"Will Durant's Fascination with Ancient Egypt"

Egypt won the gift of the Nile one in

the Delta Alexandria the Nile the

pyramids the Sphinx this is a perfect

Harbor outside the long breakwater the

waves topple over one another roughly

within it the sea is a silver mirror

there on the little island of Pharos

when Egypt was very old saw Stratos

built his great lighthouse of white

marble five hundred feet high as a

beacon to all ancient mariners of the

Mediterranean and as one of the seven

wonders of the world time and the

nagging waters have washed it away but a

new lighthouse has taken its place and

guides the steamer through the rocks to

the keys of Alexandria here that

astonishing boy statesman Alexander

founded the subtle polyglot metropolis

that was to inherit the culture of Egypt

Palestine and Greece in this harbor

Caesar received without gladness the

severed head of Pompey as the Train

glides through the city glimpses come of

unpaved alleys and streets heat waves

dancing in the air workmen naked to the

waist black garbed women bearing burdens

sturdily white robed and turbaned

moslems of regal dignity and in the

distance

spacious squares and shining palaces

perhaps as fair as those that the

ptolemies built when Alexandria was the

meeting place of the world then suddenly

it is open country and the city recedes

into the horizon of the Fertile Delta

that green triangle which looks on the

map like the leaves of a lofty palm tree

held up on the slender stalk of the Nile

once no doubt this Delta was a bay

patiently the broad stream filled it up

too slowly to be seen with detritus

carried down a thousand miles now from

this little corner of mud enclosed by

the many mouths of the river six million

peasants grow enough cotton to export a

hundred million dollars worth of it

every year they're bright and calm under

the glaring Sun fringed with slim palms

and grassy banks is the most famous of

all rivers we cannot see the desert that

lies so close beyond it or the great

empty wadis riverbeds

where once its fertile tributaries

flowed we cannot realize yet how

precariously narrow a thing this Egypt

is owing everything to the river and

harassed on either side with hostile

shifting sands

now the train passes amid the alluvial

plain the land is half covered with

water and crossed everywhere with

irrigation canals in the ditches and the

fields black fella he neighbor knowing

no garment but a cloth about the loins

the river has had one of its annual

inundations which begin at the summer

solstice and last for a hundred days

through that overflow the desert became

fertile and Egypt blossomed in Herodotus

phrase as the gift of the Nile it is

clear why civilization found here one of

its earliest homes nowhere else was a

river so generous in irrigation and so

controllable in its rise only

Mesopotamia could rival it for thousands

of years the peasants have watched this

rise with anxious eagerness to this day

public Criers announced its progress

each morning in the streets of Cairo so

the past with the quiet continuity of

this River flows into the future lightly

touching the present on its way only

historians make divisions time does not

but every gift must be paid for and the

peasant though he valued the rising

waters knew that without control they

could ruin as well as irrigate his

fields so from time beyond history he

built these ditches that cross and

re-cross the land he caught the surplus

in canals and when the river fell he

raised the water with buckets pivoted on

long poles singing as he worked the

songs that the Nile is heard for five

thousand years for as these peasants are

now somber and laughter lists even in

their singing so they have been in all

likelihood for 50 centuries this water

raising apparatus is as old as the

pyramids and the million of these fella

Hien despite the conquests of Arabic

still speak the language of the ancient

monuments here in the Delta of fifty

miles southeast of Alexandria is the

site of no Curtis once filled with

industrious scheming Greeks thirty miles

farther east the site of saia's where in

the centuries before the Persian and

Greek conquests the native civilization

of Egypt had its last revival and then

129 miles southeast of Alexandria is

Cairo a beautiful city but not Egyptian

the conquering Muslims founded it in AD

968 then the bright spirit of France

overcame the gloomy Arab and built here

a Paris in the desert

exotic and unreal one must pass through

it by motorcar

or leisurely theocritus a gypped at the

pyramids how small they appear from the

long road that approaches them did we

come so far to see so little but then

they grow larger as if they were being

lifted up into the air round the turn in

the road we surprised the edge of the

desert and there suddenly the pyramids

confront us bare and solitary in the

sand gigantic and morose against an

italian sky a motley crowd scrambles

about their base stout businessmen on

blinking donkeys stouter ladies secure

in carts young men prancing on horseback

young women sitting uncomfortably on

Camelback their silk knees glistening in

the Sun and everywhere grasping Arabs we

stand where Caesar and Napoleon stood

and remember that 50 centuries look down

upon us where the father of history came

400 years before Caesar and heard the

tales that were too startled Pericles a

new perspective of time comes to us two

millenniums

seemed to fall out of the picture and

Caesar Herodotus and ourselves appear

for a moment contemporary and modern

before these tombs that were more

ancient to them than the Greeks are to

us

nearby the Sphinx half lion and half

philosopher grimly closed the sand and

glares unmoved at the transient visitor

and the eternal plain it is a savage

monument as if designed to frighten old

Ledger's and make children retire early

the lion body passes into a human head

with prognathous jaws and cruel eyes the

civilization is the built at circa 29 90

BC and not quite forgotten barbarism

once the sand covered it and Herodotus

who saw so much that is not there says

not a word of it

nevertheless what wealth these old

Egyptians must have had what power and

skill even in the infancy of history to

bring these vast stones 600 miles to

raise some of them weighing many tons to

a height of half a thousand feet and to

pay or even to feed the hundred thousand

slaves who toiled for 20 years on these

pyramids Herodotus is preserved for us

an inscription that he found on one

pyramid recording the quantity of

radishes garlic and onions consumed by

the workmen who built it these things -

and to have their amour

despite these familiar friends we go

away disappointed

there is something barbarically

primitive or barbarically modern in this

brute hunger for size it is the memory

and imagination of the beholder that

swollen with history make these

monuments great in themselves they are

little ridiculous vainglorious tombs in

which the dead sought eternal life

perhaps pictures have too much ennoble

dem photography can catch everything but

dirt and enhances man-made objects with

noble vistas of land and sky the sunset

at Giza is greater than the pyramids to

upstream Memphis the masterpiece of

queen hatshepsut the colossi of memnon

Luxor and Karnak the grandeur of

Egyptian civilization from Cairo a

little steamer moves up the river that

is southward through six leisurely days

to Karnak and Luxor 20 miles below Cairo

it passes Memphis the most ancient of

Egypt's capitals here where the great

3rd and 4th dynasties lived in a city of

2 million souls nothing now greets the

eye but a row of small pyramids in the

grove of palms for the rest there is

only desert infinite villainess sand

slipping under the feet stinging the

eyes filling the pores covering

everything stretching from Morocco

across Sinai Arabia Turkestan Tibet to

Mongolia along that sandy belt across

two continents civilization once built

its seats and now is gone driven away as

the ice receded by increasing heat and

decreasing rain by the Nile for a dozen

miles on either side runs a ribbon of

fertile soil from the Mediterranean to

Nubia there is only this strip redeemed

from the desert this is the thread upon

which hung the life of Egypt and yet how

brief seems the life span of Greece or

the millennium of Rome beside the long

record from meanies to Cleopatra a week

later the steamer is at Luxor on this

side now covered with Arab Hamlet's or

drifting sand once stood the greatest of

Egypt's capitals the richest city of the

very ancient world known to the Greeks

as Thebes and to its own people

Wes e and nae on the eastern slope of

the Nile is the famous Winter Palace of

Luxor a flame with bougainvillea across

the river the Sun is setting over the

tombs of the Kings into a sea of sand

and the sky is flaked with gaudy tints

of purple and gold bar in the West the

pillars of queen hatshepsut's noble

temple gleam looking for all the world

like some classic colonnade in the

morning lazy sailboats very The Seeker

across the river so quiet and

unpretentious that no one would suspect

that it had been flowing here for

uncounted centuries then over mile after

mile of desert through dusty mountain

passes and by historic graves until the

masterpiece of the great Queen Rises

still and white and the trembling heat

here the artist decided to transform

nature and her hills into a beauty

greater than her own into the very face

of the granite cliff he built these

columns as stately as those that China's

made for Pericles it is impossible

seeing these to doubt that Greece took

our architecture perhaps through Crete

from this initiative race and on the

walls vast bar reliefs alive with motion

and thought tell the story of the first

great woman in history and not the least

of Queens on the road backs at two

giants in stone representing the most

luxurious of Egypt's monarchs I'm in

hotep the third but mistakenly called

the colossi of memnon by the bittakers

of Greece

each is 70 feet high weighs 700 tons and

is carved out of a single rock on the

base of one of them are the inscriptions

left by Greek tourists who visited these

ruins 2,000 years ago again the

centuries fall out of reckoning and

those Greeks seem strangely contemporary

with us in the presence of these ancient

things a mile to the north lie the stone

remains of ramasees the second one of

the most fascinating figures in history

beside whom Alexander is an immature

trifle alive for 99 years Emperor for 67

father of 150 children here he is a

statue once 56 feet high now 56 feet

long prostrate and ridiculous in the

sand Napoleon's servants measured him

zealously they found his ear 3 under

feet long his foot five feet wide his

weight a thousand tons for him Bonaparte

should have used his later salutation of

Goethe voila nom behold a man all around

now on the west bank of the Nile is the

City of the Dead at every turn some

burrowing Egyptologist has unearthed a

royal tomb the grave of Tutankhamun is

closed locked even in the faces of those

who thought that gold would open

anything but the tomb of Seti the first

is open and there in the cool earth one

may gaze at decorated ceilings and

passages and marvel at the wealth and

and skill that could build such

sarcophagi and surround them with such

art in one of these tombs the excavators

saw on the sand the footprints of the

slaves who had carried the mummy to its

place 3,000 years before but the best

remains adorn the eastern side of the

river here at Luxor the lordly Amenhotep

the third with the spoils of tutmes the

thirds victories began to build his most

pretentious edifice death came upon him

as he built then after the work had been

neglected for a century

ramasees the second finished it in regal

style at once the quality of Egyptian

architecture floods the spirit here our

scope and power not beauty merely but a

masculine sublimity a wide court now

waste with sand paved of old with marble

on three sides majestic colonnades

matched by karnak alone on every hand

carved stone in bar relief and royal

statues proud even in desolation imagine

