there was no intention of giving the chief features of an encyclopædia of
their sciences. Every scientific purpose was necessarily laid aside, only
the thoroughly practical aim of a sacerdotal compendium was contemplated,
in which learning only formed part of the education of a priest, and
merely occupied a third place after theology and the liturgical forms,
and was only represented so far as a direct practical use could be
obtained from it. Philosophy was therefore not at all separated from
theology; human law was only an efflux of divine law. The knowledge of
geometry was necessary for the surveying of the land, the division of
the produce, the building and decoration of the temples; the knowledge
of astronomy for the calendar of festivals, and the civil calculation of
time; singing formed a part of the Liturgy. Nor is proof wanting that the
knowledge and literature of Egypt far surpassed what was required by the
hierarchy, that the thirty-six or forty-two books were also the earliest
and original centre, to which later progressive improvements might
everywhere attach themselves.
We frequently read in other authors about the “_Sacred Writings_[171]”
of the Egyptians, or of their _Hermetic books_, but it would be wrong
to refer all these notices to the forty-two books named by Clemens. It
seems to me by no means improbable that the above-mentioned precepts on
the life of the king, in Diodorus, which for Egypt bear a thoroughly
classical stamp on them, formed a portion of the sacred law-books of the
prophets, and that the laudatory song upon the deceased king, mentioned
at the end of that passage, might have been composed in imitation of
the ἐκλογισμὸς βασιλικοῦ βίου, in the last of the thirty-six books, and
have only been employed in the last case. But it is not to be supposed
the forty-two books themselves contained separate laudatory songs on
particular kings, although such songs, understood in a wider sense,
certainly belonged to the sacred books.
We read in the same passage of Diodorus, that wise sayings and actions
of the most distinguished men were read aloud to the king after the
sacrifice by the hierogrammatist from the “Sacred Books,” ἐκ τῶν ἱερῶν
βίβλων. We still possess ancient papyri which contain proverbs of a
similar kind, some of them even put into the mouths of certain celebrated
kings belonging to the Old Monarchy, such as Amenemha I., the head of
the 12th Dynasty[172], resembling somewhat in their form the proverbs of
Solomon. For the sake of the reader, and the one who reads out loud, they
are divided by red points recurring at nearly stated intervals into short
verses, according to the sentences, like the Hebrew scriptures. But these
could not have belonged to the ten rolls of the hierogrammatists, nor to
the priests’ canon in general.
It were more easy to suppose that the first book of the singer may have
consisted of single hymns and prayers addressed to particular divinities,
such as we still possess several instances of, _e. g._ to Ra, Amen Ra,
Mut[173], to Thoth[174], to Osiris[175], Atmu[175], &c., yet probably
it likewise only contained the daily litanies, which belonged to every
temple service, and which were also expressly mentioned[176]. I can as
little agree with the opinion[177] that the great Book of the Dead of
the Egyptians was one of the ten books of the Stolistes, although I
consider it to be also[178] a sacred book ascribed to Hermes. Even its
extent forbids the former supposition. And, moreover, it is by no means
a liturgical book, which one belonging to the Stolistes must have been,
nor a book of Rituals, as Champollion appears to have regarded it, but
essentially a history of the soul after death, therefore it was placed in
the tomb with the deceased. The theological basis of this work, however,
was undoubtedly included in the hieratical books of the prophets.
Bunsen[179] justly makes a distinction between the civil law-book,
and the sacred law-books of the prophets. It was impossible that the
regulations and precepts of the six law-givers, who are mentioned by
Diodorus[180], could have been received into the canon, this can only be
supposed of the most ancient portion of them—the laws of Menes, which
were ascribed to Hermes by himself, and probably were the foundation both
of the religious and of the civil law.
