Ancient Egypt by George Rawlinson

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23

There is one exception to this broad and sweeping statement. The Fayoum
is no part of the natural bed of the Nile, and has not been scooped out
by its energy. It is a natural depression in the western desert,
separated off from the Nile valley by a range of limestone hills from
two hundred to five hundred feet in height, and, apart from the activity
of man, would have been arid, treeless, and waterless. Still, it derives
from the Nile all its value, all its richness, all its fertility. Human
energy at some remote period introduced into the depressed tract through
an artificial channel from the Nile, cut in some places through the
rock, the life-giving fluid; and this fluid, bearing the precious Nile
sediment, has sufficed to spread fertility over the entire region, and
to make the desert blossom like a garden.

The Egyptians were not unaware of the source of their blessings. From a
remote date they speculated on their mysterious river. They deified it
under the name of Hapi, "the Hidden," they declared that "his abode was
not known;" that he was an inscrutable god, that none could tell his
origin: they acknowledged him as the giver of all good things, and
especially of the fruits of the earth. They said--

"Hail to thee, O Nile!
Thou showest thyself in this land,
Coming in peace, giving life to Egypt;
O Ammon, thou leadest night unto day,
A leading that rejoices the heart!
Overflowing the gardens created by Ra;
Giving life to all animals;
Watering the land without ceasing:
The way of heaven descending:
Lover of food, bestower of corn,
Giving life to every home, O Phthah!...

O inundation of Nile, offerings are made to thee;
Oxen are slain to thee;
Great festivals are kept for thee;
Fowls are sacrificed to thee;
Beasts of the field are caught for thee;
Pure flames are offered to thee;
Offerings are made to every god,
As they are made unto Nile.
Incense ascends unto heaven,
Oxen, bulls, fowls are burnt!
Nile makes for himself chasms in the Thebaid;
Unknown is his name in heaven,
He doth not manifest his forms!
Vain are all representations!

Mortals extol him, and the cycle of gods!
Awe is felt by the terrible ones;
His son is made Lord of all,
To enlighten all Egypt.
Shine forth, shine forth, O Nile! shine forth!
Giving life to men by his omen:
Giving life to his oxen by the pastures!
Shine forth in glory, O Nile!"[2]

Though thus useful, beneficent, and indeed essential to the existence of
Egypt, the Nile can scarcely be said to add much to the variety of the
landscape or to the beauty of the scenery. It is something, no doubt, to
have the sight of water in a land where the sun beats down all day long
with unremitting force till the earth is like a furnace of iron beneath
a sky of molten brass. But the Nile is never clear. During the
inundation it is deeply stained with the red argillaceous soil brought
down from the Abyssinian highlands. At other seasons it is always more
or less tinged with the vegetable matter which it absorbs on its passage
from Lake Victoria to Khartoum; and this vegetable matter, combined
with Its depth and volume, gives it a dull deep hue, which prevents it
from having the attractiveness of purer and more translucent streams.
The Greek name, Neilos, and the Hebrew, Sichor, are thought to embody
this attribute of the mighty river, and to mean "dark blue" or
"blue-black," terms sufficiently expressive of the stream's ordinary
colour. Moreover, the Nile is too wide to be picturesque. It is seldom
less than a mile broad from the point where it enters Egypt, and running
generally between flat shores it scarcely reflects anything, unless it
be the grey-blue sky overhead, or the sails of a passing pleasure boat.

The size of Egypt, within the limits which have been here assigned to
it, is about eleven thousand four hundred square miles, or less than
that of any European State, except Belgium, Saxony, and Servia.
Magnitude is, however, but an insignificant element in the greatness of
States--witness Athens, Sparta, Rhodes, Genoa, Florence, Venice. Egypt
is the richest and most productive land in the whole world. In its most
flourishing age we are told that it contained twenty thousand cities. It
deserved to be called, more (probably) than even Belgium, "one great
town." But its area was undoubtedly small. Still, as little men have
often taken the highest rank among warriors, so little States have
filled a most important place in the world's history. Palestine was
about the size of Wales; the entire Peloponnese was no larger than New
Hampshire; Attica had nearly the same area as Cornwall. Thus the case of
Egypt does not stand by itself, but is merely one out of many exceptions
to what may perhaps be called the general rule.

