Ancient Egyptians

“ The present inhabitants of Egypt range from a yellow color in the north to a deep bronze. One writer believes that the ancient Egyptians belonged to a brown race which included the Nubian tribes and to some extent the Berber tribes of Algiers and Tunis.
The record of the greatness of ancient Egypt is preserved in her works. The pyramids, though but the ruins of their former grandeur, are the marvels of mankind. The river Nile, by means of enormous embankments, was diverted from its course to make a place for the old city of Memphis. ”

“ The number of hieroglyphs at present are about a thousand. A century ago there existed no hope of recovering the extinct language of the ancient Egyptians; but by the continued labours of genius, the darkness of fifteen centuries has been dispelled, and the endless inscriptions covering obelisks, temples and tombs, proclaim in a wondrous manner the story of Egypt’s ancient greatness. ”

“ The Egyptians extended their reputation in a very different manner, by sending colonies into all parts of the world, and with them laws and politeness. They triumphed by the wisdom of their counsels, and the superiority of their knowledge; and this empire of the mind appeared more noble and glorious to them, than that which is achieved by arms and conquest. But, nevertheless, Egypt has given birth to illustrious conquerors, as will be observed hereafter, when we come to treat of its kings. ”

“ Listen therefore to what the Phoenicians, the Hebrews, the Hittites, and the Egyptians think of the Assyrians, and weigh in thy own heart with care all that agrees in their judgments concerning Assyria. If all tell thee that danger is coming from that point, Thou wilt know that it is coming; but if different men speak variously, be on thy guard also, for wisdom commands us to look for less good and more evil."
"Thy speech is like that of the gods," whispered the heir of Egypt,
"I am old, and from the height of the throne things are seen of which mortal men have not even a suspicion. ”

“ The Egyptians, whom we are accustomed to consider as a people respecting the established order of things, and conservative of ancient tradition, showed themselves as restless and as prone to modify or destroy the work of the past, as the most inconstant of our modern nations. ”

“ Later this race was modified by the introduction of a Semitic element, partly from Syria, partly from the Phœnician conquerors who founded dynastic rule in Egypt under Menes, between 5000 and 4000 B.C. Their later history is written on their imperishable monuments, and need not be summarised here. In later times the Egyptian racial type was modified by Greek and Roman influence. The ancient Egyptians were highly skilled in agriculture and engineering, warlike but not aggressive, and with a highly developed literature and religion. ”

“ Egypt was ever considered, by all the ancients, as the most renowned school for wisdom and politics, and the source from whence most arts and sciences were derived. This kingdom bestowed its noblest labours and finest arts on the improvement of mankind; and Greece was so sensible of this, that its most illustrious men, as Homer, Pythagoras, Plato; even its great legislators, Lycurgus and Solon, with many more whom it is needless to mention, travelled into Egypt, to complete their studies, and draw from that fountain whatever was most rare and valuable in every kind of learning. ”

“ Probably gods and goddesses never enjoyed themselves so much as in Ancient Egypt; and though it does seem a drawback from our artistic point of view for Hathor to have the head or ears of a cow, for wise Thoth to have the long beak of an ibis, and so on, it was for them only an amusing kind of masquerade or 'tête' party, on the walls of the temples and tombs. At home, they could be what they liked. Think how interesting for the Egyptians to have all these queer gods, and what variety it gave to their lives. ”

“ It would have represented the gods of those invaders of the valley of the Nile who brought with them weapons of copper, and have been the symbol of the conquering race and the deities it worshipped. As the Pharaonic Egyptians appropriated the fetishes of the older population in their sculptures and their picture-writing, so too would they have appropriated what had become to the neolithic people the sign and emblem of superior power. ”

“ Of the various institutions of the ancient Egyptians, none are more interesting than those which relate to their social life; and when we consider the condition of other countries in the early [255] ages when they flourished, from the 10th to the 20th century before our era, we may look with respect on the advancement they had then made in civilization, and acknowledge the benefits they conferred upon mankind during their career. ”

“ We are far from agreeing with this estimate of the ancient Egyptians. Their progress in mechanical arts, their hieroglyphical literature, and even their theology, with its mystic trine, marked them as a people far surpassing their contemporaries; and they were not the less great because their greatness is now extinct. The ArianC tribes, though unskilled in many of the most useful arts of life, yet had—
“National poetry, and a culture of language and thought, altogether surprising when compared with their external condition and habits. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One remarkable circumstance is observed in this conqueror, who never once thought, as others had done, of preserving his acquisitions; but contenting himself with the glory of having subdued and despoiled so many nations; after having made wild havoc up and down the world for nine years, he confined himself almost within the ancient limits of Egypt, a few neighbouring provinces excepted; for we do not find any traces or footsteps of this new empire, either under himself or his successors. ”

“ The monumental records and various works of art, and, above all, the writings, of the Greeks and Romans, have made us acquainted with their customs and their very thoughts; and though the literature of the Egyptians is almost unknown, their monuments, especially the paintings in the tombs, have afforded us an insight into their mode of life scarcely to be obtained from those of any other people. The influence that Egypt had in early times on Greece gives to every inquiry respecting it an additional interest ”