We shall now more easily understand why still less space was afforded
in the canon of Clemens for the _historical_ literature. It presented
neither a speculative nor a practical side to the object which Egyptian
theology had in view, and regarded in this light, therefore, it must
appear subordinate. But on that account it no less existed. This is
proved as well by the authors[181] themselves as by the original remains,
which we still possess. Historical facts of all kinds, related both by
means of pictures and writings, covered the walls of the temples in the
principal towns; single battles and whole wars were described, with their
exact dates, and with all the living details of an eye-witness, upon the
stone surfaces of the pylons and the surrounding walls. As long as these
lasted, the remembrance of those actions must have remained living and
true in the mind of every cultivated Egyptian. And, in fact, we find
these representations at a late period used as a direct authority in
history.
Tacitus[182] recounts to us the visit of Germanicus to the “_great
remains of ancient Thebes. And Egyptian inscriptions were still extant
upon the enormous buildings which declared the former riches. One of
the most distinguished of the priests, who was required to explain the
language of the country, related, that at one time 700,000 men, capable
of bearing arms, dwelt here, and that King Ramses with this army had
conquered Libya, Ethiopia, the Medes and Persians, the Bactrians, and
Scythians, and that he held under his dominions the countries of the
Syrians, the Armenians, and the neighbouring Cappadocians, and thence
to the Bithynian and the Lycian Sea; the tribute laid upon the people
was also read aloud, the weight of the silver and gold, the number of
the weapons and horses, and the presents to the temple, of ivory and
frankincense, and how much corn and other objects had been remitted by
each nation, which was not less than what is now imposed upon the people
by the might of the Parthians, or the power of the Romans._”
This is as strictly an historical notice from the reign of Ramses II., in
the fourteenth century before Christ, as was ever related to us by the
Greeks from the life of Xerxes or Alexander: for we read this statement
now in the present day upon the same walls, before which Germanicus
stood with wondering eyes. The Greeks and Romans seldom derived their
knowledge from such a direct source as Germanicus did here, and Tacitus
was quite unconscious that he was speaking of the same King Ramses, when
shortly before he related of King _Sesostris_, that the bird called the
Phœnix appeared for the first time in his reign. We still read the name
Ramses upon the monuments, as the priest read it to Germanicus; Sesostris
was the name of Sethôs I., who was so often confused with his son Ramses,
and was carried down by a Greek mistake, since the time of Herodotus
(ⲥⲉⲑⲱⲥⲓⲥ, ⲥⲉⲥⲟⲱⲥⲓⲥ, ⲥⲉⲥⲱⲥⲧⲣⲓⲥ).
Who can well doubt that along with such a historical literature engraven
in stone, which to this day fills the whole of Egypt from Alexandria
to Mount Barkal, far in Ethiopia, a corresponding _historical book
literature_ must have existed, of course much richer and more complete,
even though we may not be able at present to point out the remains
of it. But in fact we still possess papyrus rolls, one of which
accidentally refers to the identical warlike deeds represented, with
their annotations, upon the walls of the Theban temple. This is one of
the important documents which the British Museum purchased in the year
1839 from M. Sallier, in Aix, after Champollion had already, in the year
1828, recognised and communicated several passages in it which related to
the war of the great Ramses against the people of Cheta[183]. In 1838 I
found at Leghorn, in a collection of Egyptian antiquities belonging to M.
D’Anastasi, a series of papyri very similar to this, which mention other
warlike features of that glorious period. They appear to come originally
from the same tomb as those of Sallier, since they proceed, partly,
indeed, from the same scribe. Other similar pieces are found in the
Egyptian collections at Turin, Leyden, and Berlin.
It is evident, partly from the express date of the author or scribe,
partly from the kings mentioned in the text, that the largest proportion
of them belong to the 19th Dynasty. The most ancient date in the London
papyrus is from the ninth year of the Great RAMSES II.; the latest is
from the first year of King SET-NECHT, the third successor of the former.
The Turin Royal Annals also belong to this or the next Dynasty. Other
papyri are certainly not older than the 20th; _e. g._ one of those which
I obtained in Thebes repeatedly mentions the name of RAMSES IX., and is
dated, upon the reverse side, from the 13th of Pachon—the sixteenth year,
probably, of this king.