eight long stems of the papyrus plant

nurse of letters and here the form of

art at the base of the fresh unopened

flowers bind the stems with five firm

bands that will give Beauty strength

then picture the whole stately stalk in

stone this is the Popeye reformed column

of luxor fancy a court of such columns

upholding massive and tablatures and

shade giving porticoes seen the whole as

the ravages of 30 centuries have left it

then estimate the men who in what we

once thought the childhood of

civilization could conceive and execute

such monuments through ancient ruins and

modern squalor a rough footpath leads to

what egypt keeps as its final offering

the temples of Karnak

half a hundred pharaohs took part in

building them from the last dynasties of

the old kingdom to the days of the

Ptolemies generation by generation the

structures grew until sixty acres were

covered with the Lord layest offerings

that architecture ever made to the gods

an avenue of sphinxes leads to the place

where Shambo Yong founder of Egyptology

stood in 1828 and wrote I went at last

in the palace or rather to the city of

monuments to Karnak there all the

magnificence of the pharaohs appeared to

me all that men have imagined and

executed on the grandest scale no people

ancient or modern has conceived the art

of architecture on a scale so sublime so

great so grandiose as the ancient

Egyptians they conceived like men a

hundred feet high to understand it would

require maps and plans and all an

architect's learning a spacious

enclosure of many courts one-third of a

mile on each side a population of once

eighty six thousand statues a main group

of buildings constituting the temple of

amman 1000 by 300 feet great pylons were

gates between one court and the next the

perfect heraldic pillars have tutmes the

third broken off rudely at the top but

still of astonishingly delicate carving

and design the festival hall of the same

formidable monarch its fluted shafts

here and there anticipating all the

power of the Doric column in Greece the

little temple of ptah

with graceful pillars rivaling the

living palms beside them the prom in a

began the work of tut mrs. builders with

bare and massive colonnades symbol of

Egypt's Napoleon above all the hypostyle

Hall a very forest of 140 gigantic

columns crowded closed to keep out the

exhausting Sun flowering out at their

tops into spreading palms of stone and

holding up with impressive strength a

roof of mammoth slabs stretched in solid

granite from capital to capital nearby

two slender obelisks monoliths complete

in symmetry and grace rise like pillars

of light amid the ruins of statues and

temples and announce in their

inscriptions the proud message of queen

hatshepsut to the world these obelisks

the carving says are of hard granite

from the quarries of the south there

cops are a Finegold chosen from the best

in all foreign lands they can be seen

from afar on the river the splendor of

their radiance fills the two lands and

when the solar disk appears between them

it is truly as if he rose up into the

horizon of the sky you who after long

years shall see these monuments who

shall speak of what I have done you will

say we do not know we do not know how

they can have made a whole mountain of

gold to Gilda my have given gold

measured by the bushel as though it were

sacks of grain for I knew that Karnak is

the celestial horizon of the earth what

a queen and what kings perhaps this

first great civilization was the finest

of all and we have but begun to uncover

its glory

near the sacred lake at Karnak men are

digging carrying away the soil patiently

in little paired baskets slung over the

shoulder on a pole an Egyptologist is

bending absorbed over hieroglyphics on

two stones just rescued from the earth

he is one of a thousand such men

Carter's and breasted sand masts

Burroughs Petrie's and cap ours and

bagels living simply here in the heat

and dust trying to read for us the

riddle of the Sphinx to snatch from the

secretive soil the art and literature

the history and wisdom of Egypt every

day the earth and the elements fight

against them superstition curses and

hampers them moisture and corrosion

attacked the very monuments they have

exhumed and the same Nile that gives

food to Egypt creeps in its overflow

into the ruins of Karnak loosens the

pillars tumbles them down and leaves

upon them when it subsides a deposit of

saltpeter that eats like a leprosy into

the stone let us contemplate the glory

of Egypt once more in her history and

her civilization before her last

monuments crumble into the sand to the

master-builders one the discovery of

Egypt shampoo yo and the rosetta stone

the recovery of Egypt is one of the most

brilliant chapters in archaeology the

Middle Ages knew of Egypt as a Roman

colony and a Christian settlement the

Renaissance presumed that civilization

had begun with Greece even the

Enlightenment though it concerned itself

intelligently with China and India knew

nothing of Egypt beyond the pyramids

Egyptology was a byproduct of Napoleonic

imperialism when the great Corsican led

a French expedition to Egypt in 1798 he

took with him a number of draftsman and

engineers to explore and map the terrain

and made place also for certain scholars

absurdly interested in Egypt for the

sake of a better understanding of

history it was this Corps of men who

first revealed the temples of Luxor and

Karnak to the modern world and the

elaborate description delhi seeped 1809

to 1813 which they prepared for the

french academy was the first milestone

in the scientific study of this

forgotten civilization for many years

however they were unable to read the

inscriptions surviving on the monuments

typical of the scientific temperament

was the patient devotion with which

sample young one of these savants

applied himself to the decipherment of

the hieroglyphics he found at last an

obelisk covered with such sacred

carvings in egyptian but bearing at the

base a greek inscription which indicated

that the writing concerned Ptolemy and

Cleopatra guessing the two hieroglyphics

often repeated with the Royal cartouche

attached with the names of these rulers

he made out tentatively 1822 eleven

Egyptian letters this was the first

proof that Egypt had had an alphabet

then he applied this alphabet to a great

black stone slab that Napoleon's troops

had stumbled upon near the Rosetta mouth

of the Nile

this rosetta stone contained an

inscription in three languages first in

hieroglyphics second in demotic the

popular script of the Egyptians and

third in Greek with his knowledge of

Greek and the eleven letters made out

from the obelisk champignon

after more than twenty years of labour

deciphered the whole inscription

discovered the entire Egyptian alphabet

and opened the way to the recovery of a

lost world it was one of the peaks in

the history of history - prehistoric

Egypt Paleolithic Neolithic the mad

Aryans pre-dynastic race since the

radicals of one age are the

reactionaries of the next it was not to

be expected that

men who created Egyptology should be the

first to accept as authentic the remains

of Egypt's Old Stone Age after 40 they

serve all Nishant bacteria when the

first Flint's were unearthed in the

valley of the Nile

sir Flinders Petrie not usually hesitant

with figures class them is the work of

post dynastic generations and Maspero

whose lordly area Edition did know her

to his urbane and polished style

ascribed Neolithic Egyptian pottery to

the Middle Kingdom nevertheless in 1895

DeMorgan revealed an almost continuous

gradation of Paleolithic cultures

corresponding substantially with their

succession in Europe in the flint hand

axes harpoons arrowheads and hammers

exhumed all along the Nile imperceptibly

the Paleolithic remains graduating to

Neolithic at depths indicating an age

10,000 to 4,000 BC the stone tools

became more refined and reach indeed a

level of sharpness finish and precision

unequaled by any other Neolithic culture

known towards the end of the period

metalwork enters in the form of Oz's

chisels and pins of copper and ornaments

of silver and gold finally as a

transition to history agriculture

appears in the year 1901 near the little

town of bhaduri halfway between Cairo

and Karnak bodies were excavated Amman

implements indicating a date

approximating to 40 centuries before

Christ in the intestines of these bodies

preserved through six millenniums by the

dry heat of the sand were husks of

unconsumed barley since barley does not

grow wild in Egypt it is presumed that

the bad Aryans had learned to cultivate

cereals from that early age the

inhabitants of the Nile Valley began the

work of irrigation cleared the jungles

and the swamps one the river from the

crocodile and the hippopotamus and

slowly laid the groundwork of

civilization these and other remains

give us some inkling of Egyptian life

before the first of the historic

dynasties it was a culture midway

between hunting and agriculture and just

beginning to replace stone with metal

tools the people made boats ground corn

wove linen and carpets had jewels and

perfumes barbers and domesticated

animals and delighted to draw pictures

chiefly of the prey they

soon they painted upon their simple

pottery figures of mourning women

representations of animals and men and

geometrical designs and they carved such

excellent products as the gable alaric

knife

they had pictographic writing and

Sumerian like cylinder seals

no one knows whence these early

Egyptians came learned at guesses

inclined to the view that they were a

cross between Nubian Ethiopian and

Libyan natives on one side and Semitic

or our monoid immigrants on the other

even at that date there were no pure

races on the earth probably the invaders

or immigrants from Western Asia brought

a higher culture with them and their

intermarriage with the vigorous native

stocks provided that ethnic blend which

is often the prelude to a new

civilization slowly from 4000 to 3000 BC

these mingling groups became a people

and created the Egypt of history 3 the

Old Kingdom the gnomes the first

historic individual Cheops Chephren the

purpose of the pyramids art of the tombs

mummification already by 4000 BC these

peoples of the Nile had forged a form of

government the population along the

river was divided into gnomes in each of

which the inhabitants were essentially

of one stock acknowledged the same totem

obeyed the same chief and worshipped the

same gods by the same rights throughout

the history of ancient Egypt these

gnomes persisted there no marks or

rulers having more or less power and

autonomy according to the weakness or

strength of the reigning Pharaoh as all

developing structures tend toward an

increasing interdependence of the parts

so in this case the growth of trade and

the rising costliness of war forced the

gnomes to organize themselves into two

kingdoms one in the south one in the

north a division probably reflecting the

conflict between African natives and

Asiatic immigrants this dangerous

accentuation of geographic and ethnic

differences was resolved for a time when

meanies a half legendary figure brought

the two lands under his united power

promulgated a body of laws given him by

the god Thoth established the first

historic dynasty built a new Capitol at

Memphis taught the people in the words

of an ancient Greek historian to use

Able's and couches and introduced luxury

and an extravagant manner of life the

first real person in known history is

not a conqueror or a king but an artist

and a scientist in hotel physician

architect and chief advisor of Kings Oh

sir

circa 3150 BC he did so much for

Egyptian medicine but later generations

worshipped him as a god of knowledge

author of their sciences and their arts

and at the same time he appears to have

founded the school of architecture which

provided the next dynasty with the first

great builders in history it was under

his administration according to Egyptian

tradition that the first stone house was

built it was he who planned the oldest

Egyptian structure extant the Step

Pyramid of Saqqara a terraced structure

