The Discovery Of Prehistoric Egypt
During the last ten years our conception of the beginnings of Egyptian
antiquity has profoundly altered. When Prof. Maspero published the
first volume of his great Histoire Ancienne des Peuples des l'Orient
Classique, in 1895, Egyptian history, properly so called, still began
with the Pyramid-builders, Sne-feru, Khufu, and Khafra (Cheops and
Chephren), and the legendary lists of earlier kings preserved at Abydos
and Sa
kara were still quoted as the only source of knowledge of the
time before the IVth Dynasty. Of a prehistoric Egypt nothing was known,
beyond a few flint flakes gathered here and there upon the desert
plateaus, which might or might not tell of an age when the ancestors
of the Pyramid-builders knew only the stone tools and weapons of the
primeval savage.
Now, however, the veil which has hidden the beginnings of Egyptian
civilization from us has been lifted, and we see things, more or less,
as they actually were, unobscured by the traditions of a later day.
Until the last few years nothing of the real beginnings of history in
either Egypt or Mesopotamia had been found; legend supplied the only
material for the reconstruction of the earliest history of the oldest
civilized nations of the globe. Nor was it seriously supposed that any
relics of prehistoric Egypt or Mesopotamia ever would be found. The
antiquity of the known history of these countries already appeared
so great that nobody took into consideration the possibility of our
discovering a prehistoric Egypt or Mesopotamia; the idea was too remote
from practical work. And further, civilization in these countries had
lasted so long that it seemed more than probable that all traces
of their prehistoric age had long since been swept away. Yet the
possibility, which seemed hardly worth a moment's consideration in 1895,
is in 1905 an assured reality, at least as far as Egypt is concerned.
Prehistoric Babylonia has yet to be discovered. It is true, for example,
that at Mukay-yar, the site of ancient Ur of the Chaldees, burials
in earthenware coffins, in which the skeletons lie in the doubled-up
position characteristic of Neolithic interments, have been found; but
there is no doubt whatever that these are burials of a much later date,
belonging, quite possibly, to the Parthian period. Nothing that may
rightfully be termed prehistoric has yet been found in the Euphrates
valley, whereas in Egypt prehistoric antiquities are now almost as well
known and as well represented in our museums as are the prehistoric
antiquities of Europe and America.
With the exception of a few palasoliths from the surface of the Syrian
desert, near the Euphrates valley, not a single implement of the Age
of Stone has yet been found in Southern Mesopotamia, whereas Egypt
has yielded to us the most perfect examples of the flint-knapper's
art known, flint tools and weapons more beautiful than the finest that
Europe and America can show. The reason is not far to seek. Southern
Mesopotamia is an alluvial country, and the ancient cities, which
doubtless mark the sites of the oldest settlements in the land, are
situated in the alluvial marshy plain between the Tigris and the
Euphrates; so that all traces of the Neolithic culture of the country
would seem to have disappeared, buried deep beneath city-mounds, clay
and marsh. It is the same in the Egyptian Delta, a similar country; and
here no traces of the prehistoric culture of Egypt have been found. The
attempt to find them was made last year at Buto, which is known to be
one of the most antique centres of civilization, and probably was one of
the earliest settlements in Egypt, but without success. The infiltration
of water had made excavation impossible and had no doubt destroyed
everything belonging to the most ancient settlement. It is not going too
far to predict that exactly the same thing will be found by any explorer
who tries to discover a Neolithic stratum beneath a city-mound of
Babylonia. There is little hope that prehistoric Chaldaea will ever be
known to us. But in Egypt the conditions are different. The Delta is
like Babylonia, it is true; but in the Upper Nile valley the river flows
down with but a thin border of alluvial land on either side, through the
rocky and hilly desert, the dry Sahara, where rain falls but once in two
or three years. Antiquities buried in this soil in the most remote
ages are preserved intact as they were first interred, until the modern
investigator comes along to look for them. And it is on the desert
margin of the valley that the remains of prehistoric Egypt have been
found. That is the reason for their perfect preservation till our own
day, and why we know prehistoric Egypt so well.
The chief work of Egyptian civilization was the proper irrigation of
the alluvial soil, the turning of marsh into cultivated fields, and the
reclamation of land from the desert for the purposes of agriculture.
Owing to the rainless character of the country, the only means
of obtaining water for the crops is by irrigation, and where the
fertilizing Nile water cannot be taken by means of canals, there
cultivation ends and the desert begins. Before Egyptian civilization,
properly so called, began, the valley was a great marsh through which
the Nile found its way north to the sea. The half-savage, stone-using
ancestors of the civilized Egyptians hunted wild fowl, crocodiles,
and hippopotami in the marshy valley; but except in a few isolated
settlements on convenient mounds here and there (the forerunners of the
later villages), they did not live there. Their settlements were on
the dry desert margin, and it was here, upon low tongues of desert hill
jutting out into the plain, that they buried their dead. Their simple
shallow graves were safe from the flood, and, but for the depredations
of jackals and hyenas, here they have remained intact till our own
day, and have yielded up to us the facts from which we have derived our
knowledge of prehistoric Egypt. Thus it is that we know so much of the
Egyptians of the Stone Age, while of their contemporaries in Mesopotamia
we know nothing, nor is anything further likely to be discovered.
But these desert cemeteries, with their crowds of oval shallow graves,
covered by only a few inches of surface soil, in which the Neolithic
Egyptians lie crouched up with their flint implements and polished
pottery beside them, are but monuments of the later age of prehistoric
Egypt. Long before the Neolithic Egyptian hunted his game in the
marshes, and here and there essayed the work of reclamation for the
purposes of an incipient agriculture, a far older race inhabited the
valley of the Nile. The written records of Egyptian civilization go back
four thousand years before Christ, or earlier, and the Neolithic Age of
Egypt must go back to a period several thousand years before that. But
we can now go back much further still, to the Palaeolithic Age of Egypt.
At a time when Europe was still covered by the ice and snows of the
Glacial Period, and man fought as an equal, hardly yet as a superior,
with cave-bear and mammoth, the Palaeolithic Egyptians lived on the
banks of the Nile. Their habitat was doubtless the desert slopes, often,
too, the plateaus themselves; but that they lived entirely upon the
plateaus, high up above the Nile marsh, is improbable. There, it is
true, we find their flint implements, the great pear-shaped weapons of
the types of Chelles, St. Acheul, and Le Moustier, types well known
to all who are acquainted with the flint implements of the "Drift" in
Europe. And it is there that the theory, generally accepted hitherto,
has placed the habitat of the makers and users of these implements.