If stinted for space, Egypt was happy in her soil and in her situation.
The rich alluvium, continually growing deeper and deeper, and
top-dressed each year by nature's bountiful hand, was of an
inexhaustible fertility, and bore readily year after year a threefold
harvest--first a grain crop, and then two crops of grasses or esculent
vegetables. The wheat sown returned a hundredfold to the husbandman, and
was gathered at harvest-time in prodigal abundance--"as the sand of the
sea, very much,"--till men "left numbering" (Gen. xli. 49). Flax and
doora were largely cultivated, and enormous quantities were produced of
the most nutritive vegetables, such as lentils, garlic, leeks, onions,
endive, radishes, melons, cucumbers, lettuces, and the like, which
formed a most important element in the food of the people. The vine was
also grown in many places, as along the flanks of the hills between
Thebes and Memphis, in the basin of the Fayoum, at Anthylla in the
Mareotis at Sebennytus (now Semnood), and at Plisthine, on the shore of
the Mediterranean. The date-palm, springing naturally from the soil in
clumps, or groves, or planted in avenues, everywhere offered its golden
clusters to the wayfarer, dropping its fruit into his lap. Wheat,
however, was throughout antiquity the chief product of Egypt, which was
reckoned the granary of the world, the refuge and resource of all the
neighbouring nations in time of dearth, and on which in the later
republican, and in the imperial times, Rome almost wholly depended for
her sustenance.

If the soil was thus all that could be wished, still more advantageous
was the situation. Egypt was the only nation of the ancient world which
had ready access to two seas, the Northern Sea, or "Sea of the Greeks,"
and the Eastern Sea, or "Sea of the Arabians and the Indians." Phoenicia
might carry her traffic by the painful travel of caravans across fifteen
degrees of desert from her cities on the Levantine coast to the inner
recess of the Persian Gulf, and thus get a share in the trade of the
East at a vast expenditure of time and trouble. Assyria and Babylonia
might for a time, when at the height of their dominion, obtain a
temporary hold on lands which were not their own, and boast that they
stretched from the "sea of the rising" to "that of the setting
sun"--from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean; but Egypt, at all
times and under all circumstances, commands by her geographic position
an access both to the Mediterranean and to the Indian Ocean by way of
the Red Sea, whereof nothing can deprive her. Suez must always be hers,
for the Isthmus is her natural boundary, and her water-system has been
connected with the head of the Arabian Gulf for more than three thousand
years; and, in the absence of any strong State in Arabia or Abyssinia,
the entire western coast of the Red Sea falls naturally under her
influence with its important roadsteads and harbours. Thus Egypt had two
great outlets for her productions, and two great inlets by which she
received the productions of other countries. Her ships could issue from
the Nilotic ports and trade with Phoenicia, or Carthage, or Italy, or
Greece, exchanging her corn and wine and glass and furniture and works
in metallurgy for Etruscan vases, or Grecian statues, or purple Tynan
robes, or tin brought by Carthaginian merchantmen from the Scilly
islands and from Cornwall; or they could start from Heroopolis, or Myos
Hormus, or some port further to the southward, and pass by way of the
Red Sea to the spice-region of "Araby the Blest," or to the Abyssinian
timber-region, or to the shores of Zanzibar and Mozambique, or round
Arabia to Teredon on the Persian Gulf, or possibly to Ceylon or India.
The products of the distant east, even of "far Cathay," certainly flowed
into the land, for they have been dug out of the ancient tombs; but
whether they were obtained by direct or by indirect commerce must be
admitted to be doubtful.

The possession of the Nile was of extraordinary advantage to Egypt, not
merely as the source of fertility, but as a means of rapid
communication. One of the greatest impediments to progress and
civilization which Nature offers to man in regions which he has not yet
subdued to his will, is the difficulty of locomotion and of transport.
Mountains, forests, torrents, marshes, jungles, are the curses of "new
countries," forming, until they have been cut through, bridged over, or
tunnelled under, insurmountable barriers, hindering commerce and causing
hatreds through isolation. Egypt had from the first a broad road driven
through it from end to end--a road seven hundred miles long, and seldom
much less than a mile wide--which allowed of ready and rapid
communication between the remotest parts of the kingdom. Rivers, indeed,
are of no use as arteries of commerce or vehicles for locomotion until
men have invented ships or boats, or at least rafts, to descend and
ascend them; but the Egyptians were acquainted with the use of boats and
rafts from a very remote period, and took to the water like a brood of
ducks or a parcel of South Sea Islanders. Thirty-two centuries ago an
Egyptian king built a temple on the confines of the Mediterranean
entirely of stone which he floated down the Nile for six hundred and
fifty miles from the quarries of Assouan (Syene); and the passage up the
river is for a considerable portion of the year as easy as the passage
down. Northerly winds--the famous "Etesian gales"--prevail in Egypt
during the whole of the summer and autumn, and by hoisting a sail it is
almost always possible to ascend the stream at a good pace. If the sail
be dropped, the current will at all times take a vessel down-stream; and
thus boats, and even vessels of a large size, pass up and down the
water-way with equal facility.