of stone which for centuries set the

style in tombs and apparently was he who

designed the funerary temple of zoser

with its lovely lotus columns and its

limestone paneled walls in these old

remains at saqqara at what is almost the

beginning of historic Egyptian art we

find fluted shafts as fair as any the

Greece would build reliefs full of

realism and vitality green fails richly

colored glazed earthenware rivaling the

products of medieval Italy and a

powerful stone figure of King Djoser

himself

obscured in its details by the blows of

time but still revealing an

astonishingly subtle and sophisticated

phase we do not know what concourse of

circumstances made the Fourth Dynasty

the most important in Egyptian history

before the 18th perhaps it was the

lucrative mining operations in the last

reign of the third perhaps the

ascendancy of Egyptian merchants in

Mediterranean trade perhaps the brutal

energy of Khufu the key ops of Herodotus

who reigned from 30 98 to 30 75 BC first

Pharaoh of the new house Herodotus has

passed on to us the traditions of the

Egyptian priests concerning this builder

of the first of Jesus pyramids now they

tell me that to the reign of Ramzan itis

there was a perfect distribution of

justice and that all Egypt was in a high

state of prosperity but that after him

Cheops coming to reign over them plunged

into every kind of wickedness for that

having shut up all the temples he

ordered all the Egyptians to work for

himself Salma

accordingly were appointed to draw

stones from the quarries in the Arabian

Mountains down the Nile others he

ordered to receive the stones when

transported in vessels across the river

and they were to the number of a hundred

thousand men at a time each party during

three months the time during which the

people were thus harassed by toil lasted

ten years on the road which they

constructed and along which they drew

the stones a work in my opinion not much

less than the pyramid of his successor

and rival builder Khafre the Kathryn of

Herodotus who ruled from thirty sixty

seven to thirty eleven BC we know

something almost at first hand for the

diorite portrait which is among the

treasures of the Cairo Museum pictures

him if not as he looked certainly as we

might conceive this Pharaoh of the

second pyramid who ruled Egypt for 56

years on his head is the Falken symbol

of the royal power but even without that

sign we should know that he was every

inch a king proud direct fearless

piercing eyes a powerful nose and a

frame of reserved and quiet strength it

is evident that nature

had long since learned how to make men

and art had long since learned how to

represent them why did these men build

pyramids their purpose was not

architectural but religious the pyramids

were tombs lineally descended from the

most primitive of burial mounds

apparently the Pharaoh believed like any

commoner among his people that every

living body was inhabited by a double or

cow which need not die with the breath

and that the car would survive all the

more completely if the flesh were

preserved against hunger violence and

decay the pyramid by its height its form

and its position sort stability as a

means to deathlessness and except for

its square corners it took the natural

form that any homogeneous group of

solids would take if allowed to fall

unimpeded to earth again it was to have

permanence and strength therefore stones

were piled up here with mad patience as

if they had grown by the wayside and had

not been carried from quarries hundreds

of miles away in Khufu's pyramid there

are two and a half million blocks some

of them weighing 150 tons all of them

averaging two and a half tons they cover

half a million square feet and rise 481

feet into the air

and the mass is solid only a few blocks

were emitted to leave a secret

passageway for the carcass of the king a

guide leads the trembling visitor on all

fours into the cavernous mausoleum up a

hundred crouching steps to the very

heart of the pyramid there in the damp

still center buried in darkness and

secrecy once rested the bones of Khufu

and his queen the marble sarcophagus of

the Pharaoh is still in place but broken

and empty even these stones could not

deter human thievery nor all the curses

of the gods since the car was conceived

as the minut image of the body it had to

be fed clothed and served after the

death of the frame lavatories were

provided in some royal tombs for the

convenience of the departed soul and a

funerary text expresses some anxiety

lest the car for want of food should

feed upon its own excreta one expects

the Egyptian burial customs if traced to

their source would lead to the primitive

interment of a warrior's weapons with

his corpse or some institution like the

Hindu sati the burial of a man's wives

and slaves with him that they may attend

to his needs this having proved accent

to the wives and slaves painters and

sculptors were engaged to draw pictures

carved bar reliefs and make statuettes

resembling these aids by a magic formula

usually inscribed upon them the carving

or painted objects would be quite as

effective as the real ones

a man's descendants were inclined to be

lazy and economical and even if he had

left an endowment to cover the costs

they were apt to neglect the rule that

religion originally put upon them of

supplying the dead with probe and

hence pictorial substitutes were in any

case a wise precaution they could

provide the car of the deceased with

fertile fields plump oxen innumerable

servants and busy artisans at an

attractively reduced rate having

discovered this principle the artists

accomplished marbles with it

one tomb picture shows a field being

plowed the next shows the grain being

reaped or thrashed another the bread

being baked one shows the bull

copulating with the cow another the calf

being born another the grown cattle

being slaughtered another the meat

served hot on the dish a fine limestone

bar relief in the tomb of Prince Rojo

death portrays the dead man enjoying the

varied vittles on the table before him

never since has art done so much for men

fine

the cow was a short long life not only

by burying the cadaver in a sarcophagus

of the hardest stone but by treating it

to the most painstaking mummification so

well was this done that to this day bits

of hair and flesh cling to the Royal

skeletons Herodotus vividly describes

the Egyptian embalmers art first they

draw out the brains through the nostrils

with an iron hook raking part of it out

in this manner the rest by the infusion

of drugs then with a sharp stone they

make an incision in the side and take

out all the bowels and having cleansed

the abdomen and rinsed it with palm wine

they next sprinkle it with pounded

perfume then having filled the belly

with pure myrrh cassia and other

perfumes they sew it up again and when

they have done this they steep it in

Natron leaving it under for 70 days for

a longer time than this it is not lawful

to steep it Natron is a silicate of

sodium and aluminum at the expiration of

70 days they wash the corpse and wrap

the whole body in bandages of wax and

cloth smearing it with gum which the

Egyptians commonly use instead of blue

after this the relations having taken

the body back again make a wooden case

in the shape of a man and having made it

they enclose the body and then having

fastened it up they store it in a

support role chamber setting it up right

against the wall in this manner they

prepare the bodies that are embalmed in

the most expensive way all the world

fears times as an Arab proverb but time

fears the pyramids

however the Pyramid of Khufu has lost

twenty feet of its height and all its

ancient marble casing is gone perhaps

time is only leisurely with it beside it

stands khafre's pyramid a trifle smaller

but still capped with the granite casing

that once covered at all humbly beyond

this squats the pyramid of cafes

successor man Cowley the macaronis of

Herodotus who reigned from thirty eleven

to twenty 988 BC covered not with

granite but with shamefaced brick as if

to announce that when men raised it the

zenith of the old kingdom had passed the

statues of men carried that have come

down to us show him as a man more

refined and less forceful than Caffrey

civilization like life destroys what it

has perfected them

already it may be the growth of comforts

and luxuries the progress of manners and

morals had made men lovers of peace and

haters of war suddenly a new figure

appeared usurped men calories thrown and

put an end to the pyramid builders

dynasty for the Middle Kingdom the

feudal age the 12th dynasty the Hyksos

domination kings were never so plentiful

as in Egypt history lumps them into

dynasties monarchs of one line or family

but even then they burden the memory in

tolerably one of these early pharaohs

pipi ii ruled egypt for 94 years 2738 -

26 44 bc the longest reign in history

when he died anarchy and dissolution

ensued the pharaohs lost control and

feudal barons ruled the gnomes

independently this alternation between

centralized and decentralized power is

one of the cyclical rhythms of history

as if men tired alternately of a

moderate liberty and excessive order

after a dark age of four chaotic

centuries a strong-willed Charlemagne

arose set things severely in order

changed the capital from Memphis to

Thebes and under the title of Amon

Emmett the first inaugurated that 12th

dynasty during which all the arts

excepting perhaps architecture reached a

height of excellence never equaled in

known Egypt before or again through an

old inscription Amun Emmet speaks to us

I was one who cultivated grain and loved

the harvest God the Nile greeted me in

every Valley none was hungry in my years

none thirsted then men dwelt in peace

through that which I wrought and

conversed of me his reward was a

conspiracy among the talleyrand's and

Fouchet whom he had raised a high office

he put it down with a mighty hand but

left for his son Polonius like a scroll

of bitter counsel an admirable formula

for despotism but a heavy price to pay

for royalty talkin to that which I say

to thee that thou mayest be king of the

earth the Dow mayest increased good

harden myself against all sabor

that's the people give heed to him who

terrorizes them approach them not alone

Phil not thy heart with a brother no not

a friend when thou sleepest guard for

thyself thine own heart for a man hath

no friend in the day of evil this Stern

ruler who seems to us so human across

4000 years

established a system of administration

that held for half a millennium wealth

grew again and then art Sena stret the

first to built a great canal from the

Nile to the Red Sea repelled Nubian

invaders and directed great temples at

Heliopolis Abydos and Karnak 10 colossal

seated figures of him have cheated time

and litter the Cairo Museum another

sinister at the third began the

subjugation of Palestine drove back the

recurrent Nubians and raised a steely or

slab at the southern frontier not from

any desire that ye should worship it but

that he should fight for it Amun Emmet

the third a great administrator builder

of canals and irrigation put an end

perhaps to effectively to the power of

the Barons and replaced them with

appointees of the King thirteen years

after his death Egypt was plunged into

disorder by dispute among rival

claimants to the throne and the Middle

Kingdom ended in two centuries of

turmoil and disruption then the Hyksos

nomads from Asia invaded disunited Egypt

set fire to the cities razed the temples

squandered the accumulated wealth

destroyed much of the accumulated art

and for 200 years subjected the Nile

Valley to the rule of the Shepherd Kings

ancient civilizations were little isles

in a sea of barbarism

prosperous settlements surrounded by

hungry envious and warlike hunters and

herders at any moment the wall of

defense might be broken down so the

kassitus rated Babylonia the Gauls

attacked Greece and Rome the Huns over

ran Italy the Mongols came down upon

Peking soon however the conquerors in

their turn grew fat and prosperous and

lost control