The idea was that in Palaeolithic days, contemporary with the Glacial
Age of Northern Europe and America, the climate of Egypt was entirely
different from that of later times and of to-day. Instead of dry desert,
the mountain plateaus bordering the Nile valley were supposed to have
been then covered with forest, through which flowed countless streams
to feed the river below. It was suggested that remains of these streams
were to be seen in the side ravines, or wadis, of the Nile valley, which
run up from the low desert on the river level into the hills on either
hand. These wadis undoubtedly show extensive traces of strong water
action; they curve and twist as the streams found their easiest way
to the level through the softer strata, they are heaped up with great
water-worn boulders, they are hollowed out where waterfalls once fell.
They have the appearance of dry watercourses, exactly what any mountain
burns would be were the water-supply suddenly cut off for ever, the
climate altered from rainy to eternal sun-glare, and every plant and
tree blasted, never to grow again. Acting on the supposition that this
idea was a correct one, most observers have concluded that the climate
of Egypt in remote periods was very different from the dry, rainless one
now obtaining. To provide the water for the wadi streams, heavy
rainfall and forests are desiderated. They were easily supplied, on the
hypothesis. Forests clothed the mountain plateaus, heavy rains fell, and
the water rushed down to the Nile, carving out the great watercourses
which remain to this day, bearing testimony to the truth. And the
flints, which the Palaeolithic inhabitants of the plateau-forests made
and used, still lie on the now treeless and sun-baked desert surface.
THEBES.]
This is certainly a very weak conclusion. In fact, it seriously damages
the whole argument, the water-courses to the contrary notwithstanding.
The palaeoliths are there. They can be picked up by any visitor. There
they lie, great flints of the Drift types, just like those found in the
gravel-beds of England and Belgium, on the desert surface where they
were made. Undoubtedly where they were made, for the places where
they lie are the actual ancient flint workshops, where the flints were
chipped. Everywhere around are innumerable flint chips and perfect
weapons, burnt black and patinated by ages of sunlight. We are taking
one particular spot in the hills of Western Thebes as an example, but
there are plenty of others, such as the Wadi esh-Shekh on the right bank
of the Nile opposite Maghagha, whence Mr. H. Seton-Karr has brought
back specimens of flint tools of all ages from the Palaeolithic to the
Neolithic periods.
The Palaeolithic flint workshops on the Theban hills have been visited of
late years by Mr. Seton-Karr, by Prof. Schweinfurth, Mr. Allen Sturge,
and Dr. Blanckenhorn, by Mr. Portch, Mr. Ayrton, and Mr. Hall. The
weapons illustrated here were found by Messrs. Hall and Ayrton, and are
now preserved in the British Museum. Among these flints shown we notice
two fine specimens of the pear-shaped type of St. Acheul, with curious
adze-shaped implements of primitive type to left and right. Below, to
the right, is a very primitive instrument of Chellean type, being merely
a sharpened pebble. Above, to left and right, are two specimens of the
curious half-moon-shaped instruments which are characteristic of
the Theban flint field and are hardly known elsewhere. All have the
beautiful brown patina, which only ages of sunburn can give. The
"poignard" type to the left, at the bottom of the plate, is broken off
short.
From the desert plateau and slopes west of Thebes.]
In the smaller illustration we see some remarkable types: two scrapers
or knives with strongly marked "bulb of percussion" (the spot where the
flint-knapper struck and from which the flakes flew off), a very regular
coup-de-poing which looks almost like a large arrowhead, and on the
right a much weathered and patinated scraper which must be of immemorial
age.
March, 1905.]
This came from the top plateau, not from the slopes (or subsidiary
plateaus at the head of the wadis), as did the great St. Acheulian
weapons. The circular object is very remarkable: it is the half of the
ring of a "morpholith "(a round flinty accretion often found in the
Theban limestone) which has been split, and the split (flat) side
carefully bevelled. Several of these interesting objects have been
found in conjunction with Palaeolithic implements at Thebes. No doubt the
flints lie on the actual surface where they were made. No later water
action has swept them away and covered them with gravel, no later human
habitation has hidden them with successive deposits of soil, no gradual
deposit of dust and rubbish has buried them deep. They lie as they were
left in the far-away Palaeolithic Age, and they have lain there till
taken away by the modern explorer.
But this is not the case with all the Palaeolithic flints of Thebes. In
the year 1882 Maj.-Gen. Pitt-Rivers discovered Palaeolithic flints in the
deposit of diluvial detritus which lies between the cultivation and the
mountains on the west bank of the Nile opposite Luxor. Many of these are
of the same type as those found on the surface of the mountain plateau
which lies at the head of the great wadi of the Tombs of the Kings,
while the diluvial deposit is at its mouth. The stuff of which the
detritus is composed evidently came originally from the high plateau,
and was washed down, with the flints, in ancient times.
This is quite conceivable, but how is it that the flints left behind
on the plateau remain on the original ancient surface? How is it
conceivable that if (on the old theory) these plateaus were in
Palaeolithic days clothed with forest, the Palaeolithic flints could even
in a single instance remain undisturbed from Palaeolithic times to the
present day, when the forest in which they were made and the forest soil
on which they reposed have entirely disappeared? If there were woods and
forests On the heights, it would seem impossible that we should find,
as we do, Palaeolithic implements lying in situ on the desert surface,
around the actual manufactories where they were made. Yet if the
constant rainfall and the vegetation of the Libyan desert area in
Palaeolithic days is all a myth (as it most probably is), how came the
embedded palaeoliths, found by Gen. Pitt-Rivers, in the bed of diluvial
detritus which is apparently debris from the plateau brought down by
the Palaeolithic wadi streams?
Water erosion has certainly formed the Theban wadis. But this water
erosion was probably not that which would be the result of perennial
streams flowing down from wooded heights, but of torrents like those
of to-day, which fill the wadis once in three years or so after heavy
rain, but repeated at much closer intervals. We may in fact suppose
just so much difference in meteorological conditions as would make it
possible for sudden rain-storms to occur over the desert at far more
frequent intervals than at present. That would account for the detritus
bed at the mouth of the wadi, and its embedded flints, and at the
same time maintain the general probability of the idea that the desert
plateaus were desert in Palaeolithic days as now, and that early man only
knapped his flints up there because he found the flint there. He himself
lived on the slopes and nearer the marsh.
This new view seems to be much sounder and more probable than the old
one, maintained by Flinders Petrie and Blanckenhorn, according to which
the high plateau was the home of man in Palaeolithic times, when the
rainfall, as shown by the valley erosion and waterfalls, must have
caused an abundant vegetation on the plateau, where man could live and
hunt his game. [*Petrie, Nagada and Ballas, p. 49.] Were this so, it
is patent that the Palaeolithic flints could not have been found on the
desert surface as they are. Mr. H. J. L. Beadnell, of the Geological
Survey of Egypt, to whom we are indebted for the promulgation of the
more modern and probable view, says: "Is it certain that the high
plateau was then clothed with forests? What evidence is there to show
that it differed in any important respect from its present aspect? And
if, as I suggest, desert conditions obtained then as now, and man merely
worked his flints along the edges of the plateaus overlooking the
Nile valley, I see no reason why flint implements, dating even from
Palaeolithic times should not in favourable cases still be found in
the spots where they were left, surrounded by the flakes struck off in
manufacture. On the flat plateaus the occasional rains which fall--once
in three or four years--can effect but little transport of material, and
merely lower the general level by dissolving the underlying limestone,
so that the plateau surface is left with a coating of nodules and blocks
of insoluble flint and chert. Flint implements might thus be expected
to remain in many localities for indefinite periods, but they would
certainly become more or less 'patinated,' pitted on the surface, and
rounded at the angles after long exposure to heat, cold, and blown
sand." This is exactly the case of the Palaeolithic flint tools from the
desert plateau.
