Chapter VIII: Part 8

In Lower Egypt the cities built of crude brick were very numerous, especially after the 7th century B.C., but owing to the value of stone very few of their monuments have escaped destruction: even the mounds of rubbish which marked their sites furnish a valuable manure for the fields and in consequence are rapidly disappearing. Granite and other hard stones, having but a limited use (for millstones and the like), have the best chance of survival. At Bubastis, Tanis, Behbeit (Iseum) and Heliopolis considerable stone remains have been discovered. In the north of the Delta wherever salt marshes have prevented cultivation in modern times, the mounds, such as those of Pelusium, still stand to their full height, and the more important are covered with ruins of brick structures of Byzantine and Arab date.

Middle and Upper Egypt were less busy and prosperous in the later ages than Lower Egypt. There was consequently somewhat less consumption of the old stone-work. Moreover, in many places equally good material could be obtained without much difficulty from the cliffs on both sides of the Nile. Yet even the buried portions of limestone buildings have seldom been permitted to survive on the cultivated land; the Nubian sandstone of Upper Egypt was of comparatively little value, and, generally speaking, buildings in that material have fallen into decay rather than been destroyed by quarrying.

Starting from Cairo and going southward we have first the great pyramid-field, with the necropolis of Memphis as its centre; stretching from Abu Roash on the north to Lisht on the south, it is followed by the pyramid group of Dahshur, the more isolated pyramids of Medum and Illahun, and that of Hawara in the Fayum. On the east bank are the limestone quarries of Turra and Masara opposite Memphis. South of the Fayum on the western border of the desert are the tombs of Deshasha, Meir and Assiut, and on the east bank those of Beni Hasan, the rock-cut temple of Speos Artemidos, the tombs of El Bersha and Sheikh Said, the tombs and stelae of El Amarna with the alabaster quarries of Hanub in the desert behind them, and the tombs of Deir el Gebrawi. Beyond Assiut are the tombs of Dronka and Rifa, the temples of Abydos and Dendera, and the tombs, &c., at Akhmim and Kasr es Saiyad. Farther south are the stupendous ruins of Thebes on both sides of the river, the temple of Esna, the ruins and tombs of El Kab, the temple of Edfu, the quarries of Silsila and the temple of Ombos, followed by the inscribed rocks of the First Cataract, the tombs and quarries of Assuan and the temples of Philae.

In Nubia, owing to the poverty of the country and its scanty population, the proportion of monuments surviving is infinitely greater than in Egypt. Here are the temples of Debod, the temple and quarries of Kertassi, the temples of Kalabsha, Bet el Wali, Dendur, Gerf Husen, Dakka, Maharaka, Es-Sebu'a, 'Amada and Derr, the grottos of Elles ya, the tombs of Aniba, the temple of Ibrim, the great rock-temples of Abu-Simbel, the temples at Jebel Adda and Wadi Halfa, the forts and temples of Semna, the temples of Amara (Meroitic) and Soleb. Beyond are the Ethiopian temples and pyramids of Jebel Barkal and the other pyramids of Napata at Tangassi, &c., the still later pyramids of Meroe at Begerawia, and the temples of Mesauwarat and Naga reaching to within 50 m. of Khartum.

Outside the Nile valley on the west are temples in the Great and Little Oases and the Oasis of Ammon: on the east quarries and stelae on the Hammamat road to the Red Sea, and mines and other remains at Wadi Maghara and Serabit el Khadim in the Sinai peninsula. In Syria there are tablets of conquest on the rocks at the mouth of the Nahr el Kelb.

Of the collections of Egyptian antiquities in public museums, those of the British Museum, Leiden, Berlin, the Louvre, Turin were already very important in the first half of the 19th century, also in a less degree those of Florence, Bologna and the Vatican. Most of these have since been greatly increased and many others have been created. By far the largest collection in the world is that at Cairo. In America the museums and universities of Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco and New York have collections of greater or less interest. Besides these the museums of Edinburgh, Liverpool, Manchester and Oxford are noteworthy in Great Britain for their Egyptian antiquities, as are those of St Petersburg, Vienna, Marseilles, Munich, Copenhagen, Palermo and Athens; there are also collections in most of the British colonies. Private collections are numerous.

_Literary Records._--In estimating the sources of information regarding pre-Christian Egypt, the native sources, first opened to us by Champollion, are infinitely the most important. With very few exceptions they are contemporary with the events which they record. Of the composition of history and the description of their own manners and customs by the Egyptians for posterity, few traces have reached our day. Consequently the information derived from their monuments, in spite of their great abundance, is of a fortuitous character. For one early papyrus that survives, many millions must have perished. If the journals of accounts, the letters and business documents, had come down to us _en masse_, they would no doubt have yielded to research the history and life of Egypt day by day; but those that now represent a thousand years of the Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom together would not half fill an ordinary muniment chest. A larger proportion of the records on stone have survived, but that an event should be inscribed on stone depends on a variety of circumstances and not necessarily on its importance. There may seem to be a great abundance of Egyptian monuments, but they have to cover an enormous space of time, and even in the periods which are best represented, gravestones recording the names of private persons with a prayer or two are scarcely material for history. A scrap of annals has been found extending from the earliest times to the Vth Dynasty, as well as a very fragmentary list of kings reaching nearly to the end of the Middle Kingdom, to help out the scattered data of the other monuments. As to manners and customs, although we possess no systematic descriptions of them from a native source, the native artists and scribes have presented us with exceptionally rich materials in the painted and sculptured scenes of the tombs from the Old and Middle Kingdoms and the New Empire. For the Deltaic dynasties these sources fail absolutely, the scenes being then either purely religious or conventional imitations of the earlier ones.