Another of these rolls contains, on the other hand, a portion of a
composition which belongs to the time of Tutmes III., the conqueror of
the Hyksos in the 18th Dynasty; a roll in Turin treats of the same king.
We have as little reason to doubt that the first paragraph in the Pap.
Sallier, No. 1, pl. i.-iii., which treats of two kings at the end of the
Hyksos period, was also composed in their time, or soon after their death.
Two remarkable papyrus rolls, which I obtained in London for the Berlin
Museum, mention the first kings of the 12th Dynasty, AMENEMHA I. and
SESURTESEN I. Their writing is very different from the rest of those that
I am acquainted with, and they belong to the very rare exceptions which,
in place of horizontal lines, are written in vertical columns, after the
manner of hieroglyphical writing; so that it would not surprise me, if
by penetrating more deeply into the contents, the result should be, that
they were composed, even this very copy, during the Old Monarchy. But the
most ancient of all the hieratic royal names are found in a papyrus in
my own possession[184]. Here the name of CHUFU (Cheops) is frequently
mentioned, also King SNEFRU in the 3rd Manethonic Dynasty, and three
other kings, who probably belong to the same Dynasty. These kings are,
indeed, all cited as dead, but since the whole of them belonged to that
ancient period, its contents could hardly be placed much later. Among
a people who were at all times surrounded by so many contemporaneous
monuments and historical authorities, reaching as far back as their first
royal Dynasties, it must have been generally much more difficult to
supplant, or essentially to alter the existing genuine history of ancient
times by fabulous tales and poetical inventions of later times.
In spite of the astonishing number of monuments, and in spite of the rich
literature, whose original remains are confirmed by the accounts we find
in different authors, it would, however, have been impossible to the
Egyptians themselves, how much more so to us, to obtain a correct and
clear insight into the course and connection of their history, if from
its commencement a chronological sense had not been so early developed
among them. Without chronology we should obtain no history, even from
the most varied literature; the Indians, especially, give us a striking
proof of this. History first obtains a perfect self-consciousness through
chronology. With the growing civilisation of a people, the necessity
increases for a sharper division of time both in small and large periods.
From the earliest era of their history, the Egyptians have known how to
satisfy this necessity, inherent in every higher state of civilisation.
But a chronology which is well arranged and established must always
proceed from astronomy. We cannot conceive the existence of the former,
in any nation, without the latter being to a certain degree developed. It
will not, therefore, appear superfluous if we enter here more minutely
into the astronomical knowledge of the Egyptians, before we turn our
attention to their computation of time. We shall here, also, commence
with the information we obtain from authors, and afterwards see how far
it is confirmed and completed by the monuments.
[The author here proceeds to the astronomical basis of Egyptian
chronology, and the chronological knowledge possessed by the Egyptians,
and concludes his Introduction with the following words:]
Taking a retrospective survey of the path we have hitherto pursued in our
discussions, I believe I have essentially fulfilled the task we undertook
at the commencement, namely, to point out the _possibility_ of the
existence of such an early history of Egypt.
We have seen how, contrasted with the most ancient Asiatic nations, the
Egyptians (pre-eminently favoured by their climatal and geographical
conditions) were destined, as it were by nature, to be a monumental
nation. These external conditions correspond with the innate bias of
their feelings, which is shown by the innumerable multitude of their
monuments, and by the extreme care they bestowed upon their preservation.
From their desire to retain the fleeting present, may be explained the
early development of their system of writing (so rich and significant in
its organism, owing to its important origin), as well as the excessive
use which was made of this writing, especially for the monuments, beyond
any other nations of antiquity, so that it soon attained its highest
destination by its application to a many-sided book literature. We have
been able to refer to a Theban library as early as the fourteenth century
before Christ, and have found reason for considering it neither the most
ancient, nor the only one in Egypt. It was this very ancient literature
and hereditary learning, which a later antiquity, and more particularly
the Greeks, abundantly acknowledged, praised, sought out, and studied.
