyhound to a small turnspit.
However, the chronology of this eleventh dynasty is well
attested, its kings are known, and under them Upper and Lower
Egypt were once more consolidated into a single state, forming
what is known as the Middle Empire. Under the twelfth dynasty,
which succeeded it, this Empire bloomed rapidly into one of the
greatest and most glorious periods of Egyptian history. The
dynasty only lasted for 213 years, under seven kings, whose names
were all either Amenemes or Osirtasen; but during their reigns
the frontiers of Egypt were extended far to the south, Nubia was
incorporated with the Empire, and Egyptian influence extended
over the whole Soudan, and perhaps nearly to the equator on the
one hand, and over Southern Syria on the other. But the dynasty
was still more famous for the arts of peace.
One of the greatest works of hydraulic engineering which the
world has seen was carried out by Amenemes III., who took
advantage of a depression in the desert limestone near the
basin of Fayoum, to form a large artificial lake connected
with the Nile by canals, tunnelled through rocky ridges and
provided with sluices, so as to admit the water when the river
rose too high, and let it out when it fell too low, and thus
regulate the inundation of a great part of Middle and Lower
Egypt, independently of the seasons. Connected with this Lake
Moeris was the famous Labyrinth, which Herodotus pronounced to
be a greater wonder than even the great Pyramid. It was a vast
square building erected on a small plateau on the east side
of the lake, constructed of blocks of granite which must have
been brought from Syene, with a façade of white limestone; and
containing in the interior a vast number of small square chambers
and vaults--Herodotus says 3000--each roofed with a single large
slab of stone, and connected by narrow passages, so intricate
that a stranger entering without a clue would be infallibly
lost. The object seems to have been to provide a safe repository
for statues of gods and kings and other precious objects. In
the centre was a court containing twelve hypostyle chapels, six
facing the south and six the north, and at the north angle of the
square was a pyramid of brick faced with stone forming the tomb
of Amenemes III.
In addition to this colossal work, the kings of this dynasty
built and restored many of the most famous temples and erected
statues and obelisks, among the latter the one now standing
at Heliopolis. It was also an age of great literary activity,
and the biographies of many of the priests, nobles, and high
officers, inscribed on their tombs and recorded in papyri, give
us the most minute knowledge of the history and social life of
this remote period.
The prosperity of Egypt during the Middle Empire was continued
under the thirteenth dynasty of sixty Theban kings, to whom
Manetho assigns the period of 453 years. Less is known of this
period than of the great twelfth dynasty which preceded it, but
a sufficient number of monuments have been preserved to confirm
the general accuracy of Manetho's statements. A colossal statue
of the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth king, Sevckhotef VI., found
on the island of Argo near Dongola, shows that the frontier
fixed by the conquests of Amenemes at Semneh, had not only been
maintained, but extended nearly fifty leagues to the south into
the heart of Ethiopia; and another statue found at Tanis shows
that the rule of this dynasty was firmly established in Lower
Egypt. But the scarcity of the monuments, and the inferior
execution of the works of art, show that this long dynasty was
one of gradual decline, and the rise of the next or fourteenth
dynasty at Xois, transferring the seat of power from Thebes to
the Delta, points to civil wars and revolutions.
[Illustration: FELLAH WOMAN AND HEAD OF SECOND HYKSOS STATUE.
(From photograph by Naville in _Harper's Magazine_.)]
[Illustration: HYKSOS SPHYNX. (From photograph by Naville in
_Harper's Magazine_.)]
Manetho assigns seventy-five kings and 484 years to the fourteenth
dynasty, and it is to this period that a good deal of uncertainty
attaches, for there are no monuments, and nothing to confirm
Manetho's lists, except a number of unknown names of kings of the
dynasty enumerated among the royal ancestors in the Papyrus of Turin.
