Volume I Part 5 (2/2)

[Illustration: FIG 9--Shadouf;the land above the level of the canals]

During the Ptolemaic epoch a new adypt was established The Middle Egypt of the Greek geographers began at the southern point of the Delta, and extended to a little south of Herh this latter division was not established until after the centuries which saw the birth of those monuments hich we shall have to deal, we shall make frequent use of it, as it will facilitate and render raphical explanations For the conte to Upper Egypt, and if we adopted their method of speech we should be under the continual necessity of stopping the narration to define geographical positions; but with the tri-partite division we may speak of Beni-Hassan as in Middle, and Abydos as in Upper Egypt, and thus give a sufficient idea of their relative positions

[Illustration: FIG 10--The White Crown]

[Illustration: FIG 11--The Red Crown]

[Illustration: FIG 12--The Pschent]

-- 3 _The Great Divisions of Egyptian History_

In enuyptian art, we shall classify theically as well as locally The roups determined by the periods of their occurrence, as well as by their geographical distribution We must refer our readers to the works of M Maspero and others for the lists of kings and dynasties, and for the chief events of each reign, but it will be convenient for us to give here a suyptian history Each of those epochs corresponds to an artistic period with a special character and individuality of its own The following paragraphs taken froive all the necessary information in a brief form

”In the last years of the prehistoric period, the sacerdotal class had obtained a supremacy over the other classes of the nation A yptian texts) destroyed this supreyptian monarchy

”This monarchy existed for at least four thousand years, under thirty consecutive dynasties, fron of Menes to that of Nectanebo (340 years before our era) This interval of tiest of which political history takes note, is usually divided into three parts: the _Ancient Empire_, from the first to the eleventh dynasty; the _Middle Empire_, from the eleventh dynasty to the invasion of the Hyksos or Shepherds; the _New Es to the Persian conquest This division is inconvenient in one respect; it takes too little account of the sequence of historical events

”There were indeed, three great revolutions in the historical develop succession of huyptians, like other peoples, placed a number of dynasties of divine rulers before their first hu) the political centre of the country was at Me-place of the kings; Mens upon the rest of the country and was the chief yptian commerce and industry With the coan to shi+ft southwards During the ninth and tenth dynasties it rested at Heracleopolis, in Middle Egypt, and in the time of the eleventh dynasty, it fixed itself at Thebes From that period onwards Thebes was the capital of the country and furnished the sovereign Froyptian dynasties were Theban with the single exception of the fourteenth Xoite dynasty At the time of the shepherd invasion, the Thebad becayptian nationality, and its princes, after centuries of war against the intruders, finally succeeded in freeing the whole valley of the Nile for the benefit of the eighteenth dynasty, which opened the era of great foreign wars

”Under the nineteenth dynasty an inverse movement to that of the first period carried the political centre of the country back towards the north With the twenty-first Tanite dynasty, Thebes ceased to be the capital, and the cities of the Delta, Tanis, Bubastis, Mendes, Sebennytos, and above all Sais, rose into equal or superior importance From that time the political life of the country concentrated itself in the maritime districts The _nomes_ of the Thebad, ruined by the Ethiopian and assyrian invasions, lost their influence; and Thebes itself fell into ruin and beca more than a _rendezvous_ for curious travellers

”I propose, therefore, to divide Egyptian history into three periods, each corresponding to the political supreypt:--

”FIRST PERIOD, Memphite (the first ten dynasties) The suprens furnished by her

”SECOND PERIOD, Theban (from the eleventh to the twentieth dynasties inclusive) Supres This period is divided into two sub-periods by the Shepherd dynasties

”_a The old Theban empire_, from the eleventh to the sixteenth dynasties

”_b The new Theban empire_, from the sixteenth to the twentieth dynasties

”THIRD PERIOD, Sait (from the twenty-first to the thirtieth dynasties, inclusive) Supremacy of Sais and the other cities of the Delta This period is divided into two by the Persian invasion:--

”_First Sait period_, from the twenty-first to the twenty-sixth dynasties

”_Second Sait period_, from the twenty-seventh to the thirtieth dynasties”[54]

[54] _Histoire ancienne des Peuples de l'Orient_, p 53 We believe that the division proposed by M Maspero is, in fact, the best It is the estive of the truth as to the successive displacements of the political centre and the movement of history We shall, however, have no hesitation inuse of the terms _Ancient_, _Middle_, and _New Empire_, as occasion arises

Mariette places the accession of Mena or Menes at about the fiftieth century before our era, while Bunsen and other Egyptologists bring forward his date to 3,600 or 3,500 BC as they believe some of the dynasties of Manetho to have been contemporary with each other

Neither Mariette nor Maspero deny that Egypt, in the course of its long existence, was often partitioned between princes who reigned in Upper and Lower Egypt respectively; but, guided by circumstances which need not be described here, they incline to believe that Manetho confined hi those dynasties which were looked upon as the legitimate ones The work of elimination which has been attempted by certain modern _savants_, ypt itself; and some of the collateral dynasties must have been effaced and passed over in silence, because thefanored by history

Whatever ypt rehthouse in the profound darkness of re anterior to the earliest traditions of the Greek race; the reign of Thoth to a contemporary expression, ”drew his frontiers where he pleased,” is placed by coyptian empire then comprised Abyssinia, the Soudan, Nubia, Syria, Mesopotamia, part of Arabia, Khurdistan, and Arreatness was ed Rameses II, the Sesostris of the Greeks, who flourished in the fifteenth century It was the superiority of its civilization, even more than the valour of its princes and soldiers, which ypt supre the twenty-first and twenty-second dynasties, but, at the say becomes more certain as opportunities of comparison with the facts of Hebrew history increase The date of 980, within a year or two, iven with confidence as that of the accession of Sheshonk I, the contemporary of Sololes between Egypt and its neighbours, especially with assyria, multiply our opportunities for synchronic comparison In the seventh century the country was opened to the Greeks, the real creators of history, who brought with the spirit and their love for exactitude After the accession of Psemethek I, the founder of the twenty-sixth dynasty, in 656, our historical materials are abundant For that we must thank the Greek travellers who penetrated everywhere, taking notes which they afterwards a, that even as late as the Ptolemies, when the power of the Macedonian yptians never seem to have felt the want of e call an _era_, of some definite point froress of the centuries ”They were satisfied with calculating by the years of the reigning sovereign, and even those calculations had no certain point of departure Sometimes they counted from the commencement of the year which had witnessed the death of his predecessor, sometimes from the day of his own coronation The most careful calculations will therefore fail to enable yptians that which, in fact, they never possessed”[55]