Egypt is at all seasons a strange country, but presents the most
astonishing appearance at the period of the inundation. At that time not
only is the lengthy valley from Assouan to Cairo laid under water, but
the Delta itself becomes one vast lake, interspersed with islands, which
stud its surface here and there at intervals, and which reminded
Herodotus of "the islands of the AEgean." The elevations, which are the
work of man, are crowned for the most part with the white walls of towns
and villages sparkling in the sunlight, and sometimes glassed in the
flood beneath them. The palms and sycamores stand up out of the expanse
of waters shortened by some five or six feet of their height.
Everywhere, when the inundation begins, the inhabitants are seen
hurrying their cattle to the shelter provided in the villages, and, if
the rise of the water is more rapid than usual, numbers rescue their
beasts with difficulty, causing them to wade or swim, or even saving
them by means of boats. An excessive inundation brings not only animal,
but human life into peril, endangering the villages themselves, which
may be submerged and swept away if the water rises above a certain
height. A deficient inundation, on the other hand, brings no immediate
danger, but by limiting production may create a dearth that causes
incalculable suffering.

Nature's operations are, however, so uniform that these calamities
rarely arise. Egypt rejoices, more than almost any other country, in an
equable climate, an equable temperature, and an equable productiveness.
The summers, no doubt, are hot, especially in the south, and an
occasional sirocco produces intense discomfort while it lasts. But the
cool Etesian wind, blowing from the north through nearly all the
summer-time, tempers the ardour of the sun's rays even in the hottest
season of the year; and during the remaining months, from October to
April, the climate is simply delightful. Egypt has been said to have but
two seasons, spring and summer. Spring reigns from October into
May--crops spring up, flowers bloom, soft zephyrs fan the cheek, when it
is mid-winter in Europe; by February the fruit-trees are in full
blossom; the crops begin to ripen in March, and are reaped by the end of
April; snow and frost are wholly unknown at any time; storm, fog, and
even rain are rare. A bright, lucid atmosphere rests upon the entire
scene. There is no moisture in the air, no cloud in the sky; no mist
veils the distance. One day follows another, each the counterpart of the
preceding; until at length spring retires to make room for summer, and a
fiercer light, a hotter sun, a longer day, show that the most enjoyable
part of the year is gone by.

The geology of Egypt is simple. The entire flat country is alluvial. The
hills on either side are, in the north, limestone, in the central region
sandstone, and in the south granite and syenite. The granitic formation
begins between the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth parallels, but
occasional masses of primitive rock are intruded into the secondary
regions, and these extend northward as far as lat. 27 deg.10'. Above the
rocks are, in many places, deposits of gravel and sand, the former hard,
the latter loose and shifting. A portion of the eastern desert is
metalliferous. Gold is found even at the present day in small
quantities, and seems anciently to have been more abundant. Copper,
iron, and lead have been also met with in modern times, and one iron
mine shows signs of having been anciently worked. Emeralds abound in the
region about Mount Zabara, and the eastern desert further yields
jaspers, carnelians, breccia verde, agates, chalcedonies, and
rock-crystal.