Fortunately the native records are largely supplemented by others: valuable information comes from cuneiform literature, belonging to two widely separated periods. The first group is contemporary with the XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties and consists in the first place of the Tell el Amarna tablets with others related to them, containing the reports of governors of the Syrian possessions of Egypt, and the correspondence of the kings of Babylon, Assur, Mitanni and Khatti (the Hittites) with the Pharaohs. The sequel to this is furnished by Winckler's discovery of documents relating to Rameses II. of the XIXth Dynasty in the Hittite capital at Boghaz Keui (see also HITTITES and PTERIA). The other group comprises the annals and inscriptions of the Assyrian kings Esarhaddon and Assur-bani-pal, recording their invasions of Egypt under the XXVth Dynasty. There are also a few references to Egypt of later date down to the reign of Darius. In Hebrew literature the Pentateuch, the historical books and the prophets alike contain scanty but precious information regarding Egypt. Aramaic papyri written principally by Jews of the Persian period (5th century B.C.) have been found at Syene and Memphis.

Of all the external sources the literary accounts written in Greek are the most valuable. They comprise fragments of the native historian Manetho, the descriptions of Egypt in Herodotus and Diodorus, the geographical accounts of Strabo and Ptolemy, the treatise of Plutarch on Isis and Osiris and other monographs or scattered notices of less importance. Our knowledge of the history of Alexander's conquest, of the Ptolemies and of the Roman occupation is almost entirely derived from Greek sources, and in fact almost the same might be said of the history of Egypt as far back as the beginning of the XXVIth Dynasty. The non-literary Greek remains in papyri and inscriptions which are being found in great abundance throw a flood of light on life in Egypt and the administration of the country from the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus to the Arab conquest. On the other hand, papyri and inscriptions in Latin are of the greatest rarity, and the literary remains in that language are of small importance for Egypt.

Arabic literature appears to be entirely barren of authentic information regarding the earlier condition of the country. Two centuries of unchallenged Christianity had broken almost completely the traditions of paganism, even if the Moslems had been willing to consider them, either in their fanciful accounts of the origins of cities, &c., or elsewhere.

B. _The Country in Ancient Times._--The native name of Egypt was Kemi (KM.T), clearly meaning "the black land," Egypt being so called from the blackness of its alluvial soil (cf. Plut. _De Is. et Os._ cap. 33): in poetical inscriptions _Kemi_ is often opposed to _Toshri_, "the red land," referring to the sandy deserts around, which however, would probably be included in the term Kemi in its widest sense. Egypt is called in Hebrew Mizraim, [Hebrew: Mizraim], possibly a dual form describing the country in reference to its two great natural and historical divisions of Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt: but Mizraim (poetically sometimes Mazor) often means Lower Egypt, Upper Egypt being named Pathros, "the south land." In Assyrian the name was Musri, Misri: in Arabic it is Misr, [Arabic: Misr], pronounced Masr in the vulgar dialect of Egypt. These names are certainly of Semitic origin and perhaps derive from the Assyrian with the meaning "frontier-land" (see MIZRAIM). Winckler's theory of a separate Musri immediately south of Palestine is now generally rejected (see, for instance, Ed. Meyer, _Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstamme_, 455). The Greek [Greek: Aigyptos] (Aegyptus) occurs as early as Homer; in the _Odyssey_ it is the name of the Nile (masc.) as well as of the country (fem.): later it was confined to the country. Its origin is very obscure (see Pietschmann in Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencyclopadie_, s.v. "Aigyptos"). Brugsch's derivation from Hakeptah, a name of the northern capital, Memphis, though attractive, is unconfirmed.

Egypt normally included the whole of the Nile valley from the First Cataract to the sea; pure Egyptians, however, formed the population of Lower Nubia above the Cataract in prehistoric times; at some periods also the land was divided into separate kingdoms, while at others Egypt stretched southward into Nubia, and it generally claimed the neighbouring Libyan deserts and oases on the west and the Arabian deserts on the east to the shore of the Red Sea, with Sinai and the Mediterranean coast as far as Rhinocorura (El Arish). The physical features in ancient times were essentially the same as at the present day. The bed of the Nile was lower: it appears to have risen by its own deposits at a rate of about 4 in. in a century. In the north of the Delta, however, there was a sinking of the land, in consequence of which the accumulations on some of the ancient sites there extend below the present sea-level. On the other hand at the south end of the Suez canal the land may have risen bodily, since the head of the Gulf of Suez has been cut off by a bank of rock from the Bitter lakes, which were probably joined to it in former days. The banks of the Nile and the islands in it are subject to gradual but constant alteration--indeed, several ancient sites have been much eroded or destroyed--and the main volume of the stream may in course of time be diverted into what has previously been a secondary channel. According to the classical writers, the mouths or branches of the Nile in the Delta were five in number (seven including two that were artificial): now there are only two. In Upper Egypt the main stream tended as now to flow along the eastern edge of the valley, while to the west was a parallel stream corresponding to the Bahr Yusuf. From the latter a canal or branch led to the Lake of Moeris, which, until the 3rd century B.C., filled the deep depression of the Fayum, but is now represented only by the strongly brackish waters of the Birket el Kerun, left in the deepest part. The area of alluvial land has probably not changed greatly in historic times. The principal changes that have occurred are due to the grip which civilization has taken upon the land in the course of thousands of years, often weakening but now firmer than ever. In early days no doubt the soil was cultivated in patches, but gradually a great system of canals was organized under the control of the central government, both for irrigation and for transport. The wild flora of the alluvial valley was probably always restricted and eventually was reduced almost to the "weeds of cultivation," when every acre of soil, at one period of the year under water, and at another roasted under the burning heat of a semi-tropical sun, was carefully tilled. The acacia abounded on the borders of the valley, but the groves were gradually cut down for the use of the carpenter and the charcoal-burner. The desert was full of wild life, the balance of nature being preserved by the carnivorous animals preying on the herbivorous; trees watered by soakage from the Nile protected the undergrowth and encouraged occasional rainfall. But this balance was upset by the early introduction of the goat and later of the camel, which destroyed the sapling trees, while the grown ones fell to the axe of the woodcutter. Thus in all probability the Egyptian deserts have become far poorer in animals and trees than they were in primitive times. Much of Lower Egypt was left in a wilder state than Upper Egypt. The marshy lands in the north were the resort of fishermen and fowlers, and the papyrus, the cultivation of which was a regular industry, protected an abundance of wild life. The abandonment of papyrus culture in the 8th century A.D., the neglect of the canals, and the inroads of the sea, have converted much of that country into barren salt marsh, which only years of draining and washing can restore to fertility.