IMPLEMENTS ARE FOUND, Thebes: 1,400 leet above the Nile.]
We do not know whether Palaeolithic man in Egypt was contemporary with
the cave-man of Europe. We have no means of gauging the age of the
Palaeolithic Egyptian weapons, as we have for the Neolithic period.
The historical (dynastic) period of Egyptian annals began with the
unification of the kingdom under one head somewhere about 4500 B.C. At
that time copper as well as stone weapons were used, so that we may say
that at the beginning of the historical age the Egyptians were living
in the "Chalcolithic" period. We can trace the use of copper back for
a considerable period anterior to the beginning of the Ist Dynasty,
so that we shall probably not be far wrong if we do not bring down the
close of the purely Neolithic Age in Egypt--the close of the Age of
Stone, properly so called--later than +5000 B.C. How far back in the
remote ages the transition period between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic
Ages should be placed, it is utterly impossible to say. The use of stone
for weapons and implements continued in Egypt as late as the time of
the XIIth Dynasty, about 2500-2000 B.C. But these XIIth Dynasty stone
implements show by their forms how late they are in the history of the
Stone Age. The axe heads, for instance, are in form imitations of
the copper and bronze axe heads usual at that period; they are stone
imitations of metal, instead of the originals on whose model the metal
weapons were formed. The flint implements of the XIIth Dynasty were
a curious survival from long past ages. After the time of the XIIth
Dynasty stone was no longer used for tools or weapons, except for the
sacred rite of making the first incision in the dead bodies before
beginning the operations of embalming; for this purpose, as Herodotus
tells us, an "Ethiopian stone" was used. This was no doubt a knife of
flint or chert, like those of the Neolithic ancestors of the Egyptians,
and the continued use of a stone knife for this one purpose only is a
very interesting instance of a ceremonial survival. We may compare the
wigs of British judges.
We have no specimen of a flint knife which can definitely be asserted to
have belonged to an embalmer, but of the archaistic flint weapons of the
XIIth Dynasty we have several specimens. They were found by Prof. Petrie
at the place named by him "Kahun," the site of a XIIth Dynasty town
built near the pyramid of King Usertsen (or Senusret) II at Illahun,
at the mouth of the canal leading from the Nile valley into the
oasis-province of the Payyum. These Kahun flints, and others of probably
the same period found by Mr. Seton-Karr at the very ancient flint
works in the Wadi esh-Shekh, are of very coarse and poor workmanship
as compared with the stone-knapping triumphs of the late Neolithic and
early Chalcolithic periods. The delicacy of the art had all been lost.
But the best flint knives of the early period--dating to just a little
before the time of the Ist Dynasty, when flint-working had attained its
apogee, and copper had just begun to be used--are undoubtedly the most
remarkable stone weapons ever made in the world. The grace and utility
of the form, the delicacy of the fluted chipping on the side, and
the minute care with which the tiny serrations of the cutting edge,
serrations so small that often they can hardly be seen with the naked
eye, are made, can certainly not be parallelled elsewhere. The art
of flint-knapping reached its zenith in Ancient Egypt. The specimen
illustrated has a handle covered with gold decorated with incised
designs representing animals.
The prehistoric Egyptians may also fairly be said to have attained
greater perfection than other peoples in the Neolithic stage of culture,
in other arts besides the making of stone tools and weapons. Their
pottery is of remarkable perfection. Now that the sites of the Egyptian
prehistoric settlements have been so thoroughly explored by competent
archaeologists (and, unhappily, as thoroughly pillaged by incompetent
natives), this prehistoric Egyptian pottery has become extremely well
known. In fact, it is so common that good specimens may be bought
anywhere in Egypt for a few piastres. Most museums possess sets of this
pottery, of which great quantities have been brought back from Egypt
by Prof. Petrie and other explorers. It is of very great interest,
artistically as well as historically. The potter's wheel was not yet
invented, and all the vases, even those of the most perfect shape, were
built up by hand. The perfection of form attained without the aid of the
wheel is truly marvellous.
The commonest type of this pottery is a red polished ware vase with
black top, due to its having been baked mouth downward in a fire, the
ashes of which, according to Prof. Petrie, deoxidized the haematite
burnishing, and so turned the red colour to black. "In good examples
the haematite has not only been reduced to black magnetic oxide, but
the black has the highest polish, as seen on fine Greek vases. This is
probably due to the formation of carbonyl gas in the smothered fire.
This gas acts as a solvent of magnetic oxide, and hence allows it to
assume a new surface, like the glassy surface of some marbles subjected
to solution in water." This black and red ware appears to be the most
ancient prehistoric Egyptian pottery known. Later in date are a red
ware and a black ware with rude geometrical incised designs, imitating
basketwork, and with the incised lines filled in with white. Later again
is a buff ware, either plain or decorated with wavy lines, concentric
circles, and elaborate drawings of boats sailing on the Nile, ostriches,
fish, men and women, and so on.
before 4000 B.C.]
These designs are in deep red. With this elaborate pottery the Neolithic
ceramic art of Egypt reached its highest point; in the succeeding period
(the beginning of the historic age) there was a decline in workmanship,
exhibiting clumsy forms and bad colour, and it is not until the time of
the IVth Dynasty that good pottery (a fine polished red) is once more
found. Meanwhile the invention of glazed pottery, which was unknown to
the prehistoric Egyptians, had been made (before the beginning of the
Ist Dynasty). The unglazed ware of the first three dynasties was bad,
but the new invention of light blue glazed faience (not porcelain
properly so called) seems to have made great progress, and we possess
fine specimens at the beginning of the Ist Dynasty. The prehistoric
Egyptians were also proficient in other arts. They carved ivory and they
worked gold, which is known to have been almost the first metal worked
by man; certainly in Egypt it was utilized for ornament even before
copper was used for work. We may refer to the illustration of a flint
knife with gold handle, already given. [* See illustration.]
