Old Kingdom of Egypt

“ The old Memphite kings prided themselves on these armed pursuits as though they were real victories, and had them recorded in triumphal bas-reliefs; but under the XIIth dynasty they were treated as unimportant frontier incidents, almost beneath the notice of the Pharaoh, and the glory of them—such as it was—he left to his captains then in command of those districts.
Egypt had always kept up extensive commercial relations with certain northern countries lying beyond the Mediterranean. ”

“ The vastness of her monuments, the splendour of her tombs, the pomp of her ceremonies, the dignity and variety of her religious formulas, attracted their curiosity and commanded their respect: the wisdom of the Egyptians had passed into a proverb with them, as it had with the Hebrews. But if they had penetrated behind the scenes, they would have been obliged to acknowledge that beneath this attractive exterior there was hopeless decay. As with all creatures when they have passed their prime, Egypt had begun to grow old, and was daily losing her elasticity and energy. ”

“ While the new Egypt was expanding outwards in all directions, the old country did not cease to add to its riches. The two centuries during which the XIIth dynasty continued to rule were a period of profound peace; the monuments show us the country in full possession of all its resources and its arts, and its inhabitants both cheerful and contented. ”

“ The kingdom of Upper Egypt was more powerful, richer, better populated, and was governed apparently by more active and enterprising rulers. It is to one of the latter, Mini or Menés of Thinis, that tradition ascribes the honour of having fused the two Egypts into a single empire, and of having inaugurated the reign of the human dynasties. ”

“ After their dispersion, the Egyptian Pharaoh turned his eyes towards Palestine, with the intention of restoring the Asiatic empire of Ramses ii. The twenty-sixth dynasty was an age of antiquarian revival; not content with restoring Egypt to peace and prosperity, its kings aimed also at restoring the Egypt of the past. Egyptian art again puts on an antique form, temples are repaired or erected in accordance with ancient models, and literature reflects the general tendency. ”

“ Osiris: Isis.
High priest: High priestess.
Right hand sceptre: Left hand sceptre.
North: South.
Red crown: White crown.
The following data, gleaned from the valuable works of Prof. A. H. Sayce and the serial History of Egypt, written by Prof. Flinders Petrie, J. P. Mahaffy and J. G. Milne, furnish strong indications that, in the remotest past, the two divisions of the land of Egypt were respectively governed by a male and female sovereign; a proof that, before the time of Menes, the ancient empire had become disintegrated, and undergone a long period of intense strife and warfare. ”

“ It was the real cause of the empire. A national war of independence formed the military qualities that, when the country was free, could no longer resist the desire to carry the national arms into the enemy's land. The Egypt of the empire is no longer the Egypt of the old Memphite and Theban kings: extension of territory is desired, not only for purposes of commerce, but also for the gratification of ambition. A material aid to these designs was afforded by the introduction of the horse and the war-chariot. Both are unknown in Egypt before the eighteenth dynasty ”

“ The Egyptians of the XXVIth Dynasty, wearied of the long decadence and devastating wars which had followed the glorious epoch of the conquering Pharaohs of the XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties, turned for a new and refreshing inspiration to the works of the most ancient kings, when Egypt was a simple self-contained country, holding no intercourse with outside lands, bearing no outside burdens for the sake of pomp and glory, and knowing nothing of the decay and decadence which follows in the train of earthly power and grandeur. ”

“ If none of the countries in the centre of Asia Minor would respond to their call, and if the interests of their commercial rivals, the Phoenicians, were so far opposed to their own as to compel them to maintain the conflict to the very end, Egypt, at any rate, always proud of her past glory and impatient of servitude, was ever seeking to rid herself of the foreign yoke and recover her independent existence under, the authority of her Pharaohs. ”

“ Still more when we read the memoirs of the great men of this second age, and take note of the activity of its kings in executing works of national usefulness, we reverse our first judgment, and find that Egypt under the old Thebans had made great strides in civilization beyond the highest point reached by the pyramid-builders. The vast artificial lake of Mœris is a startling proof that the kings of the twelfth dynasty had larger views of the true welfare of Egypt than those who went before them, and had the energy to throw the whole force of the people into works that this foresight suggested. ”

“ The real history of the early centuries, therefore, eludes our researches, and no contemporary record traces for us those vicissitudes which Egypt passed through before being consolidated into a single kingdom, under the rule of one man. ”

“ They constructed magnificent tombs for their eternal rest, and the land blossomed culturally under their dominion.
These conditions prevailed until the coming of the Hyksos dynasty. These conquering kings were of Semitic origin and they seem to have come from the region of Ur. After this conquest, Egypt suddenly became an unlimited monarchy. The great lords became landless, stripped of their power and robbed of all authority. The people literally passed into the possession of the crown, and Egypt became a nation of slaves who owed their very existence to the royal head of the government. ”

“ Through me alone shall the kingdom of Egypt come to thee; thou shalt wear the White Crown of the South Land and the Red Crown of the North Land, thou shalt sit upon the throne of Geb the inheritor. To thee shall belong the whole land in its length and breadth, that land which the universal Lord makes glorious. Want and trouble shall never come nigh thee, for gifts shall be brought to thee from every country, near and afar; the duration of thy life shall be for many years ”

“ Egypt is truly a land of marvels! It has not only, like Assyria and Chaldæa, Greece and Italy, preserved for us monuments by which its historic past may be reconstructed, but it has handed on to us the men themselves who set up the monuments and made the history. Her great monarchs are not any longer mere names deprived of appropriate forms, and floating colourless and shapeless in the imagination of posterity: they may be weighed, touched, and measured; the capacity of their brains may be gauged ”

