The History of Antiquity, Vol. 1 (of 6)

Besides the want of a fixed era, and the insufficient knowledge of the ancient period, and of the alien monarchy – besides the motives of national vanity, there was another remarkable circumstance connected with the priests of Egypt which was calculated to lead them far away from historical truth. The Egyptians measured time by a solar year of 360 days, divided into twelve months of thirty days. It was early observed that this year did not correspond to the sun's orbit; and therefore five additional days were added. The decisive event of the Egyptian year was the inundation. The Nile began to rise at the time of the summer solstice, and was coincident with the rising of the Dog-star (Sothis), the brightest star in the Egyptian sky. The Dog-star proclaimed the approach of the inundation and the new fertilization of the soil, and by proclaiming caused it. Thus to the Egyptians this star Sothis was "the Lady of the Beginning." The rising of the star denoted the new year; which therefore must have begun on the 20th July, the first of Thoth in the Egyptian calendar. But since, in the Egyptian year, a quarter of a day was wanting, in spite of the additional five years, to make up the true astronomical year, the beginning of every fourth year must have been a day in advance of the true year, and the seasons, of which the Egyptians made three of four months each, the months, and the festivals anticipated more and more the true time of the year. This advance could not have escaped the priests; they must soon have observed that a period of 1,461 Egyptian years must elapse in order to allow the Egyptian year to coincide with astronomical time. For in 1,460 Egyptian years the additional quarter of a day in the astronomical year would amount to 365 whole days —i. e. to an Egyptian year; and at the end of this year the beginning of the next was again coincident with the rising of the Dog-star, as seen from Lower Egypt, and the commencement of the inundation. Thus in a period of 1,461 years the year was again brought to its true beginning.28 Since the fruitfulness and life of the Egyptian land depended on the inundation, and the inundation began with the rising of the Dog-star, the history of Egypt must also have begun with a similar rising. If after 1,461 Egyptian years the rising of the Dog-star again coincided with the beginning of the civic year, the priests would regard this restoration of the natural order as the completion of a great cycle of events. The Dog-star brought the inundation, and with it the fruits and life of Egypt. It was the awakener of life. It must therefore have brought life to the world also; time must have begun with the rising of Sirius. Porphyrius tells us that to the Egyptians the rising of the Dog-star was the beginning of the world.29 Hence the periods of the world must proceed according to a number of periods fixed by the Dog-star. It seems that the priests comprised the whole duration of the world in twenty-five Sothis periods, i. e. in 36,525 Egyptian years. Regarded in this light, the Sothis periods of the priests of Egypt must lead to a cyclic treatment of their history, to which also the want of any definite era was forcing them, while the antiquity and number of the lists of kings offered abundant material for it. The history of Egypt must comprise a definite number of Sothis periods. It was known that in the fourteenth century B.C. such a period ended, and a new one commenced; the difficulty was to fill up two or three periods anterior to this. Before the Sothis period of the kings, the gods had ruled over Egypt, to whom, therefore, a number of Sothis cycles, naturally more extensive than those given to the rule of men, was allotted. Thus the priests of Thebes were able to tell Herodotus that, from the time when the Twelve Gods ruled over Egypt, down to the days of King Amosis, 17,000 years had passed; that from Menes, down to Sethos, 341 kings ruled in succession over Egypt, and that in this space of time the sun had four times risen in an unusual way – it had twice risen where it then set, and had twice set where it then rose; and nothing in Egypt had been changed by this, either in the gifts of the earth or the river, in sickness or in mortality.30 This change of the rising and setting of the sun is nothing more than the symbolical astrology of the priests, who must have expressed the completion of the movable solar year by the opposite quarters of the sky; and it means no more than that two Sothis periods had elapsed between Menes and Sethos; but to Herodotus the statement as given naturally appeared quite incredible.31 What the priests told Herodotus, Manetho, following far older authorities, had already fixed in a systematic form before Diodorus found that the gods ruled 18,000 years, and the human kings had begun to reign 4,700 years before his arrival in Egypt. To the gods and demigods Manetho allows twelve Sothis periods, i. e. 17,520 Julian years. Then follows the history of the men, the beginning of which Manetho places in the commencement of that period of the Dog-star which begins with the year 5702 B.C. From this point the series of kings runs through three complete Sothis periods down to Menephta; in the fourth period Manetho closed the lists of his thirty dynasties with the last native ruler in 340 B.C., the 984th year of the fourth Sothis period of the human kings. Thus it would be possible to make the scheme clear on which the priests of Egypt dealt with the history of their land, and the lists of Manetho would then lay claim to complete historical credibility for the ancient periods in isolated items, though certainly not in their combination as a whole.