The date of the actual introduction of copper for tools and weapons into
Egypt is uncertain, but it seems probable that copper was occasionally
used at a very early period. Copper weapons have been found in
pre-dynastic graves beside the finest buff pottery with elaborate red
designs, so that we may say that when the flint-working and pottery of
the Neolithic Egyptians had reached its zenith, the use of copper was
already known, and copper weapons were occasionally employed. We can
thus speak of the "Chalcolithic" period in Egypt as having already begun
at that time, no doubt several centuries before the beginning of the
historical or dynastic age. Strictly speaking, the Egyptians remained
in the "Chalcolithic" period till the end of the XIIth Dynasty, but in
practice it is best to speak of this period, when the word is used, as
extending from the time of the finest flint weapons and pottery of the
prehistoric age (when the "Neolithic" period may be said to close) till
about the IId or IIId Dynasty. By that time the "Bronze," or, rather,
"Copper," Age of Egypt had well begun, and already stone was not in
common use.
The prehistoric pottery is of the greatest value to the archaeologist,
for with its help some idea may be obtained of the succession of periods
within the late Neolithic-Chalcolithic Age. The enormous number of
prehistoric graves which have been examined enables us to make an
exhaustive comparison of the different kinds of pottery found in
them, so that we can arrange them in order according to pottery they
contained. By this means we obtain an idea of the development of
different types of pottery, and the sequence of the types. Thus it is
that we can say with some degree of confidence that the black and red
ware is the most ancient form, and that the buff with red designs is one
of the latest forms of prehistoric pottery. Other objects found in the
graves can be classified as they occur with different pottery types.
With the help of the pottery we can thus gain a more or less reliable
conspectus of the development of the late "Neolithic" culture of Egypt.
This system of "sequence-dating" was introduced by Prof. Petrie, and is
certainly very useful. It must not, however, be pressed too far or be
regarded as an iron-bound system, with which all subsequent discoveries
must be made to fit in by force. It is not to be supposed that all
prehistoric pottery developed its series of types in an absolutely
orderly manner without deviations or throws-back. The work of man's
hands is variable and eccentric, and does not develop or evolve in an
undeviating course as the work of nature does. It is a mistake, very
often made by anthropologists and archaeologists, who forget this
elementary fact, to assume "curves of development," and so forth, or
semi-savage culture, on absolutely even and regular lines. Human culture
has not developed either evenly or regularly, as a matter of fact.
Therefore we cannot always be sure that, because the Egyptian black and
red pottery does not occur in graves with buff and red, it is for
this reason absolutely earlier in date than the latter. Some of the
development-sequences may in reality be contemporary with others instead
of earlier, and allowance must always be made for aberrations and
reversions to earlier types.
This caveat having been entered, however, we may provisionally
accept Prof. Petrie's system of sequence-dating as giving the best
classification of the prehistoric antiquities according to development.
So it may fairly be said that, as far as we know, the black and red
pottery ("sequence-date 30--") is the most ancient Neolithic Egyptian
ware known; that the buff and red did not begin to be used till about
"sequence-date 45;" that bone and ivory carvings were commonest in the
earlier period ("sequence-dates 30-50"); that copper was almost unknown
till "sequence-date 50," and so on. The arbitrary numbers used range
from 30 to 80, in order to allow for possible earlier and later
additions, which may be rendered necessary by the progress of discovery.
The numbers are of course as purely arbitrary and relative as those
of the different thermometrical systems, but they afford a convenient
system of arrangement. The products of the prehistoric Egyptians are, so
to speak, distributed on a conventional plan over a scale numbered from
30 to 80, 30 representing the beginning and 80 the close of the term,
so far as its close has as yet been ascertained. It is probable that
"sequence-date 80" more or less accurately marks the beginning of the
dynastic or historical period.
This hypothetically chronological classification is, as has been said,
due to Prof. Petrie, and has been adopted by Mr. Randall-Maclver and
other students of prehistoric Egypt in their work. [*El Amra and
Abydos, Egypt Exploration Fund, 1902.] To Prof. Petrie then is due the
credit of systematizing the study of Egyptian prehistoric antiquities;
but the further credit of having discovered these antiquities
themselves and settled their date belongs not to him but to the
distinguished French archaeologist, M. J. de Morgan, who was for several
years director of the museum at Giza, and is now chief of the French
archaeological delegation in Persia, which has made of late years so many
important discoveries. The proof of the prehistoric date of this class
of antiquities was given, not by Prof. Petrie after his excavations at
Dendera in 1897-8, but by M. de Morgan in his volume, Recherches sur
les Origines de l'Egypte: l'Age de la Pierre et les Metaux, published
in 1895-6. In this book the true chronological position of the
prehistoric antiquities was pointed out, and the existence of an
Egyptian Stone Age finally decided. M. de Morgan's work was based on
careful study of the results of excavations carried on for several years
by the Egyptian government in various parts of Egypt, in the course
of which a large number of cemeteries of the primitive type had been
discovered. It was soon evident to M. de Morgan that these primitive
graves, with their unusual pottery and flint implements, could be
nothing less than the tombs of the prehistoric Egyptians, the Egyptians
of the Stone Age.
Objects of the prehistoric period had been known to the museums for many
years previously, but owing to the uncertainty of their provenance and
the absence of knowledge of the existence of the primitive cemeteries,
no scientific conclusions had been arrived at with regard to them; and
it was not till the publication of M. de Morgan's book that they were
recognized and classified as prehistoric. The necropoles investigated
by M. de Morgan and his assistants extended from Kawamil in the north,
about twenty miles north of Abydos, to Edfu in the south. The chief
cemeteries between these two points were those of Bat Allam, Saghel
el-Baglieh, el-'Amra, Nakada, Tukh, and Gebelen. All the burials were
of simple type, analogous to those of the Neolithic races in the rest
of the world. In a shallow, oval grave, excavated often but a few inches
below the surface of the soil, lay the body, cramped up with the knees
to the chin, sometimes in a rough box of pottery, more often with only
a mat to cover it. Ready to the hand of the dead man were his flint
weapons and tools, and the usual red and black, or buff and red, pots
lay beside him; originally, no doubt, they had been filled with the
funeral meats, to sustain the ghost in the next world. Occasionally a
simple copper weapon was found. With the body were also buried slate
palettes for grinding the green eye-paint which the Egyptians loved even
at this early period. These are often carved to suggest the forms of
animals, such as birds, bats, tortoises, goats, etc.; on others are
fantastic creatures with two heads. Combs of bone, too, are found,
ornamented in a similar way with birds' or goats' heads, often double.
And most interesting of all are the small bone and ivory figures of men
and women which are also found. These usually have little blue beads for
eyes, and are of the quaintest and naivest appearance conceivable. Here
we have an elderly man with a long pointed beard, there two women with
inane smiles upon their countenances, here another woman, of better work
this time, with a child slung across her shoulder. This figure, which
is in the British Museum, must be very late, as prehistoric Egyptian
antiquities go. It is almost as good in style as the early Ist Dynasty
objects. Such were the objects which the simple piety of the early
Egyptian prompted him to bury with the bodies of his dead, in order that
they might find solace and contentment in the other world.