The rich alluvial deposits of the Nile which respond so readily to the efforts of the cultivator ensured the wealth of the country. Moulded into brick, without burning, this black clay also supplied the common wants of the builder, and even the palaces of the greatest kings were constructed of crude brick. For more lasting and ambitious work in temples and tombs the materials could be obtained from the rocks and deserts of the Nile valley. The chief of these was limestone of varying degrees of fineness, composing the cliffs which lined the valley from the apex of the Delta to the neighbourhood of El Kab; the best quality was obtained on the east side opposite Memphis from the quarries of Turra and Masara. From El Kab southward its place was taken by Libyan sandstone, soft and easily worked, but unsuitable for fine sculpture. These two were the ordinary building stones. In the limestone was found the flint or chert used for weapons and instruments in early times. For alabaster the principal quarry was that of Hanub in the desert 10 m. behind El Amarna, but it was obtained elsewhere in the limestone region, including a spot near Alexandria. A hard and fine-grained quartzite sandstone was quarried at Jebel Ahmar behind Heliopolis, and basalt was found thence along the eastern edge of the Delta to near the Wadi Tumilat. Red granite was obtained from the First Cataract, breccia and diorite were quarried from very early times in the Wadi Hammamat, on the road from Coptos to the Red Sea, and porphyry was brought, chiefly in Roman times but also in the prehistoric age, from the same region at Jebel Dokhan.

Egypt was poor in metals. Gold was obtained chiefly from Nubia: iron was found in small quantities in the country and at one time was worked in the neighbourhood of Assuan. Some copper was obtained in Sinai. Of stones that were accounted precious Sinai produced turquoise and the Egyptian deserts garnet, carnelian and jasper.

The native supply of wood for industrial purposes was exceedingly bad: there was no native wood long enough and straight enough to be used in joiners' work or sculpture without fitting and patching: palm trees were abundant, and if the trees could be spared, their split stems could be used for roofing. For boatbuilding papyrus stems and acacia wood were employed, and for the best work cedar-wood was imported from Lebanon.

Egypt was isolated by the deserts and the sea. The Nile valley afforded a passage by ship or on foot into Nubia, where, however, little wealth was to be sought, though gold and rarities from the Sudan, such as ivory and ebony, came that way and an armed raid could yield a good spoil in slaves and cattle. The poverty-stricken and barbarous Nubians were strong and courageous, and gladly served in Egypt as mercenary soldiers and police. Through the oases also ran paths to the Sudan by which the raw merchandise of the southern countries could be brought to Egypt. Eastward, roads led through the Arabian mountains to the Red Sea, whence ships made voyages to the incense-bearing land of Puoni (Punt) on the Somali coast of Africa, rich also in gold and ivory. The mines of Sinai could be reached either by sea or by land along the route of the Exodus. The roads to Syria skirted the east border of the Delta and then followed the coast from near Pelusium through El Arish and Gaza. A secondary road branched off through the Wadi Tumilat, whence the ways ran northwards to Syria and southwards to Sinai. On the Libyan side the oasis of Siwa could be reached from the Lake of Moeris or from Terrana (Terenuthis), or by the coast route which also led to the Cyrenaica. The Egyptians had some traffic on the Mediterranean from very remote times, especially with Byblus in Phoenicia, the port for cedar-wood.

Of the populations surrounding Egypt the negroes (Nehsi) in the south (Cush) were the lowest in the scale of civilization: the people of Puoni and of Libya (the Tehen, &c.) were pale in colour and superior to the negroes, but still show no sign of a high culture. The Syrians and the Keftiu, the latter now identified with the Cretans and other representatives of the Aegean civilization, are the only peoples who by their elaborate clothing and artistic products reveal themselves upon the ancient Egyptian monuments as the equals in culture of the Egyptian nation.

The Egyptians seem to have applied no distinctive name to themselves in early times: they called themselves proudly _romi_ (RMTW), i.e. simply "men," "people," while the despised races around them, collectively H'SWT, "desert-peoples," were distinguished by special appellations. The races of mankind, including the Egyptians, were often called the Nine Archers. Ultimately the Egyptians, when their insularity disappeared under the successive dominations of Ethiopia, Assyria and Persia, described themselves as _rem-n-Kemi_, "men of Egypt." Whence the population of Egypt as we trace it in prehistoric and historic times came, is not certain. The early civilization of Egypt shows remarkable coincidences with that of Babylonia, the language is of a Semitic type, the religion may well be a compound of a lower African and a higher Asiatic order of ideas. According to the evidence of the mummies, the Egyptians were of slender build, with dark hair and of Caucasian type. Dr Elliott Smith, who has examined thousands of skeletons and mummies of all periods, finds that the prehistoric population of Upper Egypt, a branch of the North African-Mediterranean-Arabian race, changed with the advent of the dynasties to a stronger type, better developed than before in skull and muscle. This was apparently due to admixture with the Lower Egyptians, who themselves had been affected by Syrian immigration. Thereafter little further change is observable, although the rich lands of Egypt must have attracted foreigners from all parts. The Egyptian artists of the New Empire assigned distinctive types of feature as well as of dress to the different races with which they came into contact, Hittites, Syrians, Libyans, Bedouins, negroes, &c.