“ The History of the Kings of Egypt. No part of ancient history is more obscure or uncertain, than that of the first kings of Egypt. This proud nation, fondly conceited of its antiquity and nobility, thought it glorious to lose itself in an abyss of infinite ages, which seemed to carry its pretensions backward to eternity. According to its own historians,400 first, gods, and afterwards demigods or heroes, governed it successively, through a series of more than twenty thousand years. ”

“ He who desires to paint the ancient Egyptians with truth and fidelity, must regard it in some sort as an act of enfranchisement; that is to say, he must release the conventional forms from those fetters which were peculiar to their art and altogether foreign to their real life. ”

“ Here during the Ancient Kingdom were buried, for endless ages, Egyptians,—the pharaohs in immense pyramids, princes and dignitaries in smaller pyramids, common men in mud structures. Here were resting millions of mummies, not only of people, but of dogs, cats, birds,—in a word, all creatures which, while they lived, were dear to Egyptians. ”

“ Meanwhile we can only do our best with the means at our hand to trace out the history of the relations of the oldest European culture with the ancient civilization of Egypt. The tomb-paintings at Thebes are very important material. Eor it is due to them that the voice of the doubter has finally ceased to be heard, and that now no archaeologist questions that the Egyptians were in direct communication with the Cretan Mycenæans in the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty, some fifteen hundred years before Christ, for no one doubts that the pictures of the Keftiu are pictures of Mycenaeans. ”

“ In the case of the cultivated ancient peoples, we know that they themselves believed they had borrowed their religions from each other. When the Greeks first found the Egyptians practising mysteries like their own, they leaped to the conclusion that their own rites had been imported from Egypt. We, who know that both Greek and Egyptian rites had many points in common with those of Mandans, Zunis, Bushmen, Australians—people quite unconnected with Egypt—feel less confident about the hypothesis of borrowing. ”

“ Egyptian Civilization.—The statues, paintings, and instruments which are taken from the tombs of this epoch give evidence of an already civilized people. When all the other eminent nations of antiquity—the Hindoos, Persians, Jews, Greeks, Romans—were still in a savage state, 3,500 years before our era, the Egyptians had known for a long time how to cultivate the soil, to weave cloths, to work metals, to paint, sculpture, and to write ”

“ Besides, seasons of scant water occur, and then a part of Egypt fails to receive the enriching deposit. Finally, because of heat the earth dries up quickly, and then man has to irrigate out of vessels.
In view of all these conditions people inhabiting the Nile valley had to perish if they were weak, or regulate the water if they had genius. The ancient Egyptians had genius, hence they created civilization. ”

“ I have said, that husbandmen particularly, and those who took care of flocks, were in great esteem in Egypt, some parts of it excepted, where the latter were not suffered.380 It was, indeed, to these two professions that Egypt owed its riches and plenty. It is astonishing to reflect what advantages the Egyptians, by their art and labour, drew from a country of no great extent, but whose soil was made wonderfully fruitful by the inundations of the Nile, and the laborious industry of the inhabitants. ”

“ An idol of the god was on occasion carried through the temple by his priests, responding, if he were in a good humour, to his votaries, not by speech, but by nodding and pointing with outstretched arm. We know from classical authors that the Egyptians possessed the most wonderful skill in the manufacture of automata, and there is no room for doubt that the god responded to the questions of the eager devotees who had made the journey to his shrine by means of cleverly concealed strings. ”

“ With regard to himself, for ever careful of his own reputation, and still more of making his power advantageous to his subjects, he employed the repose which peace allowed him, in raising works that might contribute more to the enriching of Egypt, than the immortalizing his name; works, in which the art and industry of the workman were more admired, than the immense sums which had been expended on them.
A hundred famous temples, raised as so many monuments of gratitude to the tutelar gods of all the cities, were the first, as well as the most illustrious, testimonies of his victories ”

“ The spirit and progressive character of their art offers the strongest contrast to the stiff, lifeless, and unchanging conventionalism of the dwellers on the Nile. Their language and alphabet are confessedly in advance of the Egyptian. Their religion is more earnest and less degraded. In courage and military genius their superiority is very striking; for the Egyptians are essentially an unwarlike people. The one point of advantage to which Egypt may fairly lay claim is the grandeur and durability of her architecture. ”

“ We must turn away from the "shadow-land" which the Egyptians called the time of the gods on earth, if we would find trace of the real doings of men in the Nile valley, and put before our readers actual human beings in the place of airy phantoms. The Egyptians themselves taught that the first man of whom they had any record was a king called M'na, a name which the Greeks represented by Mên or Menes. ”

“ According to the account given by the Greeks the Egyptians boasted to be the oldest of mankind, and to possess the most ancient traditions. [4] Their [Pg 16] priests believed that they could compute the history of Egypt by thousands of years. When Herodotus was in Egypt about the middle of the fifth century B.C., the priests at Thebes read to him from a book the names of 331 kings who had reigned from Menes, the first ruler of Egypt, and the founder of Memphis, down to Moeris inclusive; among these were eighteen Ethiopians, and one queen ”

“ The old neolithic population of the desert must have already venerated the snake that dwelt in the cleft of the rock above which now rises the sacred “tomb” of Shêkh Herîdî.174
[pg 215] The faith of the people dies hard. The gods and goddesses, the theology and speculations of the official religion of Egypt, have passed away, but the old beliefs and superstitions which were already in possession of the land when the Pharaonic Egyptians first entered it, have survived both Christianity and Mohammedanism. ”