the Egyptians rose in a war of

liberation expelled the Hyksos and

established the eighteenth dynasty which

was to lift Egypt a greater power wealth

and glory than ever before five the

Empire the great queen taught most the

third

the zenith of Egypt perhaps the invasion

had brought another rejuvenation by the

infusion of fresh blood but at the same

time the new age marked the beginning of

a thousand-year struggle between Egypt

and Western Asia

Thutmose the first not only consolidated

the power of the new Empire but on the

ground that Western Asia must be

controlled to prevent further

interruptions invaded Syria subjugated

it from the coast to car kamesh put it

under guard and tribute and returned to

Thebes laden with spoils and the glory

that always comes from the killing of

men at the end of his 30-year reign he

raised his daughter

Hatshepsut to partnership with him on

the throne for a time her husband and

stepbrother ruled as thomas ii and dying

named as his successor thomas the third

son of toughness the first by a

concubine but hatshepsut set this high

destined youngster aside assumed full

royal powers and proved herself a king

in everything but gender even this

exception was not conceded by her since

sacred tradition required that every

Egyptian ruler should be a son of the

Great God Ammon Hotch Epps had arranged

to be made at once male and divine a

biography was invented for her by which

Ammon had descended upon hot chef suits

mother a Maasai in a flood of perfume

and light his attentions had been

gratefully received and on his departure

he had announced that a Masai would give

birth to a daughter in whom all the

valor and strength of the God would be

made manifest on earth to satisfy the

prejudices of her people and perhaps the

secret desire of her heart the great

Queen had herself represented on the

monuments as a bearded and breast 'lest

warrior and though the inscriptions

referred to her with the feminine

pronoun they did not hesitate to speak

of her as son of the son and Lord of the

two lands when she appeared in public

she dressed in male garb and wore a

beard she had a right to determine her

own sex for she became one of the most

successful and beneficent of Egypt's

many rulers she maintained internal

order without undue tyranny and external

peace without laws she organized a great

expedition to punt presumably the

eastern coast of Africa giving new

markets to her merchants and new

delicacies to her people she helped to

beautify Karnak

raised their two majestic obelisks built

at Deir el-bahri

the stately temple which her father had

designed and repaired some of the damage

that had been done to older temples by

the Hyksos Kings I have restored that

which was in ruins one of her proud

inscriptions tells us I have raised up

that which was unfinished

since the Asiatics were in the midst of

the Northland overthrowing that which

had been made finally she built for

herself a secret and ornate tomb among

the sand swept mountains on the western

side of the Nile in what came to be

called the valley of the kings tombs her

successors followed her example until

some sixty royal simple curves had been

cut into the hills and the City of the

Dead began to rival living thieves in

population the west end in Egyptian

cities was the abode of dead aristocrats

to go west and to die for 22 years the

Queen ruled in wisdom and peace

Thutmose the third followed with the

reign of many wars Syria took advantage

of hatshepsut its death to revolt it did

not seem likely to the Syrians that Tut

knows a lad of twenty-two would be able

to maintain the empire created by his

father but Thomas set off in the very

year of his accession marched his army

through contra and Gaza twenty miles a

day and confronted the rebel forces at

har Megiddo that is Mount Megiddo a

little town so strategically placed

between the rival Lebanon ranges on the

road from Egypt to the Euphrates that it

has been the Armageddon of countless

Wars from that day to general allenbys

in the same past where in 1918 the

British defeated the Turks Thutmose the

third 3390 seven years before defeated

the Syrians and their allies then Chuck

nos marched victorious through Western

Asia subdue entak Singh and levying

tribute and returned to Thebes in

triumph six months after his departure

this was the first of fifteen campaigns

in which the irresistible toughness made

Egypt master of the Mediterranean world

not only did he conquer but he organized

everywhere he left doubt he Garrison's

and capable governors the first man in

known history to recognize the

importance of sea power he built a fleet

that kept the Near East effectively in

leash the spoils that he seized

became the foundation of Egyptian art in

the period of the Empire the tribute

that he drained from Syria gave his

people an epicurean ease and created a

new class of artists who filled all

Egypt with precious things we may

vaguely estimate the wealth of the new

Imperial government when we learned that

on one occasion the Treasury was able to

measure up nine thousand pounds of gold

and silver alloy trade flourished in

Thebes as never before the temples

groaned with offerings and that Carnac

the lordly promenade and Festival Hall

rose to the greater glory of King and

God then the King retired from the

battlefield designed exquisite vases and

gave himself to internal administration

his Vizier or Prime Minister said of him

as tired secretaries were to save

Napoleon lo his majesty was one who knew

what happened there was nothing of which

he was ignorant he was the God of

knowledge and everything

there was no matter that he did not

carry out he passed away after a rule of

thirty-two some say 54 years having made

Egyptian leadership in the Mediterranean

world complete after him another

conqueror amenhotep ii subdued again

certain idolaters of liberty in syria

and returned to thebes with seven

captive kings still alive

hanging head downward from the prow of

the imperial galley six of them he

sacrificed to amman with his own hand

then another tut most who does not count

and in 1412 Amenhotep the third began a

long reign in which the accumulated

wealth of a century of mastery brought

Egypt to the Acne of her splendor a fine

bust in the British Museum shows him as

a man at once of refinement and of

strength able to hold firmly together

the Empire bequeathed to him and yet

living in an atmosphere of comfort and

elegance that might have been envied by

Petronius or the Medici only the

exhuming of Tutankhamun's relics could

make us credit the traditions and

records of Amenhotep riches and luxury

in his reign Thebes was as majestic as

any city in history her streets crowded

with merchants her markets filled with

the goods of the world her buildings

surpassing and magnificence all those of

ancient or modern capitals they're

imposing palaces receiving tribute from

an endless chain of vassal states their

massive temples and

stall over with gold and adorned with

every art her spacious villas and costly

chateaus her shaded promenade sand

artificial Lakes providing the scene for

sumptuous displays of fashion that

anticipated Imperial Rome such was a

gypsy a pedal in the days of her glory

in the rain before her fall 3 the

civilization of Egypt one agriculture

behind these kings and queens were pawns

behind these temples palaces and

pyramids were the workers of the cities

and the peasants of the fields

the population of Egypt in the fourth

century before Christ is estimated at

some 7 million souls Herodotus describes

them optimistically as he found them

about 450 BC they gather in the fruits

of the earth with less labour than any

other people for they have not the toil

of breaking up the furrow with the plow

nor of hoeing nor of any other work

which all other men must labor at to

obtain a crop of corn but when the river

has come of its own accord and irrigated

their fields and having irrigated them

has subsided then each man shows his own

land and turns his swine into it and

when the seed has been trodden into it

by the swine he waits for harvest time

then he gathers it in as the swine trod

in the seed so Apes were tamed and

taught to pluck fruit from the trees and

the same Nile that irrigated the fields

deposited upon the minutes inundation

thousands of fish in shallow pools even

the same net with which the peasant fish

during the day was used around his head

at night as a double protection against

mosquitos nevertheless it was not he who

profited by the bounty of the river

every acre of the soil belonged to the

Pharaoh and other men could use it only

by his kind indulgence every tiller of

the earth and to pay him an annual tax

of 10 or 20% in kind large tracts were

owned by the feudal barons or other

wealthy men the size of some of these

estates may be judged from the

circumstance that one of them had 1500

cows cereals fish and meat were the

chief items of diet one fragment tells

the schoolboy what he is permitted to

eat it includes 33 forms of flesh 48

baked meats and 24 varieties of drink

the rich washed down there

deals with wine the poor with barley

beer the lot of the peasant was hard the

free farmer was subject only to the

middleman in the tax collector who dealt

with him on the most time-honoured of

economic principles taking all that the

traffic would bear out of the produce of

the land here is how a complacent

contemporary scribe conceived the life

of the men who fed ancient Egypt dust

I'll not recall the picture of the

farmer when the tenth of his grain is

levied worms have destroyed half the

wheat and the hippopotami I've eaten the

rest

there are swarms of rats in the fields

the grasshoppers alight there the cattle

devour the little birds pilfer and if

the farmer loses sight for an instant of

what remains on the ground it is carried

off by robbers moreover the thongs which

bind the iron and the hoe are worn out

and the team has died at the plough it

is then that the scribe steps out of the

boat at the landing place to levy the

tithe and there come the keepers of the

doors of the Kings granary with cudgels

and Negroes with ribs of palm leaves

crying come now come there is none and

they throw the cultivator full-length

upon the ground find him drag him to the

canal and fling him in headfirst his

wife is bound with him his children are

put into Chains the neighbors in the

meantime leave him and fly to save their

grain it is a characteristic bit of

literary exaggeration but the author

might have added that the peasant was

subject at anytime to the corvée doing

forced labor for the king

dredging the canals building roads

tilling the royal lands or dragging

great stones and obelisks for pyramids

temples and palaces probably a majority

of the laborers in the field were

moderately content accepting their

poverty patiently many of them were

slaves captured in the wars or bonded

for debt sometimes slave raids were

organized and women and children from

abroad were sold to the highest bidder

at home an old relief in the Leyden

Museum pictures a long procession of

Asiatic captives passing gloomily into

the land of bondage one sees them still

alive on that vivid stone their hands

tied behind their backs with their heads

or thrust through rude hand cups of wood

their faces empty with the apathy that

has known the last despair - industry

miners manufacturers workers engineers

transport postal

service Commerce and Finance scribes

slowly as the peasants toiled an

economic surplus grew and food was laid

aside for workers in industry and trade

having no minerals Egypt sought them in

Arabia and Nubia the great distances

offered no temptation to private

initiative and for many centuries mining

was a government monopoly copper was

mined in small quantities iron was

imported from the Hittites gold mines

were found along the eastern coast in

Nubia and in every vassal Treasury

Diodorus Siculus 56 BC describes

Egyptian miners following with lamp and

picked the veins of gold in the earth

children carrying up the heavy or stone

mortars pounding at the bits old men and