All the prehistoric cemeteries are of this type, with the graves pressed
closely together, so that they often impinge upon one another. The
nearness of the graves to the surface is due to the exposed positions,
at the entrances to wadis, in which the primitive cemeteries are
usually found. The result is that they are always swept by the winds,
which prevent the desert sand from accumulating over them, and so have
preserved the original level of the ground. From their proximity to
the surface they are often found disturbed, more often by the agency of
jackals than that of man.
Contemporaneously with M. de Morgan's explorations, Prof. Flinders
Petrie and Mr. J. Quibell had, in the winter of 1894-5, excavated in
the districts of Tukh and Nakada, on the west bank of the Nile opposite
Koptos, a series of extensive cemeteries of the primitive type, from
which they obtained a large number of antiquities, published in their
volume Nagada and Dallas. The plates giving representations of the
antiquities found were of the highest interest, but the scientific value
of the letter-press is vitiated by the fact that the true historical
position of the antiquities was not perceived by their discoverers, who
came to the conclusion that these remains were those of a "New Pace" of
Libyan invaders. This race, they supposed, had entered Egypt after the
close of the flourishing period of the "Old Kingdom" at the end of the
VIth Dynasty, and had occupied part of the Nile valley from that time
till the period of the Xth Dynasty.
This conclusion was proved erroneous by M. de Morgan almost as soon
as made, and the French archaeologist's identification of the primitive
remains as pre-dynastic was at once generally accepted. It was obvious
that a hypothesis of the settlement of a stone-using barbaric race in
the midst of Egypt at so late a date as the period immediately preceding
the XIIth Dynasty, a race which mixed in no way with the native
Egyptians themselves, and left no trace of their influence upon the
later Egyptians, was one which demanded greater faith than the simple
explanation of M. de Morgan.
The error of the British explorers was at once admitted by Mr. Quibell,
in his volume on the excavations of 1897 at el-Kab, published in 1898.*
Mr. Quibell at once found full and adequate confirmation of M. de
Morgan's discovery in his diggings at el-Kab. Prof. Petrie admitted
the correctness of M. de Morgan's views in the preface to his volume
Diospolis Parva, published three years later in 1901.** The preface to
the first volume of M. de Morgan's book contained a generous recognition
of the method and general accuracy of Prof. Petrie's excavations, which
contrasted favourably, according to M. de Morgan, with the excavations
of others, generally carried on without scientific control, and with
the sole aim of obtaining antiquities or literary texts.*** That M. de
Morgan's own work was carried out as scientifically and as carefully
is evident from the fact that his conclusions as to the chronological
position of the prehistoric antiquities have been shown to be correct.
To describe M. de Morgan's discovery as a "happy guess," as has been
done, is therefore beside the mark.
* El-Kab. Egyptian Research Account, 1897, p. 11.
** Diospolis Parva. Egypt Exploration Fund, 1901, p. 2.
*** Recherches: Age de la Pierre, p. xiii.
Another most important British excavation was that carried on by
Messrs. Randall-Maclver and Wilkin at el-'Amra. The imposing lion-headed
promontory of el-'Amra stands out into the plain on the west bank of the
Nile about five miles south of Abydos. At the foot of this hill M. de
Morgan found a very extensive prehistoric necropolis, which he examined,
but did not excavate to any great extent, and the work of thoroughly
excavating it was performed by Messrs. Randall-MacIver and Wilkin for
the Egypt Exploration Fund. The results have thrown very great light
upon the prehistoric culture of Egypt, and burials of all prehistoric
types, some of them previously unobserved, were found. Among the most
interesting are burials in pots, which have also been found by Mr.
Garstang in a predynastic necropolis at Ragagna, north of Abydos. One
of the more remarkable observations made at el-'Amra was the progressive
development of the tombs from the simplest pot-burial to a small brick
chamber, the embryo of the brick tombs of the Ist Dynasty. Among the
objects recovered from this site may be mentioned a pottery model of
oxen, a box in the shape of a model hut, and a slate "palette" with what
is perhaps the oldest Egyptian hieroglyph known, a representation of the
fetish-sign of the god Min, in relief. All these are preserved in the
British Museum. The skulls of the bodies found were carefully preserved
for craniometric examination.
In 1901 an extensive prehistoric cemetery was being excavated by Messrs.
Reisner and Lythgoe at Nag'ed-Der, opposite Girga, and at el-Ahaiwa,
further north, another prehistoric necropolis has been excavated by
these gentlemen, working for the University of California.
CALIFORNIA AT NAG' ED-DER, 1901.]
The cemetery of Nag'ed-Der is of the usual prehistoric type, with its
multitudes of small oval graves, excavated just a little way below the
surface. Graves of this kind are the most primitive of all. Those at
el-'Amra are usually more developed, often, as has been noted, rising to
the height of regular brick tombs. They are evidently later, nearer to
the time of the Ist Dynasty. The position of the Nag'ed-Der cemetery is
also characteristic. It lies on the usual low ridge at the entrance to a
desert wadi, which is itself one of the most picturesque in this
part of Egypt, with its chaos of great boulders and fallen rocks. An
illustration of the camp of Mr. Reisner's expedition at Nag'ed-Der is
given above. The excavations of the University of California are carried
out with the greatest possible care and are financed with the greatest
possible liberality. Mr. Reisner has therefore been able to keep an
absolutely complete photographic record of everything, even down to
the successive stages in the opening of a tomb, which will be of the
greatest use to science when published.
For a detailed study of the antiquities of the prehistoric period the
publications of Prof. Petrie, Mr. Quibell, and Mr. Randall-Maclver are
more useful than that of M. de Morgan, who does not give enough details.
Every atom of evidence is given in the publications of the British
explorers, whereas it is a characteristic of French work to give
brilliant conclusions, beautifully illustrated, without much of the
evidence on which the conclusions are based. This kind of work does not
appeal to the Anglo-Saxon mind, which takes nothing on trust, even
from the most renowned experts, and always wants to know the why and
wherefore. The complete publication of evidence which marks the British
work will no doubt be met with, if possible in even more complete
detail, in the American work of Messrs. Reisner, Lythgoe, and Mace (the
last-named is an Englishman) for the University of California, when
published. The question of speedy versus delayed publication is a very
vexing one. Prof. Petrie prefers to publish as speedily as possible; six
months after the season's work in Egypt is done, the full publication
with photographs of everything appears. Mr. Reisner and the French
explorers prefer to publish nothing until they have exhaustively studied
the whole of the evidence, and can extract nothing more from it. This
would be admirable if the French published their discoveries fully, but
they do not. Even M. de Morgan has not approached the fulness of
detail which characterizes British work and which will characterize Mr.
Reisner's publication when it appears. The only drawback to this method
is that general interest in the particular excavations described tends
to pass away before the full description appears.
Prof. Petrie has explored other prehistoric sites at Abadiya, and Mr.