The people of Egypt were not naturally fierce or cruel. Intellectually, too, they were somewhat sluggish, careless and unbusinesslike. In the mass they were a body of patient labourers, tilling a rich soil, and hating all foreign lands and ways. The wealth of their country gave scope for ability within the population and also attracted it from outside: it enabled the kings to organize great monumental enterprises as well as to arm irresistible raids upon the inferior tribes around. Urged on by necessity and opportunity, the Egyptians possessed sufficient enterprise and originating power to keep ahead of their neighbours in most departments of civilization, until the more warlike empires of Assyria and Persia overwhelmed them and the keener intellects of the Greeks outshone them in almost every department. The debt of civilization to Egypt as a pioneer must be considerable, above all perhaps in religious thought. The moral ideals of its nameless teachers were high from an early date: their conception of an after-life was exceedingly vivid: the piety of the Egyptians in the later days was a matter of wonder and scoffing to their contemporaries; it is generally agreed that certain features in the development of Christianity are to be traced to Egypt as their birthplace and nidus.

For researches into the ethnography of Egypt and the neighbouring
countries, see W. Max Muller, _Asien und Europa nach den altag.
Inschriften_ (Leipzig, 1893), _Egyptological Researches_ (Washington,
1906); for measurements of Egyptian skulls, Miss Fawcett in
_Biometrika_ (1902); A. Thomson and D. Randall-MacIver, _The Ancient
Races of the Thebaid_ (Oxford, 1905) (cf. criticisms in _Man_, 1905;
and for comparisons with modern measurements, C. S. Myers, _Journ.
Anthropological Institute_, 1905, 80). W. Flinders Petrie has
collected and discussed a series of facial types shown in prehistoric
and early Egyptian sculpture, _Journal Anthropological Institute_,
1901, 248. For Elliott Smith's results see _The Cairo Scientific
Journal_, No. 30, vol. iii., March 1909.

_Divisions._--In ancient times Egypt was divided into two regions, representing the kingdoms that existed before Menes. Lower Egypt, comprising the Delta and its borders, formed the "North Land," _To-meh_, and reached up the valley to include Memphis and its province or "nome," while the remainder of the Egyptian Nile valley was "the South," _Shema_ (SM'W [HRGs: sw-w-a]). The south, if only as the abode of the sun, always had the precedence over the north in Egypt, and the west over the east. Later the two regions were known respectively as P-to-res (Pathros), "the south land," and P-to-meh, "the north land." In practical administration this historic distinction was sometimes observed, at others ignored, but in religious tradition it had a firm hold. In Roman times a different system marked off a third region, namely Middle Egypt, from the point of the Delta southward. Theoretically, as its name Heptanomis implies, this division contained seven nomes, actually from the Hermopolite on the south to the Memphite on the north (excluding the Arsinoite according to the papyri). Some tendency to this existed earlier. Egypt to the south of the Heptanomis was the Thebais, called P-tesh-en-Ne, "the province of Thebes," as early as the XXVIth Dynasty. The Thebais was much under the influence of the Ethiopian kingdom, and was separated politically in the troubled times of the XXIIIrd Dynasty, though the old division into Upper and Lower Egypt was resumed in the XXVIth Dynasty.

If Upper and Lower Egypt represented ancient kingdoms, the nomes have been thought to carry on the traditions of tribal settlements. They are found in inscriptions as early as the end of the IIIrd Dynasty, and the very name of Thoth, and that of another very ancient god, are derived from those of two contiguous nomes in Lower Egypt. The names are written by special emblems placed on standards, such as an ibis, [HRG: G26], a jackal [HRG: E15:R12], a hare [HRG: wn:R12], a feathered crown [HRG: Swty:R12], a sistrum [HRG: zSSt:R12], a blade [HRG: T30:R12], &c., suggesting tribal badges. Some nomes having a common badge but distinguished as "nearer" or "further," i.e. "northern" or "southern," have simply been split, as they are contiguous: in one case, however, corresponding "eastern" and "western" Harpoon nomes are widely separated on opposite sides of the Delta. In a few cases, such as "the West," "the Beginning of the East," it is obvious that the names are derived solely from their geographical situation. It is quite possible that the divisions are geographical in the main, but it seems likely that there were also religious, tribal and other historical reasons for them. How their boundaries were determined is not certain: in Upper Egypt in many cases a single nome embraced both sides of the river. The number and nomenclature of the nomes were never absolutely fixed. In temples of Ptolemaic and Roman age the full series is figured presenting their tribute to the god, and this series approximately agrees with the scattered data of early monuments. The normal number of the nomes in the sacred lists appears to be 42, of which 22 belonged to Upper Egypt and 20 to Lower Egypt. In reality again these nome-divisions were treated with considerable freedom, being split or reunited and their boundaries readjusted. Each nome had its metropolis, normally the seat of a governor or nomarch and the centre of its religious observances. During the New Empire, except at the beginning, the nomes seem to have been almost entirely ignored: under the Deltaic dynasties (except of course in the traditions of the sacred writing) they were named after the metropolis, as "the province (_tosh_) of Busiris," "the province of Sais," &c.: hence the Greek names [Greek: Bousirites nomos], &c. The Arsinoite nome was added by the Ptolemies after the draining of the Lake of Moeris (q.v.), and in the later Ptolemaic and the Roman times many changes and additions to the list must have been made. In Christian texts the "provinces" appear to have been very numerous.