women washing the dirt away we cannot

tell to what extent nationalistic

exaggeration distorts the famous passage

the kings of Egypt collect condemned

prisoners prisoners of war and others

who beset by false accusations have been

in a fit of anger thrown into prison

these sometimes alone sometimes with

their entire family they send to the

gold mines partly to exact adjust

vengeance for crimes committed by the

condemned partly to secure for

themselves a big revenue through their

toil as these workers can take no care

of their bodies and have not even a

garment to hide their nakedness there is

no one who seeing these luckless people

would not pity them because of the

excess of their misery for there is no

forgiveness or relaxation at all for the

sick or the main door the old or for

woman's weakness but all with blows are

compelled to stick to their labor until

worn out they die in their servitude

thus the poor wretches even account the

future more dreadful than the present

because of the excess of their

punishment and look to death is more

desirable than life in its earliest

dynasties Egypt learned the art of

fusing copper with tin to make bronze

first bronze weapons swords helmets and

shields then bronze tools wheels rollers

levers pulleys windlass 'iz wedges

lathes screws drills that bore the

toughest diorite stone saws that cut the

massive slabs of the sarcophagi Egyptian

workers made brick cement and plaster of

Paris

they glazed pottery blue glass and

glorified both with color they were

masters in the

carving of wood they made everything

from boats and carriages chairs and beds

to handsome coffins that almost invited

men to die out of animal skins they made

clothing Quivers shields and seats all

the arts of the tenor are pictured on

the walls of the tombs and the curved

knives represented there in the Tanners

hand are used by cobblers to this day

from the papyrus plant Egyptian artisans

made ropes mats sandals and paper other

workmen developed the arts of enameling

and varnishing and applied chemistry to

industry still others will tissues of

the subtlest weave in the history of the

textile art specimens of linen woven

4,000 years ago show today despite times

corrosion a weave so fine that it

requires a magnifying glass to

distinguish it from silk the best work

of the modern machine Loomis course in

comparison with this fabric of the

ancient Egyptian hand loom if says

special we compare the technical

inventory of the Egyptians with our own

it is evident that before the invention

of the steam mentioned we scarcely

excelled them in anything

the workers were mostly Freeman partly

slaves in general every trade was a

caste as in modern India and sons were

expected to follow and take over the

occupations of their fathers the great

Wars brought in thousands of captives

making possible the large estates and

the triumphs of engineering ramasees the

third presented 113 thousand slaves to

the temples during the course of his

reign the free artisans were usually

organized for the specific undertaking

by a chief workman or overseer who sold

their labor as a group and paid them

individually a chalk tablet in the

British Museum contains a chief

workman's record of 43 workers listing

their absences and their causes ill or

sacrificing to the gods or just plain

lazy strikes were frequent once their

pay being long overdue the workmen

besieged the overseer and threatened him

we have been driven here by hunger and

thirst they told him we have no clothes

we have no oil we have no food right to

our Lord the Pharaoh on the subject and

right to the governor of the gnome who

is over us that they may give us

something for our sustenance a Greek

tradition reports a great revolt in

Egypt in which the slaves captured a

province and held it so long that time

which sanctions everything gave them

legal

ship of it but of this revolt there is

no record in Egyptian inscriptions it is

surprising that a civilization so

ruthless in its exploitation of labor

should have known or recorded so few

revolutions Egyptian engineering was

superior to anything known to the Greeks

or Romans or to Europe before the

Industrial Revolution only our time has

excelled it and we may be mistaken

senator at the third for example built a

wall 27 miles long to gather into Lake

nearest the waters of the farm basin

thereby reclaiming 25,000 acres of

marshland for cultivation and providing

a vast reservoir for irrigation great

canals were constructed some from the

Nile to the Red Sea the caisson was used

for digging and obelisks weighing a

thousand tons were transported over

great distances if we make creditor

auditors or judge from later

undertakings of the same kind

represented in the release of the 18th

dynasty these immense stones were drawn

on greased beams by thousands of slaves

and raised to the desired level on

inclined approaches beginning faraway

machinery was rare because muscle was

cheap see and one relief 800 rowers in

27 boats dragging a barge laden with two

obelisks this is the Eden to which our

romantic machine records would return

ships a hundred feet long by half a

hundred feet wide plied the Nile in the

Red Sea and finally sailed the

Mediterranean on land goods were

transported by human muscle later by

donkeys later by the horse which

probably the Hyksos brought to Egypt the

camel did not appear till Ptolemaic days

the poor man walked or paddled his

simple boat the rich man rode in sedan

chairs carried by slaves or later in

chariots clumsily made with the weight

placed entirely in front of the axle

there was a regular postal service an

ancient papyrus says write to me by the

letter carrier communication however was

difficult roads were few and bad except

for the military highway through Gaza to

the Euphrates and the serpentine form of

the Nile which was the main high road of

Egypt doubled the distance from town to

town trade was comparatively primitive

most of it was by barter and village

bazaars foreign commerce grew slowly

restricted severely

most up-to-date tariff walls the various

kingdoms of the Near East believed

strongly in the protective principle for

customs Jews were a mainstay of their

royal Treasuries nevertheless Egypt grew

rich by importing raw materials and

exporting finished products Syrian

and Cypriot merchants crowded the

markets of Egypt and Phoenician galleys

sailed up the Nile to the busy wharves

of Thebes coinage had not yet developed

payments even of the highest salaries

were made in goods corn bread yeast beer

etc taxes were collected in kind and the

Pharaohs Treasuries were not a mint of

money but storehouses of a thousand

products from the fields and shops after

the influx of precious metals that

followed the conquests of Thomas the

third merchants began to pay for goods

with rings or ingots of gold measured by

weight at every transaction but no coins

of definite value guaranteed by the

state arose to facilitate exchange

credit however was highly developed

written transfers frequently took the

place of barter or payment scribes were

busy everywhere accelerating business

with legal documents of exchange

accounting and finance every visitor to

the Louvre has seen the statue of the

Egyptian scribe squatting on his

haunches almost completely nude dressed

with a pen behind the ears reserved for

the one he holds in his hand he keeps

record of work done in goods paid of

prices and costs of profits and laws he

counts the capital as they moved to the

slaughter or corn as it is measured out

in sale he draws up contracts and wills

and makes out his masters income tax

verily there is nothing new Under the

Sun he essentially attentive and

mechanically industrious he has just

enough intelligence not to be dangerous

his life is monotonous but he Consol's

himself by writing essays and the

hardships of the manual workers

existence and the princely dignity of

those whose food is paper and whose

blood is ink three government the

bureaucrats law the Vizier the pharaoh

with these scribes is a clerical

bureaucracy the pharaoh and the

provincial nobles maintained law and

order in the state ancient slabs show

such clerks taking the census and

examining income tax returns through

Nayla meters that measured the rise of

the river the scribe officials forecast

of the harvest and estimated the

government's future revenue they

allotted appropriations in advance to

governmental departments supervise

industry and trade and in some measure

achieved almost at the outset of history

a planned economy regulated by the state

civil and criminal legislation were

highly developed and already in the

fifth dynasty the law of private

property and the quest was intricate and

precise as in our own days there was

absolute equality before the law

whenever the contesting parties had

equal resources and influence the oldest

legal document in the world is a brief

in the British Museum presenting to the

court a complex case in inheritance

judges required cases to be pled and

answered re argued and rebutted not an

oratory but in writing which compares

favorably with our windy litigation

perjury was punished with death there

were regular courts rising from local

judgment seats in the nomes to supreme

courts at Memphis Thebes or Heliopolis

torture was used occasionally as a

midwife to truth beating with the rod

was a frequent punishment mutilation by

cutting off nose or ears hand or tongue

was sometimes resorted to or exiled to

the mines or death by strangling and

paling beheading or burning at the stake

the extreme penalty was to be embalmed

alive to be eaten slowly by an

inescapable coating of corrosive Natron

criminals of high rank received the

shame of public execution by being

permitted to kill themselves and seen

Samurai Japan we find no signs of any

system of police even the standing army

always small because of Egypt's

protected isolation between deserts and

seas was seldom used for internal

discipline security of life and property

in the continuity of law and government

rested almost entirely on the prestige

of the Pharaoh maintained by the schools

in the church no other nation except

China has ever dared to depend so

largely upon psychological discipline it

was a well-organized government with a

better record of duration than any other

in history at the head of the

administration was the Vizier who served

at once as Prime Minister Chief Justice

and head of the Treasury he was the

court of last resort under the Pharaoh

himself a tomb relief shows us the

Vizier leaving his house early in the

morning to hear the petitions of the

poor to hear as the inscription reads

what the people say in their demand

and to make no distinction between small

and great a remarkable papyrus roll

which comes down to us from the days of

the empire purports to be the form of a

dress perhaps it is but a literary

invention with which the Pharaoh

installed the new Vizier look to the

office of the busier be watchful over

all that is done therein behold it is

the established support of the whole and

the Vizier it is not sweet in his bitter

behold it is not to show respect of

persons to princes and counsellors it is

not to make for himself slaves of any

people behold when a petitioner comes

from upper or lower egypt see thou to it

that everything is done in accordance

with law that everything is done

according to the custom thereof giving

to every man his right it is an

abomination of the God to show

partiality look upon him who is known to

thee like him who is unknown to thee and

him who is near the king like him who is

far from his house behold the prince who

does this he shall endure here in this

place the dread of a prince is that he

does justice behold the regulation that

is laid upon thee the Pharaoh himself

was the supreme court any case might

under certain circumstances be brought

to him if the plaintiff was careless of

expense ancient carvings show us the

great house from which he ruled and in

which the offices of the government were

gathered from this great house which the

Egyptians called pero in which the Jews