Among the various branches of knowledge we have surveyed, especially the
sacred codes of the priests—the forty-two Hermetic books described by
Clemens, we have however particularly attempted, to indicate more closely
from the monuments, the early study of astronomy, because the arrival
at a more fixed chronology depends especially upon its development.
We have likewise endeavoured to point out that, under the favourable
circumstances of an Egyptian sky, and especially since the introduction
of the variable sun-calendar (calculating as it were, and forming periods
for itself), astronomy was cultivated in the most elaborate and most
complete manner, and this we have been able partly to confirm by the
monuments of the 4th and 12th Dynasties of the Old Monarchy. We have
discovered a division of time, less than an hour, to the sixty times
sixtieth part of a minute, and above an hour to the period of 36,525
years. Between these there were the greatest variety of cycles, such as
no other ancient nation, except the Egyptian, has been able to produce
in equal perfection. They were acquainted with the _civil hours_ of day
and night, also with the twenty-four equal or _equinoctial hours_ of the
complete day, νυχθήμερον.
From days they formed the decades, or Egyptian weeks, and from these
the thirty-day month; they also knew the lunar months, and solemnised
the new and full moon. Their season consisted of four months. They
recognised as forms of years, and carried out in the calendar, both the
oldest lunar year, as well as the solar year of 365 days, and the Sirius
year, which is a quarter of a day longer. The civil solar year, after
twenty-five years, namely at the Apis period, agreed again with the lunar
year; in the same way, calculating by the day, it agreed with the Sirius
year, at the lustrum of four years; and in the space of 1461 years, it
agreed completely with the _Sothis period_. The Phœnix period, of 1500
years, was employed to make the civil year agree with the tropical year,
which was afterwards divided according to the three seasons into three
parts—500 years each. Finally, the Sidereal year, or the slow receding of
the ecliptic to the west, became known, and it was expressed, although
with an imperfect comprehension of the direction and velocity of the
movement, by its greatest astronomical period of 36,525 years.
We have gained the principal purpose we had in view if we have succeeded
in pointing out that, in Egypt, from the time of Menes, to whose reign
the historical accounts go back, there existed to an extraordinary degree
all the conditions necessary for the growth and the perfect development
of the self-conscious and historical life of a nation, and for a
chronologically-arranged historical literature, formed by the monuments
and contemporaneous records. These circumstances have placed it in our
power to investigate and restore, from such early times, the experienced
and recorded history of the Egyptians. As far as our present knowledge
extends, the conditions that we have named only appear complete among
the most ancient Asiatic and European nations at a much later period,
namely, during the last millennium before Christ, therefore an historical
investigation, which refers back as far as that of Egypt, has hitherto
been impossible with respect to those nations, except so far as in the
Egyptian history itself new points of information may be found respecting
the oldest history of nations, not Egyptian.
But it may very possibly be imagined that we have been compelled to stop
at the indication of this _possibility_, being deficient in the means to
raise this historical treasure from the depths in which we behold it.
We can only restore true history with the assistance of an historical
literature, and this must either be contemporaneous, and so far possess
in itself a monumental value, or if it is a later literature, referring
to what has long gone by, it must be accompanied by contemporaneous and
intelligible monuments to enable us to prove and correct it by them.
Hitherto we have certainly possessed one of the necessary means for
the restoration of the Pharaonic history, namely, the Greek accounts,
and extracts from an ancient Egyptian historical literature. But they
remained useless and confused, because the monuments and the literary
remains of the country were still mute and unintelligible. However, since
Champollion’s praiseworthy deciphering of the hieroglyphical writing has
rendered it possible to make an historical use of the monuments of the
country, the second means for historical investigation has been placed in
our hands. It was now for the first time possible to gain some advantage
from the literary authorities, and to make a critical examination of
them, which would necessarily demonstrate the general connection that
subsists between the monuments. Only a correct all-sided combination of
the means offered on both sides can here lead to the aim we have in view.
THE HEBREW TRADITION.