Quibell at el-Kab. M. de Morgan and his assistants have examined a large
number of sites, ranging from the Delta to el-Kab. Further research has
shown that some of the sites identified by M. de Morgan as prehistoric
are in reality of much later date, for example, Kahun, where the late
flints of XIIth Dynasty date were found. He notes that "large numbers
of Neolithic flint weapons are found in the desert on the borders of
the Fayyum, and at Helwan, south of Cairo," and that all the important
necropoles and kitchen-middens of the predynastic people are to be found
in the districts of Abydos and Thebes, from el-Kawamil in the North to
el-Kab in the South. It is of course too soon to assert with confidence
that there are no prehistoric remains in any other part of Egypt,
especially in the long tract between the Fayyum and the district of
Abydos, but up to the present time none have been found in this region.
This geographical distribution of the prehistoric remains fits in
curiously with the ancient legend concerning the origin of the ancestors
of the Egyptians in Upper Egypt, and supports the much discussed theory
that they came originally to the Nile valley from the shores of the Red
Sea by way of the Wadi Hammamat, which debouches on to the Nile in the
vicinity of Koptos and Kus, opposite Ballas and Tukh. The supposition
seems a very probable one, and it may well be that the earliest
Egyptians entered the valley of the Nile by the route suggested and
then spread northwards and southwards in the valley. The fact that their
remains are not found north of el-Kawamil nor south of el-Kab might
perhaps be explained by the supposition that, when they had extended
thus far north and south from their original place of arrival, they
passed from the primitive Neolithic condition to the more highly
developed copper-using culture of the period which immediately preceded
the establishment of the monarchy. The Neolithic weapons of the Fayyum
and Hel-wan would then be the remains of a different people, which
inhabited the Delta and Middle Egypt in very early times. This people
may have been of Mediterranean stock, akin to the primitive inhabitants
of Palestine, Greece, Italy, and Spain; and they no doubt were identical
with the inhabitants of Lower Egypt who were overthrown and conquered by
Kha-sekhem and the other Southern founders of the monarchy (who belonged
to the race which had come from the Red Sea by the Wadi Hammamat), and
so were the ancestors of the later natives of Lower Egypt. Whether the
Southerners, whose primitive remains we find from el-Kawamil to el-Kab,
were of the same race as the Northerners whom they conquered, cannot
be decided. The skull-form of the Southerners agrees with that of the
Mediterranean races. But we have no necropoles of the Northerners to
tell us much of their peculiarities. We have nothing but their flint
arrowheads.
But it should be observed that, in spite of the present absence of all
primitive remains (whether mere flints, or actual graves with bodies and
relics) of the primeval population between the Fayyum and el-Kawamil,
there is no proof that the primitive race of Upper Egypt was not
coterminous and identical with that of the lower country. It
might therefore be urged that the whole Neolithic population was
"Mediterranean" by its skull-form and body-structure, and specifically
"Nilotic" (indigenous Egyptian) in its culture-type. This is quite
possible, but we have again to account for the legends of distant origin
on the Red Sea coast, the probability that one element of the Egyptian
population was of extraneous origin and came from the east into the Nile
valley near Koptos, and finally the historical fact of an advance of the
early dynastic Egyptians from the South to the conquest of the North.
The latter fact might of course be explained as a civil war analogous
to that between Thebes and Asyut in the time of the IXth Dynasty, but
against this explanation is to be set the fact that the contemporary
monuments of the Southerners exhibit the men of the North as of foreign
and non-Egyptian ethnic type, resembling Libyans. It is possible that
they were akin to the Libyans; and this would square very well with the
first theory, but it may also be made to fit in with a development of
the second, which has been generally accepted.
According to this view, the whole primitive Neolithic population of
North and South was Miotic, indigenous in origin, and akin to the
"Mediterraneans "of Prof. Sergi and the other ethnologists. It was not
this population, the stone-users whose necropoles have been found by
Messrs. de Morgan, Petrie, and Maclver, that entered the Nile valley by
the Wadi Hammamat. This was another race of different ethnic origin,
which came from the Red Sea toward the end of the Neolithic period,
and, being of higher civilization than the native Nilotes, assumed the
lordship over them, gave a great impetus to the development of their
culture, and started at once the institution of monarchy, the knowledge
of letters, and the use of metals. The chiefs of this superior tribe
founded the monarchy, conquered the North, unified the kingdom, and
began Egyptian history. From many indications it would seem probable
that these conquerors were of Babylonian origin, or that the culture
they brought with them (possibly from Arabia) was ultimately of
Babylonian origin. They themselves would seem to have been Semites,
or rather proto-Semites, who came from Arabia to Africa by way of
the straits of Bab el-Mandeb, and proceeded up the coast to about the
neighbourhood of Kuser, whence the Wadi Hammamat offered them an open
road to the valley of the Nile. By this route they may have entered
Egypt, bringing with them a civilization, which, like that of the other
Semites, had been profoundly influenced and modified by that of the
Sumerian inhabitants of Babylonia. This Semitic-Sumerian culture,
mingling with that of the Nilotes themselves, produced the civilization
of Ancient Egypt as we know it.
This is a very plausible hypothesis, and has a great deal of evidence in
its favour. It seems certain that in the early dynastic period two
races lived in Egypt, which differed considerably in type, and also,
apparently, in burial customs. The later Egyptians always buried the
dead lying on their backs, extended at full length. During the period of
the Middle Kingdom (XIth-XIIIth Dynasties) the head was usually turned
over on to the left side, in order that the dead man might look through
the two great eyes painted on that side of the coffin. Afterward the
rigidly extended position was always adopted. The Neolithic Egyptians,
however, buried the dead lying wholly on the left side and in a
contracted position, with the knees drawn up to the chin. The bodies
were not embalmed, and the extended position and mummification were
never used. Under the IVth Dynasty we find in the necropolis of Medum
(north of the Payyum) the two positions used simultaneously, and the
extended bodies are mummified. The contracted bodies are skeletons, as
in the case of most of the predynastic bodies. When these are found with
flesh, skin, and hair intact, their preservation is due to the dryness
of the soil and the preservative salts it contains, not to intentional
embalming, which was evidently introduced by those who employed the
extended position in burial. The contracted position is found as late as
the Vth Dynasty at Dashasha, south of the Eayyum, but after that date it
is no longer found.
The conclusion is obvious that the contracted position without
mummification, which the Neolithic people used, was supplanted in the
early dynastic period by the extended position with mummification, and
by the time of the VIth Dynasty it was entirely superseded. This points
to the supersession of the burial customs of the indigenous Neolithic
race by those of another race which conquered and dominated the
indigenes. And, since the extended burials of the IVth Dynasty are
evidently those of the higher nobles, while the contracted ones are
those of inferior people, it is probable that the customs of extended
burial and embalming were introduced by a foreign race which founded the
Egyptian monarchical state, with its hierarchy of nobles and officials,
and in fact started Egyptian civilization on its way. The conquerors of
the North were thus not the descendants of the Neolithic people of the
South, but their conquerors; in fact, they dominated the indigenes both
of North and South, who will then appear (since we find the custom of
contracted burial in the North at Dashasha and Medum) to have originally
belonged to the same race.