translated Pharaoh came the title of the

Emperor here he carried on an arduous

routine of executive work sometimes with

a schedule as rigorous as chandragupta's

louis xiv or napoleon's when he traveled

the nobles met him at the feudal

frontiers escorted and entertained him

and gave him presents proportionate to

their expectations one Lord says a proud

inscription gave to amenhotep ii

carriages of silver and gold statues of

ivory and ebony jewels weapons and works

of art 680 shields 140 bronze daggers

and many vows of precious metal the

Pharaoh reciprocated by taking one of

the Barons sons to live with him at

court a subtle way of exacting a hostage

of fidelity the oldest of the courtiers

constituted a council of elders called

Saru or the great ones who served as an

advisory cabin

to the king such council was in a sense

superfluous for the Pharaoh with the

help of the priests assumed divine

descent powers and wisdom this alliance

with the gods was the secret of his

prestige consequently he was greeted

with forms of address always flattering

sometimes astonishing as when in the

story of sinew Hey a good citizen hails

him Oh long living King may the golden

one Hathor the goddess give life to thy

nose as became so godlike a person the

Pharaoh was waited upon by a variety of

aides including generals launderers

bleachers guardians of the Imperial

wardrobe and other men of high degree 20

officials collaborated to take care of

his toilet barbers who were permitted

only to shave him and cut his hair

hairdressers who adjusted the Royal cowl

and diadem to his head manicurists who

cut and polished his nails perfumers who

deodorized his body blackened his

eyelids with coal and reddened his

cheeks and lips with Rouge one tomb in

scription describes its occupant as

overseer of the cosmetic box overseer of

the cosmetic pencil sandal Bearer to the

king doing in the matter of the Kings

sandals to the satisfaction of his law

so pampered he tended to degenerate and

sometimes brightened his boredom by

Manning the imperial barge with young

women clad only in network of a large

mesh the luxury of Amenhotep the third

prepared for the debacle of it not on 4

morals royal incest the harem marriage

the position of woman the matriarch --it

in egypt sexual morality the government

of the pharaohs resembled that of

Napoleon even to the incest very often

the King married his own sister

occasionally his own daughter to

preserve the purity of the royal blood

it is difficult to say whether this

weakened the stock certainly Egypt did

not think so

after several thousand years of

experiment the institution of sister

marriage spread among the people and as

late as the 2nd century after Christ 2/3

of the citizens of Arsena we were found

to be practicing the custom the words

brother and sister and Egyptian poetry

have the same significance as

lover and beloved among ourselves in

addition to his sisters the Pharaoh had

an abundant harem recruited not only

from captive women but from the

daughters of the nobles and the gifts of

foreign potentates so Amenhotep the

third received from a prince of nahor

inna his eldest daughter in 300 select

maidens some of the nobility imitated

this tiresome extravagance on a small

scale adjusting their morals to their

resources for the most part the common

people like persons of moderate income

everywhere contented themselves with

monogamy family life was apparently as

well ordered as wholesome in moral tone

and influence as in the highest

civilizations of our time divorce was

rare until the decadent dynasties the

husband could dismiss his wife without

compensation if he detected her in

adultery if he divorced her for other

reasons he was required to turn over to

her a substantial share of the family

property the fidelity of the husband so

far as we can fathom such Arcana was as

painstaking as in any later culture and

the position of woman was more advanced

than in most countries today no people

ancient or modern said max Muller has

given women so high a legal status as

did the inhabitants of the Nile Valley

the monuments picture them eating and

drinking in public going about their

affairs in the streets unattended and

unharmed and freely engaging in industry

and trade Greek travelers accustomed to

confine their Xanthippe ease narrowly

were amazed at this Liberty they jogged

at the henpecked husbands of Egypt and

Diodorus Siculus perhaps with a twinkle

in his eye reported that along the Nile

obedience of the husband to the wife was

required in the marriage bond a

stipulation not necessary in America

women held in bequeathed property in

their own names one of the most ancient

documents in history is the 3rd dynasty

will in which the lady Neb sent

transmits her lands to her children

Hatshepsut and cleopatra rose to be

queens and ruled and ruined like kings

sometimes a cynical note is heard in the

literature

one ancient moralist warns his readers

beware of a woman from abroad who was

not known in her City look not upon her

when she comes and know her not she is

like the vortex of deep waters whose

whirling is unfathomable

the woman whose husband is far away she

writes to the everyday if there is no

witness with her she arises and spreads

her net Oh deadly crime if one hearkens

but the more characteristically Egyptian

tone sounds in betar hotels instructions

to his son if thou art successful and

has furnished thy house and lovest the

wife of thy bosom then fill her stomach

and clothe her back make glad her heart

during the time thou hast her for she is

a field profitable to its owner if thou

oppose her it will mean I ruin and the

bhulok papyrus admonishes that the child

with touching wisdom thou shalt never

forget thy mother for she carried the

long beneath her breast as a heavy

burden and after thy months were

accomplished she bore thee three long

years she carried the upon her shoulder

and gave thee her breast to thy mouth

she nurtured the and took no offence

from thy uncleanliness and when out

didst enter school and was instructed in

the writings daily she stood by the

master with bread and beer from the

house it is likely that this high status

of woman arose from the mildly

matriarchal character of Egyptian

society not only was was woman ful

mistress in the house but all estates

descended in the female line even in

late Times says Petrie the husband made

over all his property and future

earnings to his wife in his marriage

settlement men married their sisters not

because familiarity had bred romance but

because they wished to enjoy the family

inheritance which passed down from

mother to daughter and they did not care

to see this wealth give aid and comfort

to strangers the powers of the wife

underwent a slow diminution in the

course of time perhaps through contact

with the patriarchal customs of the

Hyksos and through the transit of egypt

from agricultural isolation and peace to

imperialism and war under the Ptolemies

the influence of the greeks was so great

that freedom of divorce claimed in

earlier times by the wife became the

exclusive privilege of the husband even

then however the change was accepted

only by the upper classes the Egyptian

commoner adhered to matriarchal waves

possibly because of the mastery of woman

over her own affairs infanticide was

rare

Theodorus thought it the peculiarity of

the Egyptians that every child born to

them was reared and tells us that

parents guilty of infanticide were

required

I'll ought to hold the dead child in

their arms for three days and nights

families were large and children swarmed

in both hubble's and palaces the

well-to-do were hard put to it to keep

count of their offspring even in

courtship the woman usually took the

initiative the love poems and letters

that have come down to us are generally

addressed by the lady to the man she

begs for assignation --zz she presses

her suit directly she formally proposes

marriage oh my beautiful friend says one

letter my desire is to become as thy

wife the mistress of all thy possessions

hence modesty as distinct from fidelity

was not prominent among the Egyptians

they spoke of sexual affairs with a

directness alien to our late morality

adorned their very temples with pictures

and bar reliefs of startling anatomical

candor and supplied their dead with

obscene literature to amuse them in the

grave blood ran warm along the Nile

girls were nubile at 10 and premarital

morals were free and easy one courtesan

and Ptolemaic days was reputed to have

built a pyramid with her savings even

sodomy had its clientele dancing girls

in the manner of Japan were accepted

into the best male society as providers

of entertainment and physical

edification they dressed in diaphanous

robes or contented themselves with

anklets bracelets and rings evidence is

a cur of religious prostitution on a

small scale as late as the Roman

occupation the most beautiful girl among

the noble families of Thebes was chosen

to be consecrated to Amman when she was

too old to satisfy the gods she received

an honorable discharge married and moved

in the highest circles it was a

civilization with different prejudices

from our own five manners character

games appearance cosmetics costume

jewelry if we try to visualize the

Egyptian character we find it difficult

to distinguish between the ethics of the

literature and the actual practices of

life very frequently noble sentiments

occur a poet for example counsels his

countrymen give bread to him who has no

field and create for thyself a good name

forevermore and some of the elders give

very laudable advice to their children a

papyrus in the British Museum known to

scholars as the wisdom of a Menem Opie

circa 950 BC

prepares a student for public office

with admonitions that probably influence

the author or authors of the Proverbs of

Solomon be not greedy for a cubit of

land and trespass not in the boundary of

the widow plough the fields that thou

mayest find thy needs and receive thy

bread from thine own threshing floor

better is a bushel which God giveth to

thee than 5000 gained by transgression

better is poverty in the hand of God

than riches in the storehouse and better

are loaves when the heart is joyous than

riches in unhappiness such pious

literature did not prevent the normal

operation of human greed Plato described

the Athenians as loving knowledge the

Egyptians is loving wealth perhaps he

was too patriotic in general the

Egyptians were the Americans of

antiquity enamoured of size given two

gigantic engineering and majestic

building industrious and accumulative

practical even in the midst of many

ultra mundane superstitions

they were the arch conservatives of

history the more they changed the more

they remained the same through 40

centuries their artists copied the old

conventions religiously they appeared to

us from their monuments to have been a

matter-of-fact people not given to non

theological nonsense

they had no sentimental regard for human

life and killed with the clear

conscience of nature Egyptian soldiers

cut off the right hand or the phallus of

a slain enemy and brought it to the

proper scribe that it might be put into

the record to their credit in the later

dynasties the people long accustomed to

internal peace and to none but distant

Wars lost all military habits and

qualities until at last a few Roman

soldiers suffice to master all Egypt the

accident that we know them chiefly from

the remains in their tombs or the

inscriptions on their temples has

mislead us into exaggerating their

solemnity we perceived from some of

their sculptures and reliefs and from

their burlesque stories of the gods that

they had a jolly turn for humour they

played many public and private games

such as checkers and dice they gave many

modern toys to their children like

marbles bouncing balls ten pins and tops

they enjoyed wrestling contests boxing

matches and bullfights at feasts and

recreations they were anointed by

attendants were wreathed with flowers

with wines and presented with gifts from

the painting and the statuary we

pictured them as a physically vigorous