See H. Brugsch, _Geographische Inschriften altagyptischer Denkmaler_
(3 vols., Leipzig, 1857-1860), and for the nomes on monuments of the
Old Kingdom, N. de G. Davies, _Mastaba of Ptahhetep and Akhethetep_
(London, 1901), p. 24 et sqq.

_King and Government._--The government of Egypt was monarchical. The king (for titles see PHARAOH) was the head of the hierarchy: he was himself divine and is often styled "the good god," and was the proper mediator between gods and men. He was also the dispenser of office, confirmer of hereditary titles and estates and the fountain of justice. Oaths were generally sworn by the "life" of the king. The king wore special headdresses and costumes, including the crowns of Upper [HRG: HDt] and Lower Egypt [HRG: N] (often united [HRG: S5]), and the cobra upon his forehead. Females were admitted to the succession, but very few instances occur before the Cleopatras. The most notable Pharaonic queen in her own right was Hatshepsut in the XVIIIth Dynasty, but her reign was ignored by the later rulers even of her own family. A certain Nitocris of about the VIIIth Dynasty and Scemiophris of the XIIth Dynasty are in the lists, but are quite obscure. Yet inheritance through the female line was fully recognized, and marriage with the heiress princess was sought by usurpers to legitimate the claims of their offspring. Often, especially in the XIIth Dynasty, the king associated his heir on the throne with him to ensure the succession.

From time to time feudal conditions prevailed: the great landowners and local princes had establishments of their own on the model of the royal court, and were with difficulty kept in order by the monarch. In rare cases during the Middle Kingdom (inscriptions in the tomb of Ameni at Beni Hasan, graffiti in the quarries of Hanub) documents were dated in the years of reign of these feudatory nobles. Under the Empire all power was again centralized in the hands of the Pharaoh. The apportionment of duties amongst the swarm of officials varied from age to age, as did their titles. Members of the royal family generally held high office. Under the Empire Egypt was administered by a vast bureaucracy, at the head of which, responsible to the king, was the vizier, or sometimes two viziers, one for Upper Egypt, the other for Lower Egypt (in which case the former, stationed at Thebes, had the precedence). The duties of the vizier and the procedure in his court are detailed in a long inscription which is repeated in three tombs of the XVIIIth Dynasty at Thebes (Breasted, _Records_, ii. S 663 et seqq.). The strictest impartiality was enjoined upon him, and he was advised to hold aloof from the people in order to preserve his authority. The office of vizier was by no means a sinecure. All the business of the country was overlooked by him--treasury, taxation, army, law-courts, expeditions of every kind. Egypt was the vast estate of Pharaoh, and the vizier was the steward of it.

_Army._--The youth of Egypt was liable to be called upon for service in the field under the local chiefs. Their training consisted of gymnastic and warlike exercises which developed strength and discipline that would be as useful in executing public works and in dragging large monuments as in strictly military service. They were armed in separate companies with bows and arrows, spears, daggers and shields, and the officers carried battle-axes and maces. The army, commanded in chief by Una under the VIth Dynasty for raids in Sinai or Palestine, comprised levies from every part of Egypt and from Nubia, each under its own leader. Under the New Empire, when Egypt was almost a military state, the army was a more specialized institution, the art of war in siege and strategy had developed, divisions were formed with special standards, there were regiments armed with battle-axes and scimitars, and chariots formed an essential part of the host. Egyptian cavalry are not represented upon the monuments, and we hear little of such at any time. Herodotus divides the army into two classes, the Calasiries and the Hermotybies; these names, although he was not aware of it, mean respectively horse- and foot-soldiers, but it is possible that the former name was only traditional and had characterized those who fought from chariots, a mode of warfare that was obsolete in Herodotus's own day: as a matter of fact both classes are said to have served on the warships of Xerxes' fleet.

_Arms and Armour._--From the contents of graves and other remains, and the sculptured and painted scenes, an approximate idea can be obtained of the weapons of the Egyptians at all periods from the prehistoric age onwards. Only a few points are here noted. Stone mace-heads are found in the earliest cemeteries, together with flint implements that may be the heads of lances, &c., and thin leaf-shaped daggers of bronze. Stone arrow-heads are common on the surface of the desert. Thin bronze arrow-heads appear at an early date; under the Empire they are stouter and furnished with a tang, and later still, towards the Greek period, they are socketed (often three-sided), or, if of iron, still tanged. The wooden club, a somewhat primitive weapon, seems to have been considered characteristic of foreigners from very early times, and, in scenes dating from the Middle Kingdom, belong principally to the levies from the surrounding barbarians. The dagger grew longer and stouter, but the sword made its appearance late, probably first in the hands of the _Sherdana_ (Sardinian?), mercenaries of the time of Rameses II. A peculiar scimitar, _khopsh_ [HRG], is characteristic of the Empire. Slings are first heard of in Egyptian warfare in the 8th century B.C. The chariot was doubtless introduced with the horse in the Hyksos period; several examples have been discovered in the tombs of the New Kingdom. Shields were covered with ox-hide and furnished with round sighting-holes above the middle. Cuirasses of bronze scales were worn by the kings and other leaders. The linen corslets of the Egyptian soldiery at a later time were famous, and were adopted by the Persian army. According to the paintings of the Middle Kingdom in the tombs of Beni Hasan, the battlements of brick fortresses were attacked and wrenched away with long and massive spears. No siege engines are depicted, even in the time of the Empire, and the absence of original representations after the XXth Dynasty renders it difficult to judge the advances made in the art of war during the first half of the last millennium B.C. The inscription of Pankhi, however, proves that in the 8th century approaches and towers were raised against the walls of besieged cities.