“ It is no love of Egypt's lost grandeur, or of Karamour and his cause that prompts the decision. He would unite with us solely to gain that land which borders his own foreign possessions. Restore the ancient glory of his country, you say. Bah! Egypt had known fifty centuries of the Pharaohs while his land was still a wilderness. Nay, we have no need for such as he in the ranks of the chosen. ”

“ The cities in this region formed at their origin so many individual and, for the most part, petty states, whose kings and patron gods claimed to be independent of all the neighbouring kings and gods: one city, one god, one lord—this was the rule here as in the ancient feudal districts from which the nomes of Egypt arose. The strongest of these principalities imposed its laws upon the weakest: formed into unions of two or three under a single ruler, they came to constitute a dozen kingdoms of almost equal strength on the banks of the Euphrates. ”

“ The composition, unlike so many other triumphal inscriptions, is not a mere piece of official rhetoric, in which the poverty of the subject is concealed by a multitude of common-places whether historical or mythological. Egypt indeed ruled the world, either directly or through her vassals, and from the mountains of Abyssinia to those of Cilicia her armies held the nations in awe with the threat of the Pharaoh. ”

“ The peninsula of Sinai, the shores of the Red Sea opposite Thebes, and Semne in Nubia were the extreme limits in the times of the kings who built the pyramids, of the Sesurtesen and Amenemha. The impulse given by the successful war of liberation carried Egypt beyond these boundaries. When Amosis and Tuthmosis III. had restored the kingdom, it reached the summit of its greatness and splendour under the latter and Amenophis III., Sethos I., and Ramses II., while Ramses III. strengthened anew and maintained the position which his great forefathers had obtained for Egypt. ”

“ While giving the consecration of a divine character to the royal authority, the wise legislators of old Egypt did not the less take the precautions, suggested by a profound knowledge of human nature, of restricting the monarchical power within just limits, of inspiring the king with virtuous inclinations, and of preventing him from evil-doing. "In the first place, the kings of Egypt did not lead as free and independent a life as the kings of other nations. ”

“ The taste for art decayed, and technical ability began to deteriorate, the moral and intellectual standard declined, and the mass of the people showed signs of relapsing into barbarism: the leaders of the aristocracy and the scribes alone preserved almost intact their inheritance from an older civilisation. Egypt still attracted them: they looked upon it as their rightful possession, torn from them by alien usurpers in defiance of all sense of right, and they never ceased to hope that some day, when the god saw fit, they would win back their heritage. ”

“ He was no doubt in part withheld from war by this luxurious love of ease; but his reign taught the world the new lesson, that an ambitious monarch may gratify his wish for praise and gain the admiration of surrounding nations, as much by cultivating the blessed arts of peace as by plunging his people into the miseries of war.
He reigned over Egypt, with the neighbouring parts of Arabia; also over Libya, Phoenicia, Cole-Syria, part of Ethiopia, Pamphylia, Cilicia, Lycia, Caria, Cyprus, and the isles of the Cyclades. ”

“ Henceforth Egyptian civilization runs an uninspired and undeveloping course till the days of the Saïtes and the Ptolemies. This point in the history of Egypt, therefore, forms a convenient stopping-place at which to pause, while we turn once more to Western Asia, and ascertain to what extent recent excavations and research have thrown new light upon the problems connected with the rise and history of the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires. ”

“ These two dynasties ruled Egypt for 420 years, from 3400 to 2980 B. C. This is known as the archaic period of Egyptian history. Men were, during this time, gradually developing the art of expressing thought by means of picture-writing. At some time during the first dynasty the Egyptians began to work the turquoise mines in the Wady Maghara in the peninsula of Sinai. The tombs of this period were low, flat houses of brick. ”

“ The upper classes had degenerated as much as the masses. The feudal nobles who had expelled the Shepherds, and carried the frontiers of the empire to the banks of the Euphrates, seemed to have expended their energies in the effort, and to have almost ceased to exist. As long as Egypt was restricted to the Nile valley, there was no such disproportion between the power of the Pharaoh and that of his feudatories as to prevent the latter from maintaining their privileges beside, and, when occasion arose, even against the monarch. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was, therefore, to the special interest of every one in Egypt, from the Pharaoh to the humblest of his vassals, to maintain the good will and power of the gods, so that their protection might be effectively ensured in the hour of danger. Pains were taken to embellish their temples with obelisks, colossi, altars, and bas-reliefs; new buildings were added to the old ”

“ Before Menes Egypt was divided into independent kingdoms. It has always been a country of mysteries, with the mighty Nile, and its inundations, so little understood by the ancients; its trackless desert; its camels and caravans; its tombs and temples; its obelisks and pyramids, its groups of gods: Ra, Osiris, Isis, Apis, Horus, Hathor—the very names breathe suggestions of mystery, cruelty, pomp, and power. In the sciences and in the industrial arts the ancient Egyptians were highly cultivated. ”

“ The Egyptians, on the whole, are an industrious and harmless people. For centuries they have been slaves to Greeks, Romans, Persians, Turks, and Crusaders from every land. They have been doomed to serve because of their inability to lead and control. They are content to serve so long as justice reigns. Egypt to-day is better governed, more prosperous, happier than it has ever been in its history. Cromer, Kitchener, the Tommy, the Engineer, and the men of the "Egyptian Civil" have given their noblest efforts to crush corruption, to kill decay, to make the native full-fed and serene. ”