We can best exhibit the relation that subsists between the Hebrew and
Egyptian records, by endeavouring to determine chronologically, and by
such means as are extant, the most important point of contact in the
two histories—namely, the Mosaic period—and thus to prove the value of
the several numbers stated. We shall thereby perceive that the Hebrew
accounts, in so far as they are connected with Egypt, may be held to
be of more historical value than several modern inquirers are inclined
to accord to them, and that they are by no means wanting in a fixed
chronological principle, without which history cannot subsist; but that
a more exact chronology, which might serve as a point of support to the
Egyptian, is not to be sought in them, and it is rather this last which
supplies the most certain chronological explanation of those times to
the history of the Israelites. The genuine chronological character of
the Jewish history is pretty well acknowledged by every one as far back
as the division of the kingdom, or the building of the temple, whereby,
indeed, the individual chronological difficulties, which frequently
occur during this epoch, are not considered, but only the chronological
value of those numbers generally which form the basis of these separate
investigations; but the strictly chronological character of the Hebrew
determinations of time before this epoch is disputed, and, indeed, in
those very numbers which contain in themselves alone the threads of an
exact chronology. A critical examination of the value of these numbers
generally is thus necessary, and therefore this discussion becomes
appropriate here. It is, in fact, of the greatest importance to us,
because it determines whether it be possible to solve some marked
contradictions which have at all times keenly engaged the attention
of historians and theologians, and still continue to do so; it will,
besides, enable many people to decide upon the value of the Manethonic,
consequently of the Egyptian chronology generally, so far as it is made
to depend on its agreement with the accounts obtained from the oldest
source, the only one indeed not Egyptian, which here, at all events,
admits of a comparison.
There are, especially, _two numbers_ which have hitherto formed the
turning points of the chronology of the Old Testament for the Mosaic
period, because, passing over the uncertain individual statements,
they fixed the limits to great spaces in time, and appeared to lay
down a rule for more special investigations. I mean the 480 years[185]
which are calculated to be the period between the Exodus and the
building of the temple, and the 430 years[186] for the sojourn of the
Israelites in Egypt. Both numbers very early created difficulty, and
are partly modified, and partly refuted by other statements of time in
the Old Testament. The 480 years ought to correspond with the sum of
the individual numbers in the Book of Judges, which last is, however,
considerably greater. The genealogies of that same period would, on the
other hand, lead to the conclusion that the number of years was much
fewer. The Seventy themselves differ in their statement of the number,
since they write 440 in place of 480 years; and in the Acts of the
Apostles (xiii. 20), 450 years are calculated for the Judges only to
the time of Samuel; and this again differs from all other statements.
Lastly, we find that Josephus also, even if he knew the number 480, still
did not consider it as binding, since he never mentions it, but accepts
different numbers, and far higher ones[187], which, nevertheless, do
not agree with the Book of Judges. It thereby at least follows, that
the number 480 by itself cannot claim any decided authority. But there
is a still greater difference in the acceptation of the 430 years which
the Israelites are said to have passed in Egypt. For, setting aside that
in an earlier prophecy[188] the round number 400 alone is given, the
Seventy understand the whole statement to mean, not from the entrance
of JACOB INTO EGYPT, but from the entrance of ABRAHAM INTO CANAAN, and
they therefore translate the words in Exodus xii. 40, “Now the sojourning
of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and
thirty years;” by ἡ δὲ κατοίκησις τῶν υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ, ἣν κατῴκησαν ἐν τῇ γῇ
Αἰγύπτῳ καὶ ἐν γῇ Χαναὰν, ἔτη τετρακόσια τριάκοντα (Now the dwelling of
the children of Israel, which they dwelt in the land of Egypt and in the
land of Canaan, was four hundred and thirty years). The Apostle Paul[189]
also reckons the 430 years from the promise of Abraham, and Josephus[190]
does the same, so that for the sojourn in Egypt, which is understood in
the Hebrew text, only 215 years are reckoned, the remaining 215 being
assigned to the time from Abraham to Jacob. Lastly, if we compare the
number of generations in this period, we shall only find four generations
for the four centuries, so that for this, even half of the time stated
would still be far too great.