_Priesthood._--The priesthood was in a great degree hereditary, though perhaps not essentially so. In each temple the priests were divided into four orders (until Ptolemy Euergetes added a fifth), each of which served in turn for a lunar month under the chief priest or prophet. They received shares of the annual revenues of the temple in kind, consisting of linen, oil, flesh, bread, vegetables, wine, beer, &c. The "divine servants" or "prophets" had residences assigned them in the temple area. In late times the priests were always shaven, and paid the greatest attention to cleanliness and ceremonial purity already implied in their ancient name. Fish and beans then were abhorred by them. Among the priests were the most learned men of Egypt, but probably many were illiterate. For the Hellenistic period see W. Otto, _Priester und Tempel im hellenistichen Agypten_ (Leipzig, 1905 foll.).

For ancient Egyptian life and civilization in all departments, the
principal work is Ad. Erman, _Life in Ancient Egypt_, translated by H.
M. Tirard (London, 1894), (the original _Agypten und agyptisches Leben
im Altertum_, 2 vols., was published in 1885 at Tubingen); G. Maspero,
_Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria_, translated by A. P. Morton
(London, 1892), (_Lectures historiques_, Paris, 1890); also J. G.
Wilkinson, _Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians_, new ed. by
S. Birch (3 vols., London, 1878). The annual _Archaeological Reports_
of the Egypt Exploration Fund contain summaries of the work done each
year in the several departments of research.

Of the innumerable publications of Egyptian monuments, scenes and
inscriptions, C. R. Lepsius, _Denkmaler aus Agypten und Athiopien_
(Berlin, 1849-1859), and Memoirs of the _Archaeological Survey_ of the
Egypt Exploration Fund, may be specified. For antiquities in museums
there is the sumptuous _Catalogue general des antiquites egyptiennes
du musee de Caire_; for excavations the Memoirs of the Egypt
Exploration Fund, of the Research Account, of the British School of
Archaeology, of the Liverpool School of Archaeology, of the Deutsche
Orient-Gesellschaft, of the Hearst Egyptian Expedition, of the
Theodore M. Davis excavations (Tombs of the Kings).

_Trade and Money._--There is little evidence to show how buying and selling were carried on in ancient Egypt. A unique scene in a tomb of the IVth Dynasty, however, shows men and women exchanging commodities against each other--fish, fish-hooks, fans, necklaces, &c. Probably this was a market in the open air such as is held weekly at the present time in every considerable village. Rings of metal, gold, silver and bronze played some part in exchange, and from the Hyksos period onwards formed the usual standards by which articles of all kinds might be valued. In the XVIIIth Dynasty the value of meat, &c., was reckoned in gold; somewhat later copper seems the commonest standard, and under the Deltaic dynasties silver. But barter must have prevailed much longer. The precious metals were kept in the temples under the tutelage of the deities. During the XXVth and XXVIth Dynasties silver of the treasury of Harshafe (at Heracleopolis Magna) was commonly prescribed in contracts, and in the reign of Darius we hear of silver of the treasury of Ptah (at Memphis). Aryandes, satrap of Egypt, is said by Herodotus to have been punished by Darius for coining money of equal fineness with that of the king in Persia: thus coinage had then begun in Egypt. But the early coins that have been found there are mainly Greek, and especially Athenian, and it was not until the introduction of a regular currency in the three metals under the Ptolemies that much use was made of coined money.

Corn was the staple produce of Egypt and may have been exported regularly, and especially when there was famine in other countries. In the Tell el-Amarna letters the friendly kings ask Pharaoh for "much gold." Papyrus rolls and fine linen were good merchandise in Phoenicia in the 10th century B.C. From the earliest times Egypt was dependent on foreign countries to supply its wants in some degree. Vessels were fashioned in foreign stone as early as the Ist Dynasty. All silver must have been imported, and all copper except a little that the Pharaohs obtained from the mines of Sinai. Cedar wood was brought from the forests of Lebanon, ivory, leopard skins and gold from the south, all kinds of spices and ingredients of incense from Somaliland and Arabia, fine linen and beautifully worked vessels from Syria and the islands. Such supplies might be obtained by forcible raiding or as tribute of conquered countries, or perhaps as the free offerings of simple savages awed by the arrival of ships and civilized well-armed crews, or again by royal missions in which rich gifts on both sides were exchanged, or lastly by private trading. For deciding how large a share was due to trade, there is almost no evidence. But there are records of expeditions sent out by the king to obtain the rarities of different countries, and the hero of the Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor was upon this quest. Egyptian objects of the age of the XVIIIth Dynasty are found in the Greek islands and on the mainland among remains of the Mycenaean epoch, and on the other hand the products of the workshops of Crete and other centres of that culture are found in Egypt and are figured as "tribute of the Keftiu" in the tomb-paintings, though we have no information of any war with or conquest of that people. It must be a case of trade rather than tribute here and in like instances. According to the papyrus of Unamun at the end of the weak XXth Dynasty payment for cedar was insisted on by the king of Byblus from the Egyptian commissioner, and proofs were shown to him of payment having been made even in the more glorious times of Egypt. Trade both internal and external must have been largely in the hands of foreigners. It is impossible to say at what period Phoenician traffic by sea with Egypt began, but it existed as early as the IIIrd Dynasty. In the time of Herodotus much wine was imported from Syria and Greece. Amasis II. (c. 570 B.C.) established Naucratis as the centre of Greek trade in Egypt. Financial transactions by Jews settled at the southern extremity of Egypt, at Assuan, are found as early as the reign of Artaxerxes.

