History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria in the Light of Recent Discovery. L. W. King
two points were those of Bât Allam, Saghel el-Baglieh, el-’Amra, Nakâda, Tûkh, and Gebelên. All the burials were of simple type, analogous to those of the Neolithic races in the rest of the world. In a shallow, oval grave, excavated often but a few inches below the surface of the soil, lay the body, cramped up with the knees to the chin, sometimes in a rough box of pottery, more often with only a mat to cover it. Ready to the hand of the dead man were his flint weapons and tools, and the usual red and black, or buff and red, pots lay beside him; originally, no doubt, they had been filled with the funeral meats, to sustain the ghost in the next world. Occasionally a simple copper weapon was found. With the body were also buried slate palettes for grinding the green eye-paint which the Egyptians loved even at this early period. These are often carved to suggest the forms of animals, such as birds, bats, tortoises, goats, etc.; on others are fantastic creatures with two heads. Combs of bone, too, are found, ornamented in a similar way with birds’ or goats’ heads, often double. And most interesting of all are the small bone and ivory figures of men and women which are also found. These usually have little blue beads for eyes, and are of the quaintest and naivest appearance conceivable. Here we have an elderly man with a long pointed beard, there two women with inane smiles upon their countenances, here another woman, of better work this time, with a child slung across her shoulder. This figure, which is in the British Museum, must be very late, as prehistoric Egyptian antiquities go. It is almost as good in style as the early Ist Dynasty objects. Such were the objects which the simple piety of the early Egyptian prompted him to bury with the bodies of his dead, in order that they might find solace and contentment in the other world.
All the prehistoric cemeteries are of this type, with the graves pressed closely together, so that they often impinge upon one another. The nearness of the graves to the surface is due to the exposed positions, at the entrances to wadis, in which the primitive cemeteries are usually found. The result is that they are always swept by the winds, which prevent the desert sand from accumulating over them, and so have preserved the original level of the ground. From their proximity to the surface they are often found disturbed, more often by the agency of jackals than that of man.
Contemporaneously with M. de Morgan’s explorations, Prof. Flinders Petrie and Mr. J. Quibell had, in the winter of 1894–5, excavated in the districts of Tukh and Nakada, on the west bank of the Nile opposite Koptos, a series of extensive cemeteries of the primitive type, from which they obtained a large number of antiquities, published in their volume Nagada and Dallas. The plates giving representations of the antiquities found were of the highest interest, but the scientific value of the letter-press is vitiated by the fact that the true historical position of the antiquities was not perceived by their discoverers, who came to the conclusion that these remains were those of a “New Pace” of Libyan invaders. This race, they supposed, had entered Egypt after the close of the flourishing period of the “Old Kingdom” at the end of the VIth Dynasty, and had occupied part of the Nile valley from that time till the period of the Xth Dynasty.
This conclusion was proved erroneous by M. de Morgan almost as soon as made, and the French archæologist’s identification of the primitive remains as pre-dynastic was at once generally accepted. It was obvious that a hypothesis of the settlement of a stone-using barbaric race in the midst of Egypt at so late a date as the period immediately preceding the XIIth Dynasty, a race which mixed in no way with the native Egyptians themselves, and left no trace of their influence upon the later Egyptians, was one which demanded greater faith than the simple explanation of M. de Morgan.
The error of the British explorers was at once admitted by Mr. Quibell, in his volume on the excavations of 1897 at el-Kab, published in 1898.* Mr. Quibell at once found full and adequate confirmation of M. de Morgan’s discovery in his diggings at el-Kab. Prof. Petrie admitted the correctness of M. de Morgan’s views in the preface to his volume Diospolis Parva, published three years later in 1901.** The preface to the first volume of M. de Morgan’s book contained a generous recognition of the method and general accuracy of Prof. Petrie’s excavations, which contrasted favourably, according to M. de Morgan, with the excavations of others, generally carried on without scientific control, and with the sole aim of obtaining antiquities or literary texts.*** That M. de Morgan’s own work was carried out as scientifically and as carefully is evident from the fact that his conclusions as to the chronological position of the prehistoric antiquities have been shown to be correct. To describe M. de Morgan’s discovery as a “happy guess,” as has been done, is therefore beside the mark.
* El-Kab. Egyptian Research Account, 1897, p. 11.
** Diospolis Parva. Egypt Exploration Fund, 1901, p. 2.
*** Recherches: Age de la Pierre, p. xiii.
Another most important British excavation was that carried on by Messrs. Randall-Maclver and Wilkin at el-’Amra. The imposing lion-headed promontory of el-’Amra stands out into the plain on the west bank of the Nile about five miles south of Abydos. At the foot of this hill M. de Morgan found a very extensive prehistoric necropolis, which he examined, but did not excavate to any great extent, and the work of thoroughly excavating it was performed by Messrs. Randall-MacIver and Wilkin for the Egypt Exploration Fund. The results have thrown very great light upon the prehistoric culture of Egypt, and burials of all prehistoric types, some of them previously unobserved, were found. Among the most interesting are burials in pots, which have also been found by Mr. Garstang in a predynastic necropolis at Ragagna, north of Abydos. One of the more remarkable observations made at el-’Amra was the progressive development of the tombs from the simplest pot-burial to a small brick chamber, the embryo of the brick tombs of the Ist Dynasty. Among the objects recovered from this site may be mentioned a pottery model of oxen, a box in the shape of a model hut, and a slate “palette” with what is perhaps the oldest Egyptian hieroglyph known, a representation of the fetish-sign of the god Min, in relief. All these are preserved in the British Museum. The skulls of the bodies found were carefully preserved for craniometric examination.
In 1901 an extensive prehistoric cemetery was being excavated by Messrs. Reisner and Lythgoe at Nag’ed-Dêr, opposite Girga, and at el-Ahaiwa, further north, another prehistoric necropolis has been excavated by these gentlemen, working for the University of California.
The cemetery of Nag’ed-Dêr is of the usual prehistoric type, with its multitudes of small oval graves, excavated just a little way below the surface. Graves of this kind are the most primitive of all. Those at el-’Amra are usually more developed, often, as has been noted, rising to the height of regular brick tombs. They are evidently later, nearer to the time of the Ist Dynasty. The position of the Nag’ed-Dêr cemetery is also characteristic. It lies on the usual low ridge at the entrance to a desert wadi, which is itself one of the most picturesque in this part of Egypt, with its chaos of great boulders and fallen rocks. An illustration of the camp of Mr. Reisner’s expedition at Nag’ed-Dêr is given above. The excavations of the University of California are carried out with the greatest possible care and are financed with the greatest possible liberality. Mr. Reisner has therefore been able to keep an absolutely complete photographic record of everything, even down to the successive stages in the opening of a tomb, which will be of the greatest use to science when published.
For a detailed study of the antiquities of the prehistoric period the publications of Prof. Petrie, Mr. Quibell, and Mr. Randall-Maclver are more useful than that of M. de Morgan, who does not give enough details. Every atom of evidence is given in the publications of the British explorers, whereas it is a characteristic of French work to give brilliant conclusions, beautifully illustrated, without much of the evidence on which the conclusions are based. This kind of work does not appeal to the Anglo-Saxon mind, which takes nothing on trust, even from the most renowned experts, and always wants to know the why and wherefore. The complete publication of evidence which marks the British work will no doubt be met with, if possible in even more complete detail, in the American work of Messrs. Reisner, Lythgoe, and Mace (the last-named is an Englishman) for the University of California, when published. The question of speedy versus delayed publication is a very vexing one. Prof. Petrie prefers to publish as speedily as possible; six months after the season’s work in