The flora of the country is not particularly interesting. Dom and date
palms are the principal trees, the latter having a single tapering stem,
the former dividing into branches. The sycamore (_Ficus sycamorus_) is
also tolerably common, as are several species of acacia. The acacia
seyal, which furnishes the gum arable of commerce, is "a gnarled and
thorny tree, somewhat like a solitary hawthorn in its habit and manner
of growth, but much larger." Its height, when full grown, is from
fifteen to twenty feet. The _persea_, a sacred plant among the ancient
Egyptians, is a bushy tree or shrub, which attains the height of
eighteen or twenty feet under favourable circumstances, and bears a
fruit resembling a date, with a subacid flavour. The bark is whitish,
the branches gracefully curved, the foliage of an ashy grey, more
especially on its under surface. Specially characteristic of Egypt,
though not altogether peculiar to it, were the papyrus and the
lotus--the _Cyperus papyrus_ and _Nymphaea lotus_ of botanists. The
papyrus was a tall smooth reed, with a large triangular stalk containing
a delicate pith, out of which the Egyptians manufactured their paper.
The fabric was excellent, as is shown by its continuance to the present
day, and by the fact that the Greeks and Romans, after long trial,
preferred it to parchment. The lotus was a large white water-lily of
exquisite beauty. Kings offered it to the gods; guests wore it at
banquets; architectural forms were modelled upon it; it was employed in
the ornamentation of thrones. Whether its root had the effect on men
ascribed to it by Homer may be doubted; but no one ever saw it without
recognizing it instantly as "a thing of beauty," and therefore as "a joy
for ever."

[Illustration: DOM AND DATE PALMS.]

Nor can Egypt have afforded in ancient times any very exciting amusement
to sportsmen. At the present day gazelles are chased with hawk and hound
during the dry season on the broad expanse of the Delta; but anciently
the thick population scared off the whole antelope tribe, which was
only to be found in the desert region beyond the limits of the alluvium.
Nor can Egypt, in the proper sense of the word, have ever been the home
of red-deer, roes, or fallow-deer, of lions, bears, hyaenas, lynxes, or
rabbits. Animals of these classes may occasionally have appeared in the
alluvial plain, but they would only be rare visitants driven by hunger
from their true habitat in the Libyan or the Arabian uplands. The
crocodile, however, and the hippopotamus were actually hunted by the
ancient Egyptians; and they further indulged their love of sport in the
pursuits of fowling and fishing. All kinds of waterfowl are at all
seasons abundant in the Nile waters, and especially frequent the pools
left by the retiring river--pelicans, geese, ducks, ibises, cranes,
storks, herons, dotterels, kingfishers, and sea-swallows. Quails also
arrive in great numbers in the month of March, though there are no
pheasants, snipe, wood-cocks, nor partridges. Fish are very plentiful in
the Nile and the canals derived from it; but there are not many kinds
which afford much sport to the fisherman.

Altogether, Egypt is a land of tranquil monotony. The eye commonly
travels either over a waste of waters, or over a green plain unbroken by
elevations. The hills which inclose the Nile valley have level tops, and
sides that are bare of trees, or shrubs, or flowers, or even mosses. The
sky is generally cloudless. No fog or mist enwraps the distance in
mystery; no rainstorm sweeps across the scene; no rainbow spans the
empyrean; no shadows chase each other over the landscape. There is an
entire absence of picturesque scenery. A single broad river, unbroken
within the limits of Egypt even by a rapid, two flat strips of green
plain at its side, two low lines of straight-topped hills beyond them,
and a boundless open space where the river divides itself into half a
dozen sluggish branches before reaching the sea, constitute Egypt, which
is by nature a southern Holland---"weary, stale, flat and unprofitable."
The monotony is relieved, however, in two ways, and by two causes.
Nature herself does something to relieve it Twice a day, in the morning
and in the evening, the sky and the landscape are lit up by hues so
bright yet so delicate, that the homely features of the prospect are at
once transformed as by magic, and wear an aspect of exquisite beauty. At
dawn long streaks of rosy light stretch themselves across the eastern
sky, the haze above the western horizon blushes a deep red; a ruddy
light diffuses itself around, and makes walls and towers and minarets
and cupolas to glow like fire; the long shadows thrown by each tree and
building are purple or violet. A glamour is over the scene, which seems
transfigured by an enchanter's wand; but the enchanter is Nature, and
the wand she wields is composed of sun-rays. Again, at eve, nearly the
same effects are produced as in the morning, only with a heightened
effect; "the redness of flames" passes into "the redness of roses"--the
wavy cloud that fled in the morning comes into sight once more--comes
blushing, yet still comes on--comes burning with blushes, and clings to
the Sun-god's side.[3]

Night brings a fresh transfiguration. The olive after-glow gives place
to a deep blue-grey. The yellow moon rises into the vast expanse. A
softened light diffuses itself over earth and sky. The orb of night
walks in brightness through a firmament of sapphire; or, if the moon is
below the horizon, then the purple vault is lit up with many-coloured
stars. Silence profound reigns around. A phase of beauty wholly
different from that of the day-time smites the sense; and the monotony
of feature is forgiven to the changefulness of expression, and to the
experience of a new delight.