If Manetho's figures are correct, the period must have been one of
anarchy and civil war, for the average duration of each reign is
less than six and a half years, while that of the twelfth and other
well-known historical dynasties exceeds thirty years. The same remark
applies to the thirteenth dynasty, the reigns of whose sixty kings
average only seven and a half years each, and it is probable that
the end of this dynasty and the whole of the fourteenth was a period
of anarchy, during which so-called kings rose and fell in rapid
succession, as in the case of our own dynasties of Lancaster and
York, and the annals are so confused that the dates are unreliable.
What is certain is that the great Middle Empire sank rapidly into a
state of anarchy and impotence, which prepared the way for a great
catastrophe. This catastrophe came in the form of an invasion of
foreigners, who, about the year 2000 B.C., broke through the eastern
frontier of the Delta, and apparently without much resistance,
conquered the whole of Lower Egypt up to Memphis, and reduced the
princes of the Upper Provinces to a state of vassalage. There is
considerable doubt who these invaders were, who were known as Hyksos
or Shepherd Kings. They consisted probably, mainly of nomad tribes
of Canaanites, Arabians, and other Semitic races, but the Turanian
Hittites seem to have been associated with them, and the leaders
to have been Turanian, judging from the portrait-statues of two of
the later kings of the Hyksos dynasty which have been recently
discovered by Naville at Bubastis, and which are unmistakably
Turanian and even Chinese in type. Our information as to this Hyksos
conquest is derived mainly from fragments of Manetho quoted by
Josephus, and from traditions repeated by Herodotus, and is very
vague and imperfect. But this much seems certain, that at first
the Hyksos acted as savage barbarians, burning cities, demolishing
temples, and massacring part of the population and reducing the rest
to slavery. But, as in the parallel case of the Tartar conquest of
China, as time went on they adopted the superior civilization of
their subjects, and the later kings were transformed into genuine
Pharaohs, differing but little from those of the old national
dynasties. This is conclusively proved by the discoveries recently
made at Tanis and Bubastis, which have revealed important monuments
of this dynasty. At Tanis an avenue of sphynxes was discovered,
copied evidently from those at Thebes and from the Great Sphynx at
Gizeh, with lion bodies and human heads, the latter with a different
head-dress from the Egyptian, and a different type of feature. At
Bubastis two colossal statues of Hyksos kings, with their heads
broken off, but one of them nearly perfect, were unexpectedly
discovered by Naville in 1887, and it was proved that they had stood
on each side of the entrance to an addition made by those kings to
the ancient and celebrated temple of the Egyptian goddess Bast,
thus proving that the Hyksos had adopted not only the civilization
but also the religion of the Egyptian nation. There are but few
inscriptions known of the Hyksos dynasty, for their cartouches have
generally been effaced, and those of later kings chiselled over
them; but enough remains to show that they were in the hieroglyphic
character, and the names of two or three of their kings can still
be deciphered, among which are two Apepis, the second probably the
last of the dynasty. It was probably under one of these Hyksos kings
that Joseph came to Egypt, and the tribes of Israel settled on its
eastern frontier. The duration of the Hyksos rule is thus left in
some uncertainty. Manetho, if correctly quoted by Josephus, says
they ruled over Egypt for 511 years, though his lists only show one
dynasty of 259 years, and then the Theban dynasty, who reigned over
Upper Egypt for 260 years contemporaneously with Hyksos kings in
Lower Egypt. We regain, however, firm historical ground with the
rise of the eighteenth Theban dynasty of native Egyptian kings,
who finally expelled the Hyksos, after a long war, and founded what
is known as the New Empire. The date of this event is fixed by the
best authorities at about 1750 B.C., and from this time downwards we
have an uninterrupted succession of undoubted historical records,
confirmed by contemporary monuments and by the annals of other
nations, down to the Christian era. The reaction which followed the
expulsion of the Hyksos led to campaigns in Asia on a great scale,
in which Egypt came into collision with powerful nations, and for
a long time was the dominant power in Western Asia, extending its
conquests from the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea and Mediterranean,
and receiving tribute from Babylon and Nineveh. Then followed wars,
waged on more equal terms, with the Hittites, who had founded a great
empire in Asia Minor and Syria; and as their power declined and that
of Assyria rose, with the long series of warlike Assyrian monarchs,
who gradually obtained the ascendency, and not only stripped Egypt
of its foreign conquests, but on more than one occasion invaded
its territory and captured its principal cities. It is during this
period that we find the first of the certain synchronisms between
Egyptian history and the Old Testament, beginning with the capture
of Jerusalem by Shishak in the reign of Rehoboam, and ending with
the captivity of the Jews and temporary conquest of Egypt by
Nebuchadnezzar. Then came the Persian conquest by Cambyses and
alternate periods of national independence and of Persian rule, until
the conquest of Alexander and the establishment of the dynasty of
the Ptolemies, which lasted until the reign of Cleopatra, and ended
finally by the annexation of Egypt as a province of the Roman Empire.