With this result before us the only course open is to seek for external evidence, and attempt to ascertain the antiquity of the civilisation of Egypt independently of the priests and their traditions. The first fixed point in Egyptian chronology is given by the campaign of Pharaoh Sisak against Judah and Jerusalem. Sisak caused a sketch of his enterprise to be delineated on the wall of a structure erected by him in the temple at Karnak. According to Manetho's list, Sisak (Sesonchis), the first ruler of his twenty-second dynasty, begins his reign in the year 934 B.C.32 But the chronology of the Hebrews, which from the establishment of the monarchy downwards coincides within a few insignificant variations with the Assyrian records, proves that Sisak must have been king in the first half of the tenth century B.C. The campaign against Judah falls in the middle of this century. From Sisak to the expulsion of the Hyksos there was an interval of at least 500 years, as we may maintain approximately from the names of kings and their reigns recorded on monuments. If therefore we accept the excerpt from Manetho's history given in Josephus (and that excerpt was made precisely for this period, and has come down to us in the best shape), and allow 511 years for the reign of the Hyksos, we arrive at the year 2000 B.C. as the end of the old monarchy. From this monarchy numerous monuments have come down to us belonging to the Amenemha, and Sesurtesen, the twelfth dynasty of Manetho; and again to the time preceding these princes belong the greatest monuments in Egypt, the pyramids of Memphis, which, according to Manetho's list, are the work of the fourth dynasty. These pyramids therefore may have been built about the year 2500 B.C. The plan and execution of these monuments presuppose a very long practice in the treatment and preparation of materials; the size, permanence, and solidity of the construction were impossible without great experience in the use of stone; and their massive form requires an acquaintance with the principles of architecture which can only be obtained in the course of centuries. And independently of the advanced state of architecture exhibited by these monuments at the first sight, their erection is a proof of a condition of social and civic life far removed from primitive tribal communities. So long as tribes few in number and isolated from each other possessed the valley of the Nile, under the rule of their tribal chiefs, such structures were impossible. They presuppose a settled population, accustomed to work, and skilled in it. And more than this. The whole population could not any longer be occupied in agricultural work; there must have been a considerable amount of superfluous labour, living upon the productions obtained from the earth by others. Such structures required the united force of many thousands, the continued efforts of long years. And as the use of complex machinery for moving and raising the heavy materials was unknown to the Egyptians, and remained unknown, as we see from the monuments, a still greater force of men and beasts of draught were necessary to move such huge squares and blocks by means of a simple lever and rollers. Finally, the combination and continued employment of such forces presupposes that society has been subordinated to a superior direction and power, which could apply those forces as it chose; in a word, it presupposes an economical, political, and technical civilisation, removed by at least 500 years from pastoral life and patriarchal rule. If therefore we may assume that the great pyramids were erected about the year 2500 B.C., the beginning of higher civilisation in the valley of the Nile must not be placed later than the year 3000 B.C.