The conquering race is that which is supposed to have been of Semitic or
proto-Semitic origin, and to have brought elements of Sumerian culture
to savage Egypt. The reasons advanced for this supposition are the
following:--
(1) Just as the Egyptian race was evidently compounded of two elements,
of conquered "Mediterraneans" and conquering x, so the Egyptian language
is evidently compounded of two elements, the one Nilotic, perhaps
related in some degree to the Berber dialects of North Africa, the other
not x, but evidently Semitic.
(2) Certain elements of the early dynastic civilization, which do not
appear in that of the earlier pre-dynastic period, resemble well-known
elements of the civilization of Babylonia. We may instance the use of
the cylinder-seal, which died out in Egypt in the time of the XVIIIth
Dynasty, but was always used in Babylonia from the earliest to the
latest times. The early Egyptian mace-head is of exactly the same
type as the early Babylonian one. In the British Museum is an Egyptian
mace-head of red breccia, which is identical in shape and size with
one from Babylonia (also in the museum) bearing the name of
Shargani-shar-ali (i.e. Sargon, King of Agade), one of the earliest
Chaldaean monarchs, who must have lived about the same time as the
Egyptian kings of the IId-IIId Dynasties, to which period the Egyptian
mace-head may also be approximately assigned. The Egyptian art of the
earliest dynasties bears again a remarkable resemblance to that of early
Babylonia. It is not till the time of the IId Dynasty that Egyptian art
begins to take upon itself the regular form which we know so well, and
not till that of the IVth that this form was finally crystallized. Under
the 1st Dynasty we find the figure of man or, to take other instances,
that of a lion, or a hawk, or a snake, often treated in a style very
different from that in which we are accustomed to see a man, a lion, a
hawk, or a snake depicted in works of the later period. And the striking
thing is that these early representations, which differ so much from
what we find in later Egyptian art, curiously resemble the works of
early Babylonian art, of the time of the patesis of Shirpurla or the
Kings Shargani-shar-ali and Naram-Sin. One of the best known relics
of the early art of Babylonia is the famous "Stele of Vultures" now in
Paris. On this we see the enemies of Eannadu, one of the early rulers
of Shirpurla, cast out to be devoured by the vultures. On an Egyptian
relief of slate, evidently originally dedicated in a temple record of
some historical event, and dating from the beginning of the Ist Dynasty
(practically contemporary, according to our latest knowledge, with
Eannadu), we have an almost exactly similar scene of captives being cast
out into the desert, and devoured by lions and vultures. The two reliefs
are curiously alike in their clumsy, naive style of art. A further
point is that the official represented on the stele, who appears to be
thrusting one of the bound captives out to die, wears a long fringed
garment of Babylonish cut, quite different from the clothes of the later
Egyptians.
(3) There are evidently two distinct and different main strata in the
fabric of Egyptian religion. On the one hand we find a mass of myth and
religious belief of very primitive, almost savage, cast, combining
a worship of the actual dead in their tombs--which were supposed
to communicate and thus form a veritable "underworld," or, rather,
"under-Egypt"--with veneration of magic animals, such as jackals, cats,
hawks, and crocodiles. On the other hand, we have a sun and sky worship
of a more elevated nature, which does not seem to have amalgamated with
the earlier fetishism and corpse-worship until a comparatively late
period. The main seats of the sun-worship were at Heliopolis in the
Delta and at Edfu in Upper Egypt. Heliopolis seems always to have been
a centre of light and leading in Egypt, and it is, as is well known,
the On of the Bible, at whose university the Jewish lawgiver Moses is
related to have been educated "in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." The
philosophical theories of the priests of the Sun-gods, Ra-Harmachis and
Turn, at Heliopolis seem to have been the source from which sprang the
monotheistic heresy of the Disk-Worshippers (in the time of the XVIIIth
Dynasty), who, under the guidance of the reforming King Akhunaten,
worshipped only the disk of the sun as the source of all life, the door
in heaven, so to speak, through which the hidden One Deity poured
forth heat and light, the origin of life upon the earth. Very early
in Egyptian history the Heliopolitans gained the upper hand, and the
Ra-worship (under the Vth Dynasty, the apogee of the Old Kingdom) came
to the front, and for the first time the kings took the afterwards
time-honoured royal title of "Son of the Sun." It appears then as a
more or less foreign importation into the Nile valley, and bears most
undoubtedly a Semitic impress. Its two chief seats were situated, the
one, Heliopolis, in the North on the eastern edge of the Delta,--just
where an early Semitic settlement from over the desert might be expected
to be found,--the other, Edfu, in the Upper Egyptian territory south
of the Thebaid, Koptos, and the Wadi Ham-mamat, and close to the chief
settlement of the earliest kings and the most ancient capital of Upper
Egypt.
(4) The custom of burying at full length was evidently introduced into
Egypt by the second, or x race. The Neolithic Egyptians buried in the
cramped position. The early Babylonians buried at full length, as far
as we know. On the same "Stele of Vultures," which has already been
mentioned, we see the burying at full length of dead warriors. [* See
illustration.] There is no trace of any early burial in Babylonia in
the cramped position. The tombs at Warka (Erech) with cramped bodies
in pottery coffins are of very late date. A further point arises with
regard to embalming. The Neolithic Egyptians did not embalm the dead.
Usually their cramped bodies are found as skeletons. When they are
mummified, it is merely owing to the preservative action of the salt
in the soil, not to any process of embalming. The second, or x race,
however, evidently introduced the custom of embalming as well as that
of burial at full length and the use of coffins. The Neolithic Egyptian
used no box or coffin, the nearest approach to this being a pot, which
was inverted over the coiled up body. Usually only a mat was put over
the body.
Telloh]
Now it is evident that Babylonians and Assyrians, who buried the dead at
full length in chests, had some knowledge of embalming. An Assyrian king
tells us how he buried his royal father:--
"Within the grave, the secret place,
In kingly oil, I gently laid him.
The grave-stone marketh his resting-place.
With mighty bronze I sealed its entrance,
And I protected it with an incantation."
The "kingly oil" was evidently used with the idea of preserving the body
from decay. Salt also was used to preserve the dead, and Herodotus
says that the Babylonians buried in honey, which was also used by the
Egyptians. No doubt the Babylonian method was less perfect than the
Egyptian, but the comparison is an interesting one, when taken in
connection with the other points of resemblance mentioned above.