Man has also done his part to overcome the dulness and sameness that
brood over the "land of Mizraim." Where nature is most tame and
commonplace, man is tempted to his highest flights of audacity. As in
the level Babylonia he aspired to build a tower that should "reach to
heaven" (Gen. xi. 4), so in Egypt he strove to startle and surprise by
gigantic works, enormous undertakings, enterprises that might have
seemed wholly beyond his powers. And these have constituted in all ages,
except the very earliest, the great attractiveness of Egypt. Men are
drawn there, not by the mysteriousness of the Nile, or the mild beauties
of orchards and palm-groves, of well-cultivated fields and gardens--no,
nor by the loveliness of sunrises and sunsets, of moonlit skies and
stars shining with many hues, but by the huge masses of the pyramids, by
the colossal statues, the tall obelisks, the enormous temples, the
deeply-excavated tombs, the mosques, the castles, and the palaces. The
architecture of Egypt is its great glory. It began early, and it has
continued late. But for the great works, strewn thickly over the whole
valley of the Nile, the land of Egypt would have obtained but a small
share of the world's attention; and it is at least doubtful whether its
"story" would ever have been thought necessary to complete "the Story of
the Nations."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] R. Stuart Poole, "Cities of Egypt," p. 4.

[2] Translation by F.C. Cook.

[3] Adapted from Mr. Kinglake's "Eothen," p. 188.

II.

THE PEOPLE OF EGYPT.

Where the Egyptians came from, is a difficult question to answer.
Ancient speculators, when they could not derive a people definitely from
any other, took refuge in the statement, or the figment, that they were
the children of the soil which they had always occupied. Modern
theorists may say, if it please them, that they were evolved out of the
monkeys that had their primitive abode on that particular portion of the
earth's surface. Monkeys, however, are not found everywhere; and we have
no evidence that in Egypt they were ever indigenous, though, as pets,
they were very common, the Egyptians delighting in keeping them. Such
evidence as we have reveals to us the man as anterior to the monkey in
the land of Mizraim Thus we are thrown back on the original
question--Where did the man, or race of men, that is found in Egypt at
the dawn of history come from?

It is generally answered that they came from Asia; but this is not much
more than a conjecture. The physical type of the Egyptians is different
from that of any known Asiatic nation. The Egyptians had no traditions
that at all connected them with Asia. Their language, indeed, in
historic times was partially Semitic, and allied to the Hebrew, the
Phoenician, and the Aramaic; but the relationship was remote, and may be
partly accounted for by later intercourse, without involving original
derivation. The fundamental character of the Egyptian in respect of
physical type, language, and tone of thought, is Nigritic. The Egyptians
were not negroes, but they bore a resemblance to the negro which is
indisputable. Their type differs from the Caucasian in exactly those
respects which when exaggerated produce the negro. They were darker, had
thicker lips, lower foreheads, larger heads, more advancing jaws, a
flatter foot, and a more attenuated frame. It is quite conceivable that
the negro type was produced by a gradual degeneration from that which we
find in Egypt. It is even conceivable that the Egyptian type was
produced by gradual advance and amelioration from that of the negro.

Still, whencesoever derived, the Egyptian people, as it existed in the
flourishing times of Egyptian history, was beyond all question a mixed
race, showing diverse affinities. Whatever the people was originally, it
received into it from time to time various foreign elements, and those
in such quantities as seriously to affect its physique--Ethiopians from
the south, Libyans from the west, Semites from the north-east, where
Africa adjoined on Asia. There are two quite different types of Egyptian
form and feature, blending together in the mass of the nation, but
strongly developed, and (so to speak) accentuated in individuals. One is
that which we see in portraits of Rameses III, and in some of Rameses
II.--a moderately high forehead, a large, well-formed aquiline nose, a
well-shaped mouth with lips not over full, and a delicately rounded
chin. The other is comparatively coarse--forehead low, nose depressed
and short, lower part of the face prognathous and sensual-looking, chin
heavy, jaw large, lips thick and projecting. The two types of face are
not, however, accompanied by much difference of frame. The Egyptian is
always slight in figure, wanting in muscle, flat in foot, with limbs
that are too long, too thin, too lady-like. Something more of
muscularity appears, perhaps, in the earlier than in the later forms;
but this is perhaps attributable to a modification of the artistic
ideal.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23