This assumption is confirmed by the fact that the oldest monuments of Egypt – and they are also the oldest in the world – exhibit the Egyptians in possession of the art of writing. All writing proceeds from pictures. The writing of the Egyptians and Babylonians, like that of the Chinese, Mexicans, and the tribes of North America, was in the first instance no more than speaking pictures. The Egyptians engraved on the stone of their rocks pictures of the objects and events of which they wished to preserve the remembrance. As this use of pictures to assist the memory became more common and more regular, from external no less than internal reasons, it quickly acquired certain abbreviations and combinations. The frequent repetition of a picture led to its abbreviation. The picture of a house dwindled into a square; water is not so much sketched as indicated by waved lines; instead of a forest we have the outline of a tree – in Egypt we find the sycamore, the most common tree in the country. Thus from actual imitative pictures we arrive at indicatory pictures. But how could the various kinds of fluid, for instance, be represented in these indicatory pictures? The three waved lines indicating water were retained, but beside them was sketched a wine-jar or water-pot, and thus the desired end was attained. By adding the picture of a god to the square, a temple was distinguished from a house. By such means the objects of the visible world could be reproduced in pictures more or less abbreviated. Even the actions and conditions of men which do not come immediately under the eye could be represented in this abbreviated metaphorical manner. Giving could be represented by an outstretched arm with a loaf; opening, by a door; going, by a road planted with trees; travelling, by a walking bird; battle, by an arm equipped with shield and lance; binding and fastening, by a coiled rope; destruction, by a prostrate man. It was more difficult to represent conditions which do not show themselves to the eye, as, for instance, hunger and thirst. To express thirst the Egyptians chose the symbol of water and a calf running to it; hunger they represented by a hand conveyed to the mouth, and this was also the symbol of eating. But the most difficult task for this picture-writing was the description of objects transcending sense, and abstract ideas. For the gods, it is true, popular notions and the fancy of the priests had supplied fixed forms which only required to be abbreviated for the picture-writing. The picture of the sky-goddess served as a symbol for the sky. The Egyptians regarded the sky as arched over the earth; the feet of the goddess rested on one extremity, and her hands on the other. Instead of the complete figure of the goddess in this arched attitude, they drew a line of a similar kind, and this was the abbreviated picture of the sky. If the sun or a star was combined with this line, the picture represented the day and the night. But the abstract ideas of law and justice, truth, protection, good, evil, life, &c., could only be represented in this picture-writing by sensuous images. In Egypt power was represented by a brandished whip, or poleaxe; justice, by the cubit, or symbol of equal measurement; good, by the symbol of sound, in order perhaps to indicate harmony; evil, by the picture of an unclean fish; truth, by an ostrich feather – the feathers of this bird are said to remain unchanged; protection, by a soaring vulture, &c., &c.

Though the possession of such indicatory or symbolic pictures enabled men to describe a series of objects and conditions, and even certain classes of conceptions – this picture-writing was nevertheless far removed from the expression of a definite and intelligible speech. It was a great step in the Egyptian writing when to their simple metaphorical and symbolical pictures phonetic pictures were added. From the actual picture by means of abbreviation, by indicatory signs and symbols, they had arrived at picture-signs, and had succeeded in expressing a certain feeling by means of figures; but now the indication of the sound was added to the representation of the sense. The picture-writing could only go to these picture-signs in order to borrow the symbols for sound. Hence the sound A was denoted by a symbol which signified an object of which the name began with A; for this in Egypt the symbol of an eagle (achem), or of a reed (ak), might be, and was selected. Thus in order to express words which could not be made plain by picture-signs and images of sense, the plan was adopted of adding to the picture-signs already in use for such words, one or more phonetic symbols, a complete or incomplete phonetic supplement. Hence arose a class of mixed pictures, made up of the picture of the object, with the addition of the sounds of the words of which the picture was intended to express the meaning. To make the meaning yet more clear, it was found necessary to add key-signs, indicating the class and nature of the word in question. Thus with the pictorial and phonetic signs for day and hour was combined the sign of the sun, and to the names of countries and rivers the sign for land and water. Moreover these key-signs showed whether the word symbolised by a sound or a picture denoted an animal, a plant, a kind of stone, or belonged to a particular class of conditions and actions. Yet in this combination of real and phonetic pictures, it always remained uncertain whether a picture or symbol was to be taken for its real meaning, or was to be regarded as a phonetic symbol.