We find, then, that an analysis of the Egyptian language reveals a
Semitic element in it; that the early dynastic culture had certain
characteristics which were unknown to the Neolithic Egyptians but are
closely parallelled in early Babylonia; that there were two elements in
the Egyptian religion, one of which seems to have originally belonged to
the Neolithic people, while the other has a Semitic appearance; and that
there were two sets of burial customs in early Egypt, one, that of the
Neolithic people, the other evidently that of a conquering race, which
eventually prevailed over the former; these later rites were analogous
to those of the Babylonians and Assyrians, though differing from them
in points of detail. The conclusion is that the x or conquering race
was Semitic and brought to Egypt the Semitic elements in the Egyptian
religion and a culture originally derived from that of the Sumerian
inhabitants of Babylonia, the non-Semitic parent of all Semitic
civilizations.
The question now arises, how did this Semitic people reach Egypt? We
have the choice of two points of entry: First, Heliopolis in the North,
where the Semitic sun-worship took root, and, second, the Wadi Hamma-mat
in the South, north of Edfu, the southern centre of sun-worship, and
Hierakonpolis (Nekheb-Nekhen), the capital of the Upper Egyptian kingdom
which existed before the foundation of the monarchy. The legends which
seem to bring the ancestors of the Egyptians from the Red Sea coast have
already been mentioned. They are closely connected with the worship
of the Sky and Sun god Horus of Edfu. Hathor, his nurse, the "House of
Horus," the centre of whose worship was at Dendera, immediately opposite
the mouth of the Wadi Hammamat, was said to have come from Ta-neter,
"The Holy Land," i.e. Abyssinia or the Red Sea coast, with the company
or paut of the gods. Now the Egyptians always seem to have had some
idea that they were connected racially with the inhabitants of the Land
of Punt or Puenet, the modern Abyssinia and Somaliland. In the time of
the XVIIIth Dynasty they depicted the inhabitants of Punt as greatly
resembling themselves in form, feature, and dress, and as wearing the
little turned-up beard which was worn by the Egyptians of the earliest
times, but even as early as the IVth Dynasty was reserved for the
gods. Further, the word Punt is always written without the hieroglyph
determinative of a foreign country, thus showing that the Egyptians did
not regard the Punites as foreigners. This certainly looks as if the
Punites were a portion of the great migration from Arabia, left behind
on the African shore when the rest of the wandering people pressed on
northwards to the Wadi Hammamat and the Nile. It may be that the modern
Gallas and Abyssinians are descendants of these Punites.
Now the Sky-god of Edfu is in legend a conquering hero who advances down
the Nile valley, with his Mesniu, or "Smiths," to overthrow the people
of the North, whom he defeats in a great battle near Dendera. This may
be a reminiscence of the first fights of the invaders with the Neolithic
inhabitants. The other form of Horus, "Horus, son of Isis," has also a
body of retainers, the Shemsu-Heru, or "Followers of Horns," who are
spoken of in late texts as the rulers of Egypt before the monarchy. They
evidently correspond to the dynasties of Manes,
or "Ghosts," of Manetho, and are probably intended for the early kings
of Hierakonpolis.
The mention of the Followers of Horus as "Smiths" is very interesting,
for it would appear to show that the Semitic conquerors were notable
as metal-users, that, in fact, their conquest was that old story in the
dawn of the world's history, the utter overthrow and subjection of the
stone-users by the metal-users, the primeval tragedy of the supersession
of flint by copper. This may be, but if the "Smiths" were the Semitic
conquerors who founded the kingdom, it would appear that the use of
copper was known in Egypt to some extent before their arrival, for we
find it in the graves of the late Neolithic Egyptians, very sparsely
from "sequence-date 30" to "45," but afterwards more commonly. It was
evidently becoming known. The supposition, however, that the "Smiths"
were the Semitic conquerors, and that they won their way by the aid of
their superior weapons of metal, may be provisionally accepted.
In favour of the view which would bring the conquerors by way of the
Wadi Hammamat, an interesting discovery may be quoted. Immediately
opposite Den-dera, where, according to the legend, the battle between
the Mesniu and the aborigines took place, lies Koptos, at the mouth of
the Wadi Hammamat. Here, in 1894, underneath the pavement of the ancient
temple, Prof. Petrie found remains which he then diagnosed as belonging
to the most ancient epoch of Egyptian history. Among them were some
extremely archaic statues of the god Min, on which were curious
scratched drawings of bears, crioceras-shells, elephants walking over
hills, etc., of the most primitive description. With them were lions'
heads and birds of a style then unknown, but which we now know to belong
to the period of the beginning of the Ist Dynasty. But the statues of
Min are older. The crioceras-shells belong to the Red Sea. Are we to
see in these statues the holy images of the conquerors from the Red Sea
who reached the Nile valley by way of the Wadi Hammamat, and set up the
first memorials of their presence at Koptos? It may be so, or the Min
statues may be older than the conquerors, and belong to the Neolithic
race, since Min and his fetish (which we find on the slate palette from
el-'Amra, already mentioned) seem to belong to the indigenous Nilotes.
In any case we have in these statues, two of which are in the Ashmolean
Museum at Oxford, probably the most ancient cult-images in the world:
This theory, which would make all the Neolithic inhabitants of Egypt
one people, who were conquered by a Semitic race, bringing a culture of
Sumerian origin to Egypt by way of the Wadi Hammamat, is that generally
accepted at the present time. It may, however, eventually prove
necessary to modify it. For reasons given above, it may well be that the
Neolithic population was itself not indigenous, and that it reached the
Nile valley by way of the Wadi Hammamat, spreading north and south
from the mouth of the wadi. It may also be considered probable that
a Semitic wave invaded Egypt by way of the Isthmus of Suez, where
the early sun-cultus of Heliopolis probably marks a primeval Semitic
settlement. In that case it would seem that the Mesniu or "Smiths,"
who introduced the use of metal, would have to be referred to the
originally Neolithic pre-Semitic people, who certainly were acquainted
with the use of copper, though not to any great extent. But this is not
a necessary supposition. The Mesniu are closely connected with the
Sky-god Horus, who was possibly of Semitic origin, and another Semitic
wave, quite distinct from that which entered Egypt by way of the
Isthmus, may very well also have reached Egypt by the Wadi Hammamat, or,
equally possibly, from the far south, coming down to the Nile from the
Abyssinian mountains. The legend of the coming of Hathor from Ta-neter
may refer to some such wandering, and we know that the Egyptians of the
Old Kingdom communicated with the Land of Punt, not by way of the Red
Sea coast as Hatshepsut did, but by way of the Upper Nile. This would
tally well with the march of the Mesniu northwards from Edfu to their
battle with the forces of Set at Dendera.
In any case, at the dawn of connected Egyptian history, we find two main
centres of civilization in Egypt, Heliopolis and Buto in the Delta
in the North, and Edfu and Hierakonpolis in the South. Here were
established at the beginning of the Chalcolithic stage of culture, we
may say, two kingdoms, of Lower and Upper Egypt, which were eventually
united by the superior arms of the kings of Upper Egypt, who imposed
their rule upon the North but at the same time removed their capital
thither. The dualism of Buto and Hierakonpolis r