The history of this long period is extremely interesting, as showing
what may be called the commencement of the modern era of great wars,
and of the rise and fall of civilized empires; but for the present
purpose I only refer to it as helping to establish the chronological
standard which I am in search of as a measuring-rod to gauge the
duration of historical time. We may sum up the conclusions derived
from Manetho's lists and the monuments as follows:--
Manetho's lists, as they have come down to us, show a date of 5867
years B.C. for the accession of Menes. Of this period, we may say
that we know 1750 years for the New Empire and the period of the
Persians and the Ptolemies, from contemporary monuments and records,
with such certainty that any possible error cannot exceed fifty or
one hundred years. The Hyksos period is less certain, but there is
no sufficient reason for doubting that it may have lasted for about
511 years. Manetho could have had no object in overstating the
duration of the rule of hated foreigners, and a long time must have
elapsed before the rude invaders could have so completely adopted the
civilization of the subject race. The dates of the Middle Empire, to
which Manetho assigns 1241 years, are more uncertain, and we can only
check them by monuments for the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth
dynasties. The length of the fourteenth Xoite dynasty seems to be
exaggerated, and the later obscure Theban dynasties may have been
contemporary with the rule of the Hyksos in Lower Egypt. Of the 2105
years assigned to the Ancient Empire, the first 1645 from Menes to
the end of the sixth dynasty are well authenticated by monuments
and inscriptions, and the 460 for the seventh, eighth, ninth, and
tenth are obscure, though a considerable time must have elapsed for
such a complete eclipse of the monuments and arts as appears to
have occurred between the nourishing period of the sixth dynasty
and the revival of the Middle Empire under the eleventh. We may
say, therefore, that we have about 4000 years of undoubted history
between the accession of Menes and the Christian era, and 1600 more
years for which we have only the authority of Manetho's lists, and
the names of unknown kings in genealogical records, with a few
scattered monuments, and to which it is difficult to assign specific
dates. This may enable us to appreciate the nature of the evidence
upon which Mariette and so many of the best and oldest authorities
base their estimates in assigning a date of about 5000 B.C. for the
accession of Menes.
The glimpses of light into the prehistoric stages of Egyptian
civilization prior to Menes are few and far between. We are told that
before the consolidation of the Empire by Menes, Egypt was divided
into a number of separate nomes or provinces, each gathered about
its own independent city and temple, and ruled by the Horsheshu or
servants of Horus, who were apparently the chief priests of the
respective temples, combining with the character of priest that of
king, or local ruler. Parts of the Todtenbuch or Sacred Book of the
Dead certainly date from this period, and the great Temple of the
Sun at Heliopolis had been founded, for we are told that certain
prehistoric Heliopolitan hymns formed the basis of the sacred books
of a later age. At Edfu the later temple occupies the site of a very
ancient structure, traditionally said to date back to the mythic
reign of the gods, and to have been built according to a plan
designed by Nuhotef the son of Pthah. At Denderah an inscription
found by Mariette in one of the crypts of the great temple, expressly
identifies the earliest sanctuary built upon the spot with the time
of the Horsheshu. It reads, "There was found the great fundamental
ordinance of Denderah, written upon goatskin in ancient writing of
the time of the Horsheshu. It was found in the inside of a brick
wall during the reign of King Pepi" (_i.e._ Pepi-Merira of the sixth
dynasty). The name of Chufu, the king of the fourth dynasty, who
built the great pyramid, was found by Naville in a restoration of
part of the famous temple of Bubastis, and its foundation doubtless
dates back to the same prehistoric period.