This, then, is the difficult writing of the Egyptians; these are the hieroglyphics as presented even on those great monuments. Even here we find this method of writing applied in the same forms, and with the same mixture of pictorial and phonetic signs, which it retained in Egypt, with slight modifications (see below). Without doubt, the development of this complicated system was the work of centuries. In the infancy of history, special insight and capability is obtained and handed down only within the limits of certain circles. There could be no regular application and development of this system of writing before the formation of a priestly order. And again, the separation of such an order from the rest of the people could only take place gradually; it must go through a number of stages to raise it above the primitive conditions of life. When this point of culture was reached, a considerable space of time was still needed in order to bring the picture-writing, even within the priestly class, to the form in which we see it on the pyramids. In those nations whose progress we can follow with greater accuracy, centuries must pass before the indefinite and floating notions entertained of the gods are fixed in rigid forms. Yet in Egypt this change had already taken place before the date of the oldest hieroglyphics: for even in these we find typical forms in use for the gods, with sharply drawn and abbreviated outlines. In the picture-writing itself there is a wide interval between the delineation of an incident, or object, and the representation of a definite feeling; and a yet wider interval before the expression of ideas, of definite speech, is attained. An advanced stage of reflection and abstraction is required in order to step from the picture of an occurrence to picture-signs and images of sense, and again from these to phonetic symbols. The symbols for an incident, and for an idea and a sound, are separated by a wide gulf. Independently of these internal requirements for the advance of picture-writing, the external form in which the oldest hieroglyphics are represented, their even, harmonious, clearly-cut and unalterable forms, are evidence not only of an industrious and careful application of these signs, but also of a tolerably long use. The oldest hieroglyphics of the date of the great pyramids are for the most part embossed; but even the engraved work of a date very little more recent is not surpassed by later times in artistic excellence, in sharpness and neatness of execution.

The study of the calendar of Egypt, no less than the use of writing upon the great monuments, carries us back to an early date for the beginning of Egyptian civilization. We saw that the priests, by adding five days to the old year of 360 days, had come tolerably near to the natural year, and had fixed the beginning of their year by the rising of Sirius. Monuments of the age of the Amenemha and Sesurtesen show that even then the rising of Sirius had been observed and noted. Nevertheless, the beginning of their short civic year tended to anticipate the natural year; and thus the Egyptian year was always in advance of the solar. But if it was observed and noted down by the Egyptians, that in the year of their reckoning, corresponding to the Julian year 1322 B.C., the beginning of the year had again fallen on the right day, that is, on the rising of Sirius, so that the first day of Thoth in the movable year coincided with the first day of Thoth in the solar year, which was the 20th of July, it follows that the fixing of the beginning of the year on July 20, and of the length of the year at 365 days, had taken place 1,460 years (p. 30) before the date 1322 B.C., i. e. in the year 2782 B.C. This conclusion is supported by another consideration. Our astronomers have calculated that it was only in the two or three centuries preceding and following the year 3285 B.C. that the rising of Sirius so exactly coincided with the summer solstice and the rise of the Nile; and therefore in this epoch only could the observation have been made that Sirius brought the inundation. Hence in this period only could the beginning of the year have been fixed at the rising of Sirius. But if the Egyptians could set aside an old calendar and introduce a new arrangement requiring attention and long-continued observations, somewhere about the year 2800 B.C., it is clear that the beginnings of higher culture in Egypt cannot be later than 3000 B.C.33

Valuable as this result is, we are nevertheless carried back to hypotheses and combinations in order to fix the various epochs, and more especially before the reign of the Hyksos. And as an arrangement of history is impossible without chronology, divisions must be assumed here and there where it is impossible to establish them satisfactorily. The arrangement of Egyptian chronology proposed by Lepsius has for the first time introduced a well-considered system into the whole. Hence, in spite of the objections already brought forward against the basis of this arrangement, and the proved uncertainties and contradictions of tradition and the monuments, which the progress of inquiry into the older periods may indeed lessen but cannot remove, I follow the data given by Lepsius for the epochs of Egyptian history, and the duration of the reigns which come under our notice.