people muscular broad shouldered thin

wasted full lipped and flat-footed from

going unshod the upper classes are

represented as fashionably slender

imperiously tall with oval face sloping

forehead regular features along straight

nose and magnificent eyes their skin was

white at Birth indicating an Asiatic

rather than an African origin but

rapidly darkened under the Egyptian Sun

their artists idealized them in painting

the men red the women yellow perhaps

these colors were merely cosmetic styles

the man of the people however is

pictured as short and squat like the

sheikh el Ballad formed by heavy toil

and an unbalanced ration his features

are rough his nose blunt and wide he is

intelligent but coarse perhaps as in so

many other instances the people and

their rulers were of different races the

rulers of Asiatic the people of African

derivation the hair was dark

sometimes curly but never woolly women

bobbed their hair in the most modern

mode men shaved lips and chin but

consoled themselves with magnificent

wigs often in order to wear these more

comfortably they shaved the head even

the Queen consort for example it Natanz

mother

Tia cut off all her hair to wear more

easily the royal wig and crown it was a

matter of rigid etiquette that the king

should have the biggest wig according to

their means they repaired the handiwork

of nature with subtle cosmetic art faces

were ruched lips were painted nails were

colored hair and limbs were oiled even

in the sculptures the Egyptian women

have painted eyes those who could afford

it had 7 creams and 2 kinds of Rouge put

into their tombs when they died the

remains abound in toilet sets mirrors

razors hair curlers hairpins combs

cosmetic boxes dishes and spoons made of

wood ivory alabaster or bronze and

designed in delightful and appropriate

forms I think still survives in some of

the tubes the coal that women used today

for painting the eyebrows in the face is

a lineal descendant of the oil used by

the Egyptians it has come down to us

through the Arabs whose word for it our

coal has given us our word alcohol

all perfumes of all sorts were used on

the body and the clothes and homes were

made fragrant with incense and myrrh

their clothing ran through every

gradation from primitive nudity to the

gorgeous dress of empire days children

of both sexes went about till their

teens naked except for earrings and

necklaces the girls however showed Abby

seeming modesty by wearing a string of

beads around the middle servants and

peasants limited their everyday wardrobe

to a loincloth under the old kingdom

free men and women went naked to the

navel and covered themselves from waist

to knees with a short tight skirt of

white linen since shame is a child of

custom rather than of nature these

simple garments contented the conscience

as completely as Victorian petticoats

and corsets or the evening dress of the

contemporary American male our virtues

lie in the interpretation of the time

even the priests in the first dynasties

were nothing but loin cloths as we see

from the statue of Ron Ophir when wealth

increased clothing increased the Middle

Kingdom added a second and larger skirt

of the first and the empire added a

covering for the breasts with now and

then a cape coachman and grooms took on

formidable costumes and ran through the

streets in full livery to clear away for

the chariots of their masters women in

the prosperous dynasties abandoned the

tight skirt for a loose robe that passed

over the shoulder and was joined in a

clasp under the right breast flounces

embroideries and a thousand frills

appeared and fashion entered like a

serpent to disturb the paradise of

primitive nudity both sexes loved

ornament and covered neck breasts arms

wrists and ankles with jewelry as the

nation fattened on the tribute of Asia

and the commerce of the Mediterranean

world jewelry ceased to be restricted to

the aristocracy and became a passion

with all classes every scribe and

merchant had his seal of silver or gold

every man had a ring every woman had an

ornamental chain these chains as we see

them in the museum's today are of

infinite variety some of them two to

three inches some of them five feet in

length some thick and heavy some as

slight and flexible as the finest

Venetian lace about the time of the 18th

dynasty earrings became de rigueur

everyone had to have the ears pierced

for them not only girls and women but

boys and men men as well as women

decorated their persons with

bracelets and rings pendants and beads

of costly stone the women of ancient

Egypt could learn very little from us in

the matter of cosmetics and jewelry if

they were reincarnated among us today

six letters education schools of

government paper and ink stages in the

development of writing forms of Egyptian

writing the priests imparted rudimentary

instruction to the children of the

well-to-do when schools attached to the

temples as in the Roman Catholic

parishes of our age one high priest who

was what we should term Minister or

Secretary of Education calls himself

chief of the royal stable of instruction

in the ruins of a school which was

apparently part of the Ramesseum a large

number of shells has been found still

bearing the lessons of the ancient

pedagogue the teachers function was to

produce scribes for the clerical work of

the state to stimulate his pupils he

wrote eloquent essays on the advantages

of education give thy heart to learning

and love her like a mother's is one

edifying papyrus for there is nothing so

precious as learning behold says another

there is no profession that is not

governed it is only the learned man who

rules himself it is a misfortune to be a

soldier writes an early bookworm it is a

weariness to till the earth the only

happiness is to turn the heart to books

during the daytime and to read during

the night copy books survive from the

days of the Empire with the corrections

of the Masters still adorning the

margins the abundance of errors would

console the modern schoolboy the chief

method of instruction was the dictation

or copying of texts which were written

upon potsherds or limestone flakes the

subjects were largely commercial for the

Egyptians were the first and greatest

utilitarians but the chief topic of

pedagogics is course was virtue and the

chief problem as ever was discipline do

not spend our time in wishing or thou

wilt come to a bad end we read in one of

the coffee books

let thy mouth read the book in thy hand

take advice from those who know more

than thou dust this last is probably one

of the oldest phrases in any language

discipline was vigorous and based upon

the simplest principles the youth has a

back says a euphemistic manuscript and

attends when he is beaten for the ears

of the young are placed on the back

a pupil writes to his former teacher

thou didst beat my back and thy

instructions went into my ear that this

animal training did not always succeed

appears from a papyrus in which a

teacher laments that his former pupils

love books much less than beer

nevertheless a large number of the

temple students were graduated from the

hands of the priests to high schools

attached to the offices of the state

treasury there and the first known

school of government

the young scribes were instructed in

public administration on graduating they

were apprenticed to officials who taught

them through plenty of work perhaps it

was a better way of securing and

training public servants than our modern

selection of them by popularity and

subservience II and the noise of the

hustings in this manner Egypt and

Babylonia developed more or less

simultaneously the earliest school

systems in history not till the 19th

century of our era was the public

instruction of the young to be so well

organized again in the higher grades the

student was allowed to use paper one of

the main items of Egyptian trade and one

of the permanent gifts of Egypt to the

world the stem of the papyrus plant was

cut into strips other strips were placed

crosswise upon these the sheet was

pressed and paper the very stuff and

nonsense of civilization was made how

well they made it may be judged from the

fact that manuscripts written by them

5,000 years ago are still intact and

legible sheets were combined into books

by gumming the right edge of one sheet

to the left edge of the next in this way

rolls were produced which were sometimes

40 yards in length they were seldom

longer for there were no verbose

historians in Egypt ink blackened

indestructible was made by mixing water

with soot and vegetable gums on a wooden

pallet the pen was a simple read

fashioned at the tip into a tiny brush

with these modern instruments the

Egyptians wrote the most ancient of

literature's their language had probably

come in from Asia the oldest specimens

of it show many Semitic affinities the

earliest writing was apparently

pictographic an object was represented

by drawing a picture of it for example

the word for house Egyptian pear was

indicated by a small rectangle with an

opening on one of the long sides as some

ideas were too abstract to be literally

pictured picked ography passed into

geography certain pictures were by

custom and convention used to represent

not the object pictured but the ideas

suggested by them so the four part of

alignment supremacy as in the Sphinx a

wasp meant royalty and a tadpole stood

for thousands as a further development

along this line abstract ideas which had

at first resisted representation were

indicated by picturing objects whose

names happen to resemble the spoken

words that correspondent to the ideas so

the picture of a lute came to me not

only lute but good because the Egyptian

word sound for lute Mayfair resembled

the word sound for good no fair queer

rebus combinations grew out of these

homonyms words of like sound but

different meanings since the verb to be

was expressed in spoken language by the

sound Co Peru described being puzzled to

find a picture for so intangible a

conception split the word in two parts

Co P Roo expressed these by picturing in

succession a sieve called in the spoken

language cow a mat P and a mouth rule

use and want would sanctify so many

absurdities soon made this strange

assortment of characters suggests the

idea of being in this way the Egyptian

arrived at the syllable the syllabic

sign and thus elaborate that is a

collection of syllabic signs and by

dividing difficult words into syllables

finding homonyms for these and drawing

in combination the objects suggested by

these syllabic sounds he was able in the

course of time to make the hieroglyphic

signs convey almost any idea only one

step remained to invent letters the sign

for a house meant at first the word for

house pair then it meant the sound pair

or p r with any vowel in between as a

syllable in any word then the picture

was shortened and used to represent the

sound puh-puh-puh pay or p in any word

and since vowels were never written this

was equivalent to having a character for

the letter P by a light development the

sign for a hand Egyptian dote came to

mean Dada etcetera

and finally the letter

the sign for mouth row or rule came to

mean the letter R the sign for snake Z T

it became the letter Z the sign for Lake

she SH Y became SH the result was an

alphabet of 24 consonants which passed

the Egyptian and Phoenician trade to all

quarters of the Mediterranean and came

down via Greece and Rome as one of the

most precious parts of our oriental

heritage hieroglyphics are as old as the

earliest dynasties alphabetic characters

appear first in inscriptions left by the

Egyptians in the mines of the Sinai

Peninsula variously dated at 2500 and

1500 BC whether wisely or not the

Egyptians never adopted a completely

alphabetic writing like modern

stenographers they mingled pictographs

ideographs and syllabic signs with their

letters to the very end of their

civilization this has made it difficult

for scholars to read Egyptian but it is

quite conceivable that such a medley of

longhand and shorthand facilitated the

business of writing for those Egyptians