_Hunting, Fishing, &c._--In the desert hunting was carried on by hunters with bows and arrows, dogs and nets to check the game. Here in ancient times were found the oryx, addax, ibex, gazelle, bubale, ostrich, hyena and porcupine, more rarely the wild ox and wild sheep (_O. tragelaphus_). All of these were considered fit for the table. The lion, leopard and jackal were not eaten. Pigeons and other birds were caught in traps, and quails were netted in the fields and on the sea-shore. In the papyrus marshes the hippopotamus was slain with harpoons, the wild boar, too, was probably hunted, and the sportsman brought down wild-fowl with the boomerang, or speared or angled for fish. Enormous quantities of wild-fowl of many sorts were taken in clap-nets, to be preserved in jars with salt. Fish were taken sometimes in hand-nets, but the professional fishermen with their draw-nets caught them in shoals. The fishing industry was of great importance: the annual catch in the Lake of Moeris and its canal formed an important part of the Egyptian revenue. The fish of the Nile, which were of many kinds (including mullets, &c., which came up from the sea), were split and dried in the sun: others were salted and so preserved. A supply of sea fish would be obtained off the coast of the Delta and at the mouth of the Lake Serbonis.

_Farming, Horticulture, &c._--The wealth of Egypt lay in its agriculture. The regular inundations, the ease of irrigating the rich alluvial flats, and the great heat of the sun in a cloudless sky, while limiting the natural flora, gave immense opportunities to the industrious farmer. The normal rise of the Nile was sixteen cubits at the island of Roda, and two cubits more or less caused a failure of the harvest. In the paintings we see gardens irrigated by handbuckets and _shadufs_; the latter (buckets hung on a lever-pole) were probably the usual means of raising water for the fields in ancient times, and still are common in Egypt and Nubia, although water-wheels have been known since the Ptolemaic age, if not earlier. Probably a certain amount of cultivation was possible all the year round, and there was perhaps a succession of harvests; but there was a pause after the main harvests were gathered in by the end of April, and from then till June was the period in which taxes were collected and loans were repaid. Under the Ptolemaic regime the records show a great variety of crops, wheat and barley being probably the largest (see B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, _Tebtunis Papyri_, i. 560; J. P. Mahaffy and J. G. Smyly, _Petrie Papyri_, iii. p. 205). Earlier the _boti_, in Greek [Greek: olyra] (spelt? or durra?) was the main crop, and earlier again inferior varieties of wheat and barley took the lead, with _boti_ apparently in the second place. The bread was mainly made of _boti_, the beer of barley. There were green crops such as clover, and lentils, peas, beans, radishes, onions, lettuces (as a vegetable and for oil), castor oil and flax were grown. The principal fruit trees were the date palm, useful also for its wood and fibre, the pomegranate, fig and fig-sycamore. The vine was much cultivated in early times, and the vintage is a subject frequently depicted. Later the wine of the Mareotic region near Alexandria was celebrated even amongst Roman epicures. Papyrus, which grew wild in the marshes, was also cultivated, at least in the later ages: its stems were used for boat-building, and according to the classical authors for rope-making, as well as for the famous writing material. About the 8th century A.D. paper drove the latter out of use, and the papyrus plant quickly became extinct. The Indian lotus described by Herodotus is found in deposits of the Roman age. Native lotuses, blue and white, were much used for decoration in garlands, &c., also the chrysanthemum and the corn-flower.

See chapters on plant remains by Newberry in W. M. F. Petrie, _Hawara,
Biahmu, and Arsinoe_ (London, 1889); _Kahun, Gurob and Hawara_ (1890);
V. Loret, _La Flore pharaonique_ (2nd ed., Paris, 1892), and the
authorities there cited.

_Domestic Animals and Birds._--The farmer kept up a large stock of animals: in the houses there were pets and in the temples sacred creatures of many kinds. Goats browsed on the trees and herbage at the edge of the desert. Sheep of a peculiar breed with horizontal twisted horns and hairy coat are figured on the earliest monuments: a more valuable variety, woolly with curved horns, made its appearance in the Middle Kingdom and pushed out the older form: sheep were driven into the ploughed fields to break the clods and trample in the seed. The oxen were long-horned, short-horned and polled. They drew the plough, trampled the corn sheaves round the circular threshing floor, and were sometimes employed to drag heavy weights. The pig is rarely figured and was less and less tolerated as the Egyptians grew in ceremonial purity. A variety of wild animals caught in the chase were kept alive and fed for slaughter. Geese and ducks of different sorts were bred in countless numbers by the farmers, also pigeons and quails, and in the early ages cranes. The domestic fowl was unknown in Egypt before the Deltaic dynasties, but Diodorus in the first century B.C. describes how its eggs were hatched artificially, as they are at the present day. Bee-keeping, too, must have been a considerable industry, though dates furnished a supply of sweetening material.

The farm lands were generally held at a rent from an overlord, who might according to times and circumstances be the king, a feudal prince, or a temple-corporation. The stock also might be similarly held, or might belong to the farmers. The ordinary beast of burden, even in the desert, was the ass. The horse seems to have been introduced with the chariot during the Hyksos period. It is thought that the camel is shown in rude figures of the earliest age, but it is scarcely traceable again before the XXVIth Dynasty. In the Ptolemaic period it was used for desert transport and gradually became common. Strange to say, it is only very rarely that men are depicted riding on animals, and never before the New Kingdom.

The dog was of many varieties as early as the XIIth Dynasty, when the greyhound and turnspit and other well-marked forms are seen. The cat was sometimes trained by the sportsman to catch birds. Monkeys were commonly kept as pets. The sacred beasts in the various temples, tame as far as possible, were of almost every conceivable variety, from the vulture to the swallow or the goose, from the lion to the shrew-mouse, from the hippopotamus to the sheep and the monkey, from the crocodile to the tortoise and the cobra, from the carp to the eel; the scorpion and the scarab beetle were perhaps the strangest in this strange company of deities.