But the most important prehistoric monuments are those connected
with the great Sphynx. An inscription of Chufu (Cheops) preserved in
the museum of Boulak, says that a temple adjoining the Sphynx was
discovered by chance in his reign, which had been buried under the
sand of the desert, and forgotten for many generations. This temple
was uncovered by Mariette, and found to be constructed of enormous
blocks of granite of Syene and of alabaster, supported by square
pillars, each of a single block of stone, without any mouldings or
ornaments, and no trace of hieroglyphics. It is, in fact, a sort of
transition from the rude dolmen to scientific architecture. But the
masonry, and still more the transport of such enormous blocks from
Syene to the plateau of the desert at Gizeh, show a great advance
already attained in the resources of the country and the state of
the industrial arts. The Sphynx itself probably dates from the same
period, for it is mentioned on the same inscription as being much
older than the great Pyramids, and requiring repairs in the time of
Chufu. It is a gigantic work consisting of a natural rock sculptured
into the form of a lion's body, to which a human head has been added,
built up of huge blocks of hewn stone. It is directed accurately
towards the east so as to face the rising sun at the equinox, and was
an image of Hormachen, the Sun of the Lower World, which traverses
the abode of the dead. In addition to the direct evidence for its
prehistoric antiquity, it is certain that if such a monument had been
erected by any of the historical kings, it would have been inscribed
with hieroglyphics, and the fact recorded in Manetho's lists and
contemporary records, whereas all tradition of its origin seems to
have been lost in the night of ages.
Although there are no monuments of the Stone Age in Egypt like those
of the Swiss lake villages and Danish kitchen-middens, to enable us
to trace in detail the progress of arts and civilization from rude
commencements through the neolithic and prehistoric ages, yet there
is abundant evidence to show that the same stages had been traversed
in the valley of the Nile long prior to the time of Menes. Borings
have been made on various occasions and at various localities through
the alluvial deposits of the Nile valley, from which fragments of
pottery have been brought up from depths which show a high antiquity.
Horner sunk ninety-six shafts in four rows at intervals of eight
miles, across the valley of the Nile, at right angles to the river
near Memphis, and brought up pottery from various depths, which, at
the known rate of deposit of the Nile mud of about three inches per
century, indicate an antiquity of at least 11,000 years. In another
boring a copper knife was brought up from a depth of twenty-four
feet, and pottery, from sixty feet below the surface. This is
specially interesting, as making it probable that here, as in many
other countries, an age of copper preceded that of bronze, while a
depth of sixty feet at the normal rate of deposit would imply an
antiquity of 26,000 years. Borings, however, are not very conclusive,
as it is always open to contend that they may have been made at spots
where, owing to some local circumstances, the deposit was much more
rapid than the average.
These objections, however, cannot apply to the evidence which has
been afforded by the discovery of flint implements, both of the
neolithic and palæolithic type, in many localities and by various
skilled observers. Professor Haynes found, a few miles east of Cairo,
not only a number of flint implements of the types usual in Europe,
but an actual workshop or manufactory where they had been made,
showing that they had not been imported, but produced in the country
in the course of its native development. He also found multitudes
of worked flints of the ordinary neolithic and palæolithic types
scattered on the hills near Thebes. Lenormant and Hamy saw the same
workshop and remains of the stone period, and various other finds
have been reported by other observers. Finally, General Pitt-Rivers
and Professor Haynes found well-developed palæolithic implements of
the St. Acheul type, not only on the surface and in superficial
deposits, but from six and a half to ten feet deep in hard stratified
gravel at Djebel-Assas, near Thebes, in a terrace on the side of one
of the ravines falling from the Libyan desert into the Nile valley,
which was certainly deposited in early quaternary ages by a torrent
pouring down from a plateau where, under existing geographical and
climatic conditions, rain seldom or never falls. These relics, as
Mr. Campbell says, who was associated with General Pitt-Rivers in the
discovery, are "beyond calculation older than the oldest Egyptian
temples and tombs," and they certainly go far to prove that the high
civilization of Egypt at the earliest dawn of history or tradition
had been a plant of extremely slow growth from a state of provincial
savagery.