CHAPTER III.

THE RELIGION OF THE EGYPTIANS

Next to its language the oldest possession of a nation is its religion. Living in a country of very distinct outlines and characteristic forms, where the regularity of external life is brought more prominently before the view than in other countries, the Egyptians at an early period arrived at a fixed expression of their religious feelings and of the forms of their gods. Their original conceptions are unknown to us. The oldest monuments, our earliest sources of information, present us with a numerous assemblage of gods, and the conclusions drawn from these carry us back to views far removed from primitive forms of worship. They indicate a system already developed in the circle of the priests. We can only attempt from the fragments of that system preserved in inscriptions and manuscripts, and the very late accounts of the Greeks, to deduce conclusions concerning the religious notions which originally predominated.

The distinction in the nature of the upper and lower valley, already referred to, cannot have been without influence upon the direction of civic life among the Egyptians, and the formation of their religious ideas. So far as we can tell, these developed independently at the same time in the upper and lower country. In both districts peculiar forms were retained at the most prominent centres of religious worship, until after the union of the country they became amalgamated in all essential points.

Memphis worshipped the god Ptah. The great sanctuary of the god at that city was held to be as ancient as the city itself. So far back as our knowledge extends, the Pharaohs were occupied with the extension and adornment of this temple. Among the Greeks the god of Memphis was known as Hephæstus: they tell us he was represented in the temple by a dwarf-like image; and that similar images of the children of Ptah stood in a part of the temple only entered by the priests.34 The name Hephæstus, and the further statement of the Greeks, that this god was the father of the Sun-god, prove that in Ptah the Egyptians worshipped not only fire, but the spirit of warmth and light generally; and that they must have regarded him as the origin and source of light.

Manetho puts Ptah at the head of the dynasties of the gods. He ruled for 9,000 years before the other gods. Inscriptions name Ptah "the lord of truth," the "father of truth," the "ruler of the sky," "the king of both worlds." As the god of the light which shows everything in its true form, he is the spirit of truth; as the spirit of the light in the sky, he is the lord of heaven. The inscriptions also say that Ptah "moves the egg of the sun and the moon;" he is called "the weaver of the beginnings," the "god who rolls his egg in the sky." Consequently, to the Egyptians Ptah was the mover of the luminaries, a formative, creative spirit, and as he is called in the inscriptions "the father of the father of the gods," he must have been to them the first and oldest god, the beginning of the gods and of all things.

The Egyptians believed that a kind of beetle peculiar to their country (scarabæus sacer) was propagated without the female sex; they saw the mode of its reproduction in the balls of dung which the beetles occasionally pushed before them. Hence they consecrated this insect to their god of beginning and creation, and on monuments and records we find the god Ptah with a beetle on his shoulders, in the place of a human head. As the god of the beginning he appears on monuments in the shape of a child or dwarf; and again, as the unchangeable god, he is wrapped in the casings of a mummy, with the symbols of dominion, the whip and sceptre, or the so-called Nile-gauge, a ring with parallel cross bars, in his hand, in order to denote him as the god who gives to all things measure, order, and law. He is also coloured green, to signify, as it would seem, that lie is a god favourable to vegetation, and possessed of a fertilising power.

Thus Ptah was one of the forms under which the Egyptians invoked the creator, the highest god. On a pillar of Memphis, now in the Berlin Museum, belonging to the time of the nineteenth dynasty, he is called "the only unbegotten begetter in the heaven and on the earth," "the god who made himself to be god, who exists by himself, the double being, the begetter of the first beginning." Other inscriptions and records denote him as "the creator in heaven and on earth, who has made all things, the lord of all that is, and is not."35