who could spare the time to learn it

since English speech is no honourable

guide to English spelling it is probably

as difficult for a contemporary lad to

learn the devious ways of English

orthography as it was for the Egyptian

scribe to memorize by use the 500

hieroglyphs there's secondary syllabic

meanings and their tertiary alphabetic

uses in the course of time a more rapid

and sketchy form of writing was

developed for manuscripts as

distinguished from the careful sacred

carvings of the monuments since this

corruption of hieroglyphic was first

made by the priests and the temple

scribes it was called by the Greeks

higher attic but it soon passed into

common use for public commercial and

private documents a still more

abbreviated in careless form of this

script was developed by the common

people and therefore came to be known as

demotic on the monuments however the

Egyptian insisted on having his lordly

and lovely hieroglyphic perhaps the most

picturesque form of writing ever made

seven literature texts and libraries the

Egyptian Sinbad the story of sinew a

fiction an amorous fragment love poems

history a literary revolution most of

the literature that survives from me

Egypt is written in higher attic script

little of it remains and we are forced

to estimate it from the fragments that

do it only the blind justice of chance

perhaps time destroyed the shakespeare's

of Egypt and preserved only the Poets

Laureate a great official of the Fourth

Dynasty is called on his tomb scribe of

the house of books we cannot tell

whether this primeval library was a

repository of literature or only a dusty

storehouse of public records and

documents the oldest extant Egyptian

literature consists of the Pyramid Texts

pious matter engraved on the walls in

five pyramids of the 5th and 6th

dynasties libraries have come down to us

from as far back as 2000 BC papyri

rolled and packed in jars labeled and

ranged on shelves in one such jar was

found the oldest form of the story of

Sinbad the sailor or as we might rather

call it Robinson Crusoe the story of the

shipwrecked sailor is a simple

autobiographical fragment full of life

and feeling how glad is he says this

Ancient Mariner and a line reminiscent

of Dante that related what he had

experienced when the calamity has passed

I will relate to these something that

was experienced by me myself when I had

set out for the mines of the sovereign

and had gone down to the sea in a ship

of 180 feet in length and 60 feet in

breadth and therein were 120 sailors of

the Pick of Egypt they scanned the sky

they scanned the earth and their hearts

were more than those of lions they

foretold a storm

wherever it came and a tempest when as

yet it was not a storm burst while we

were yet at sea we flew before the wind

and it made a wave eight cubits high

then the ship perished and of them that

were in it not one survived and I was

cast onto an island by a wave of the sea

and I spent three days alone with mine

heart as my companion

I slept under the shelter of a tree and

embraced the shade then I stretched

forth my feet in order to find out what

I could put into my mouth I found figs

and vines there and all manner of fine

leeks they were fished there and fowl

and there was nothing that was not in it

when I had made me a fire drill I

kindled the fire and made a burnt

offering for the gods

another tale recounts the adventures of

sinawe a public official who flees from

Egypt at the death of Ammon Emmet the

first wanders from country to country of

the Near East and despite prosperity and

honors there suffers unbearably from

lonesomeness for his native land at last

he gives up riches and makes his way

through many hardships back to Egypt o

God whosoever thou art that didst ordain

this flight bring you again to the house

that is the pharaoh peradventure thou

wilt suffer me to see the place where in

mine heart dwelleth what is a greater

matter than that my corpse should be

buried in the land where and I was born

come to mine aid may good before may God

show me mercy in the sequel we find him

home again weary and dusty with many

miles of desert travel and fearful lest

the Pharaoh reprove him for his long

absence from a land which like all

others looked upon itself as the only

civilized country in the world but the

Pharaoh forgives him and extends to him

every cosmetic courtesy I was placed in

the house of a king's son in which there

was noble equipment and a bath was there

in years were made to pass away from my

body I was shaved and my hair was combed

a load of dirt was given over to the

desert and the filthy clothes to the

sand ferrars and I was arrayed in finest

linen and anointed with the best oil

short stories are diverse and plentiful

in the fragments that have come down to

us of Egyptian literature there are

marvellous tales of ghosts miracles and

other fascinating concoctions as

credible as the detective stories that

satisfy modern statesmen there are high

sounding romances of princes and

princesses kings and queens including

the oldest known form of the tale of

Cinderella her exquisite foot there

wandering slipper and her royal Himani

old a new mall there are fables of

animals illustrating by their conduct

the foibles and passions of humanity and

pointing morals sagely a kind of

premonitory plagiarism from ESOP and

Lafon 10 typical of the egyptian

mingling of natural and supernatural is

the tale of a new pool and vtu

older and younger brothers who live

happily on their farm until a new Pooh's

wife falls in love with BTU is repulsed

by him and revenge's herself by accusing

him to his brother of having offered her

violence

gods and crocodiles come to BTUs aid

against a new poo but BTU disgusted with

mankind mutilates himself to prove his

innocence retires time and light to the

woods and places his heart unreachable

high on the topmost flower of a tree the

gods pitying his loneliness create for

him a wife of such beauty that the nile

falls in love with her and steals a lock

of her hair drifting down the stream the

lock is found by the Pharaoh who

intoxicated by its scent commands his

henchmen to find the owner she is found

and brought to him and he marries her

jealous of Btu he sends men to cut down

the tree on which Beatty has placed his

heart the tree is cut down and as the

flower touches the earth Beatty dies how

little the taste of our ancestors

different from our own the early

literature of the Egyptians is largely

religious and the oldest Egyptian poems

are the hymns of the Pyramid Texts their

form is also the most ancient poetic

form known to us that parallelism of

members or repetition of the thought in

different phrase which the Hebrew poets

adopted from the Egyptians and

Babylonians and immortalized in the

Psalms as the old passes into the Middle

Kingdom the literature tends to become

secular and profane we catch some

glimpse of a lost body of amorous

literature and a fragment preserved to

us through the laziness of a Middle

Kingdom scribe who did not complete his

task of wiping clear and old papyrus but

left legible some 25 lines the

television portions encounter with the

goddess this goddess says the story met

with him as he wended his way to the

pool and she had stripped off her

clothes and disarrayed her hair the

Shepherd reports the matter cautiously

behold ye when I went down to the swamp

I saw a woman therein and she looked not

like a mortal being my hair stood on end

when I saw her tresses because her

colour was so bright never will I do

what she said all of her is in my body

the love songs abound in number and

beauty but as they celebrate chiefly the

amours of brothers and sisters they will

shock or amuse the modern year one

collection is called the beautiful

joyous songs of thy sister whom thy

heart loves who walks in the fields an

austere Khan or shel dating back to the

19th or 20th dynasty plays a modern

theme on the ancient chords of desire

the love of my beloved leaps on the bank

of the stream

a crocodile lies in the shadows yet I go

down into the water and breasts the wave

my courage is high on the stream and the

water is as land to my feet

it is her love that makes me strong she

is a book of spells to me when I behold

my beloved coming my heart is glad my

arms are spread apart to embrace her my

heart rejoices forever since my beloved

came when I embrace her I am as one who

is an incensed land as one who carries

perfumes when I kiss her her lips are

opened and I am made merry without beer

would that I were her slave who

is an attendance on her so should i

behold the hue of all her limbs the

lines have been arbitrarily divided here

we cannot tell from the external form of

the original that it is verse the

Egyptians knew that music and feeling

are the twin essences of poetry if these

were present the outward shape did not

matter often however the rhythm was

accentuated as we have seen by

parallelism of members sometimes the

poet used the device of beginning every

sentence or stanza with the same word

sometimes he played like a punster with

like sounds meaning unlike or

incongruous things it is clear from the

texts that the trick of alliteration is

as old as the pyramids these simple

forms were enough with them the Egyptian

poet could express almost every shade of

that romantic love which Nietzsche

supposed was an invention of the

troubadours the harris papyrus shows

that such sentiments could be expressed

by a woman as well as by a man I am my

first sister and thou art to me is the

garden which I have planted with flowers

and all sweet-smelling herbs I directed

the canal into it that thou mightst if

thy hand into it when the north wind

blows cool the beautiful place where we

take a walk when thy hand rests within

mine with thoughtful mind and joyous

heart because we walk together it is

intoxicating to me to hear thy voice and

my life depends upon hearing thee

whenever I see thee it is better to me

than food or drink all in all it is

astonishing how varied the fragments are

formal letters legal documents

historical narratives magic formulas

laborious hymns book

devotion songs of love and war romantic

novelettes moral exhortations

philosophical treatises everything is

represented here except epic and drama

and even of these one might by

stretching a point find instances the

story of Rama sees the seconds dashing

victories engraved patiently and verse

upon brick after brick of the great

pylon at Luxor is epic at least in

length and dullness in another

inscription Rama sees the fourth boasts

that in a play he had defended a Cyrus

from set and had recalled Osiris to life

our knowledge does not allow us to

amplify this hint historiography in

Egypt is as old as history even the

kings of the pre-dynastic period kept

historical records proudly official

historians accompanied the pharaohs on

their expeditions never saw their

defeats and recorded or invented the

details of their victories already the

writing of history had become a cosmetic

art as far back as 2500 BC Egyptian

scholars made lists of their kings named

the years from them and chronicled the

outstanding events of each year and

reign by the time of tutmes the third

these documents became full-fledged

histories eloquent with patriotic

emotion Egyptian philosophers of the

Middle Kingdom thought both man and

history old and defeat and mourn the

lusty youth of their race Kika Paris and

boo a savant of the reign of cenis rat

ii about 21 150 bc complained that all

things had long since been said and

nothing remained for literature except

repetition would he cried unhappily that

i had words that are unknown utterances

and sayings a new language that has not

yet passed away and without that which

have been said repeatedly not an

utterance that if grown stale what the

ancestors have already said distance

blurs for us the variety and

changefulness of egyptian literature as

it blurs the individual differences of

unfamiliar peoples nevertheless in the

course of its long development Egyptian

letters passed through movements and

moods as varied as those that have