[Illustration: STATUE OF PRINCE RAHOTEP'S WIFE. (Refined type.)
(Gizeh Museum.--Discovered in 1870 in a tomb near
Meydoon.--According to the chronological table of Mariette, it is
5800 years old.--From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo.)]
It is remarkable that all the traditions of the Egyptians represent
them as being autochthonous. There is no legend of any immigration,
no Oannes who comes out of the sea and teaches the arts of
civilization. On the contrary, Thoth and Osiris are native Egyptian
gods or kings, who reigned long ago in Egyptian cities. There are
no legends of an inferior race who were exterminated or driven up
the Nile; though it would seem from the portraits on early monuments
that there were two types in the very early ages one coarse and
approximating to the African, the other a refined and aristocratic
type, more resembling that of the highest Asiatic or Arabian races.
[Illustration: KHUFU-ANKH AND HIS SERVANTS--EARLY EGYPTIANS.
(Coarse type.)]
It has been conjectured that this latter race may have come from
Punt, that is, from Southern Arabia, and the opposite African coast
of Soumali land, where there are races of a high, civilization at a
very early period. This conjecture is based on the fact that Punt
is constantly referred to in the Egyptian monuments as a divine
or sacred land, while other surrounding nations are loaded with
opprobrious epithets. Also the earliest traditions refer the origin
of Egyptian civilization not to Lower Egypt, where the Isthmus of
Suez affords a land route from Asia, nor to Upper Egypt, as if it
had descended the Nile from Africa, but to Abydos and This in
Middle Egypt, where the gods were feigned to have reigned, which
are comparatively close to Coptos, the port on the Red Sea by which
intercourse was most easily kept up between the valley of the Nile
and the land of Punt.
This conjecture, however, is very vague, and when we come to positive
facts we find that the language and system of writing, when we first
meet with them, are fully formed and apparently of native growth, not
derived from any Semitic, Aryan, or Turanian speech of any historical
nation. It is certainly an agglutinative language originally, but far
advanced beyond the simpler forms of that mode of speech as spoken by
Mongolians. It shows some distant affinities with Semitic, or rather
with what may have been a proto-Semitic, before it had been fully
formed, and is perhaps nearer to what may have been the primitive
language of the Libyans of North Africa. But there is nothing in the
language from which we can infer origin, and the pictures from which
hieroglyphics are derived are those of animals and objects proper to
the Nile valley, and not like those of the Accadians and Chinese,
such as point to a prehistoric nomad existence on elevated plains.
The only positive fact tending to confirm the existence of two races
in Egypt, one rude and aboriginal, the other of high type, is the
difference of type shown by the early portraits and the discovery
by Mr. Flinders Petrie, in the very old cemetery of Meydoon, of two
distinct modes of interment, one of the ordinary mummy extended
at full length, the other in a crouching attitude as is common in
neolithic graves.
For any further inquiries as to the origin and antiquity of Egyptian
civilization, we have to fall back on the state of religion, science,
literature, and art, which we find prevailing in the earliest records
which have come down to us, and which I will proceed to examine in
subsequent chapters. But before doing so, I will endeavour to exhaust
the field of positive history, and inquire how far the annals of
other ancient nations contradict or confirm the date of about 5000
years B.C., which has been shown to be approximately that of the
accession of Menes.