For agriculture see J. J. Tylor and F. Ll. Griffith, _The Tomb of
Paheri_ at El Kab, in the XIth Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund.
Together with hunting and fishing it is illustrated in many of the
Memoirs of the _Archaeological Survey_ of the same society. See also
Lortet and M. C. Gaillard, _La Faune momifiee de l'ancienne Egypte_
(Lyons, 1905).

_Law._--No code of Egyptian laws has come down to us. Diodorus names a series of Egyptian kings who were law-givers, ending with Amasis (Ahmosi II.) and Darius. Frequent reference is made in inscriptions to customs and laws which were traditional, and perhaps had been codified in the sacred books. From time to time regulations on special points were issued by royal decree: a fragment of such a decree, directed by Horemheb of the XVIIIth Dynasty against oppression of the peasantry by officials and prescribing penalties, is preserved on a stela in the temple of Karnak, and enactments of Ptolemy Philadelphus and Euergetes II. are known from papyri. In the Ptolemaic age matters arising out of native contracts were decided according to native law by [Greek: laokritai], while travelling courts of [Greek: chrematistai] representing the king settled litigation on Greek contracts and most other disputes. Affairs were decided in accordance with the code of the country, [Greek: tes choras nomoi], the Greek code, [Greek: politikoi nomoi], modelled, it would seem, on Athenian law or royal decrees, [Greek: prostagmata]. "Native" law was still quoted in Roman times, but the significance of the expression remains to be ascertained. In ancient Egypt petitions were sent to the king or the great feudal landowners in whose territory the petitioner or his adversary dwelt or the injury was committed: courts were composed of royal or feudal officials, or in the New Kingdom of officials or responsible citizens. The right of appeal to the king probably existed at all times. The statement of the case and the evidence were frequently ordered to be put in writing. The evidence was supported by oath: in criminal cases, such as the harem conspiracy against Rameses III., torture of the accused was resorted to to extract evidence, the bastinado being applied on the hands and the feet. Penalties in the New Kingdom were death (by starvation or self-inflicted), fines, beating with a certain number of blows so as to open a specified number of wounds on as many different parts of the body (e.g. five wounds, i.e. on hands, feet and back?), also cutting off the nose with banishment to Nubia or the Syrian frontier. In the times of the Old Kingdom decapitation was in use, and a decree exists of the Middle Kingdom degrading a nomarch of Coptos and his family for ever from his office and from the priesthood on account of services to a rival pretender.

As to legal instruments: contracts agreed to in public or before witnesses and written on papyrus are found as early as the Middle Kingdom and perhaps belong to all historic times, but are very scarce until the XXVth Dynasty. Two wills exist on papyrus of the XIIth Dynasty, but they are isolated, and such are not again found among native documents, though they occur in Greek in the Ptolemaic age. The virtual will of a high priest of Ammon under the XXIInd Dynasty is put in the form of a decree of the god himself.

From the time of the XXVth Dynasty there is a great increase in written documents of a legal character, sales, loans, &c., apparently due to a change in law and custom; but after the reign of Darius I. there is again almost a complete cessation until the reign of Alexander, probably only because of the disturbed condition of the country. Under Ptolemy Philadelphus Greek documents begin to be numerous: under Euergetes II. (Physcon) demotic contracts are particularly abundant, but they cease entirely after the first century of Roman rule.

Marriage contracts are not found earlier than the XXVIth Dynasty. Women had full powers of inheritance (though not of dealing with their property), and succession through the mother was of importance. In the royal line there are almost certain instances of the marriage of a brother with an heiress-sister in Pharaonic times: this was perhaps helped by the analogy of Osiris and Isis: in the Ptolemaic dynasty it was an established custom, and one of the stories of Khamois, written in the Ptolemaic age, assumes its frequency at a very remote date. It would be no surprise to find examples of the practice in other ranks also at an early period, as it certainly was prevalent in the Hellenistic age, but as yet it is very difficult to prove its occurrence. The native contracts with the wife gave to her child all the husband's property, and divorce or separation was provided for, entailing forfeiture of the dowry. The "native law" of Roman times allowed a man to take his daughter away from her husband if the last quarrelled with him.

Slavery is traceable from an early date. Private ownership of slaves, captured in war and given by the king to their captor or otherwise, is certainly seen at the beginning of the XVIIIth Dynasty. Sales of slaves occur in the XXVth Dynasty, and contracts of servitude are found in the XXVIth Dynasty and in the reign of Darius, appearing as if the consent of the slave was then required. Presumably at this late period there were eunuchs in Egypt, though adequate evidence of their existence there is not yet forthcoming. They must have originated among a more cruel people. That circumcision (though perhaps not till puberty) was regularly practised is proved by the mummies (agreeing with the testimony of Herodotus and the indications of the early tomb sculptures) until an edict of Hadrian forbade it: after that, only priests were circumcised.

See A. H. Gardiner, _The Inscription of Mes_ (from Sethe's
_Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Altertumskunde Agyptens_, iv.); J.
H. Breasted, _Ancient Records_, Egypt, passim, esp. i. S 190, 535 et
seqq., 773, ii. 54, 671, iii. 45, 367, iv. 416, 499, 795; F. Ll.
Griffith, _Catalogue of the John Rylands Demotic Papyri_; B. P.
Grenfell and J. P. Mahaffy, _Revenue Laws of Philadelphus_ (Oxford,
1896); B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, _Tebtunis Papyri_, part i.
(London, 1902); Bouche-Leclercq, _Histoire des Lagides_, tome iv.
(Paris, 1907).