Eastern Life. Harriet Martineau
they pointed out to him (as afterwards to Herodotus) the statues of their high priest. Each high priest placed a colossal wooden statue of himself in this place during his life; and each was the son of his predecessor. The priests would not admit that any of these was the son of a god. From first to last they were of human origin; and here, in direct lineal succession, were 345. Taking the average length of human life, how many thousand years would be occupied by the succession of 345 high priests, in a direct line from father to son! According to the priests, it was nearly 5000 years from the time of Horus. They further informed Herodotus that gods did reign in Egypt before they deputed their power to mortals.6 They spoke of eight gods who reigned first, among whom was one answering to Pan of the Greeks: then came twelve of another series; and, again, twelve more, the offspring of the second series; and of these Osiris was one; and it was not till after the reign of his son Horus that the first of these 345 high priests came into power. From Osiris to king Amasis the priests reckoned 15,000 years, declaring that they had exact registers of the successive lives which had filled up the time.7 – Such is the legendary history as it existed 500 years before Christ. We can gather from it thus much, that the priests then looked back upon a long reach of time – and believed the art of registering to be of an old date.
Here we have the earliest report of dates offered us. According to the latest researches,8 we cannot place the formation of the Egyptian empire under Menes nearer to us than 5500 years ago. And the Egyptians were then a civilised people, subject to legislation and executive authority, pursuing trade, and capable of the arts. A longer or shorter series of centuries must be allotted for bringing them up to this state, according to the views of the students of social life; but the shortest must bring us back to the current date of the creation of man. How these five or six thousand years are filled up we may see hereafter;
Leaving it to my readers to fix for themselves the point of time for our survey of the most ancient period of Egyptian history, I may be permitted to appoint the place. Let us take our stand above the Second Cataract; – on the rock of Abooseer, perhaps, where I could only look over southwards, and not go and learn. This is a good station, because it is a sort of barrier between two chains of monuments – a frontier resting-place, whence one may survey the area of ancient Egyptian civilisation from end to end.
Looking down the river, northwards, beyond the Nubian region (then Ethiopia), beyond the First Cataract, and far away over the great marsh which occupied the Nile valley, we see, coming out of the darkness of oblivion, Menes, the first Egyptian king, turning the river from its course under the Libyan mountain into a new bed, in the middle of the valley.9 Thus the priests of Thebes told Herodotus, saying that Menes made the dykes by which the land was reclaimed on which Memphis afterwards stood. It must strike everyone that this period 5500 years ago, must have been one of an advanced civilisation, such a work as this embankment requiring scientific ideas and methods, apt tools, and trained men. The priests ascribed to this same king the building of Memphis, and of the great temple of Phthah (answering to Vulcan) in that city. They read to Herodotus a long list of sovereigns (three hundred and thirty) who succeeded Menes, of whom one was an Egyptian woman and eighteen were Ethiopian kings,10 That there should have been a temple of Phthah implies the establishment of a priesthood. That a woman should have occupied the throne seems to imply the establishment of a principle of hereditary succession; or, at least, it tells of the subordination, in this early age, of force to authority. That there should have been Ethiopian sovereigns among the Egyptian implies a relation between the two countries, whether of warfare or commerce. During all this time the plain of Thebes lay bare.
The next sovereignty that was established in the valley was at This, about sixty miles below Thebes. A succession of monarchs reigned here, some say sixteen, some more, while the plain of Thebes still lay bare.
While these sovereigns were reigning at This, and before Thebes was heard of, the kings of Memphis were building the Pyramids of Geezeh. It is certain that the builders of these pyramids were learned men. How much science is requisite for the erection of such edifices need hardly be pointed out; – the mathematical skill and accuracy, the astronomical science shown in the placing of them true to the cardinal points, the command of mechanical powers which are at this day unknown to us, and the arts of writing and decoration shown in the inscriptions which covered their outside in the days of Herodotus,11 though the casing which contained them is now destroyed. In the neighbouring tombs, however, we have evidence, as will be shown hereafter, of the state of some of the arts at that date; and I may mention here that the sign of the inkstand and reed pen are among the representations in the tombs. There is no doubt as to who built the Pyramids. Colonel Howard Vyse found the kings' names inscribed in them. When the Pyramids were built, it was a thousand years before Abraham was born, and the plain of Thebes still lay bare.
Now we must turn southwards, and look over as far as Dongola. For a long way above the Second Cataract there are no monuments. This is probably owing to the river not being navigable there, so that there were no trading stations. There are obvious reasons why temples and other monuments should rise where commerce halts, where men congregate, and desire protection of person and property, and exercise their social passions and affections. So, for the twenty-five days' journey where the river is impracticable, there are few monuments. Then some occur of a rather modern date: and far beyond them – up in Dongola – we come upon traces of a time when men were trafficking, building, and worshipping, while yet the plain of Thebes lay bare. To this point did the sovereigns of Memphis and of This extend their hand of power, erecting statues as memorials of themselves, and by their subjects, trading in such articles of use and luxury as they derived from the east. While the Ethiopian subjects of these early Pharaohs were building up that character for piety and probity which spread over the world, and found its way into the earliest legends and poems of distant nations, the plain of Thebes still lay wild and bare: not one stone yet placed upon another.
And now the time had arrived for the Theban kings to arise, give glory to the close of the Old Monarchy, and preserve the national name and existence during the thousand years of foreign domination which were to follow. In the course of reigns at which we have now arrived, El-Karnac began to show its massive buildings, and the plain of Thebes to present temptation to a foreign conqueror.
We have now arrived at the end of the First great Period of ascertained Egyptian history; – a period supposed, from astronomical calculation and critical research, to comprehend 889 years. – A dark and humiliating season was now drawing on.
Considering the great wealth and power of the kings now reigning at Memphis and at Thebes, we are obliged to form a high opinion of the strength of the Shepherd Race who presently subdued Egypt. Whence they came, no one seems to know, – further than that it was somewhere from the East. Whether they were Assyrians, as some have conjectured, or the Phoenicians, who were encroaching upon the Delta at a subsequent time, or some third party, we cannot learn, the Egyptians having always, as is natural, kept silence about them. The pride of the Egyptians was in their agriculture and commerce; and to be conquered by a pastoral people, whose business lay anywhere among the plains of the earth, rather than in the richly-tilled, narrow valley of the Nile, was a hard stroke of adversity for them. So, in their silence, all that we know of their strong enemy is that the Shepherd Race took Memphis, put garrisons in all the strong places of Egypt, made the kings of Memphis and Thebes tributary to them, and held their empire for 929 years – that is, for a time equal to that which extends from the death of our King Alfred to our own: a long season of subjugation, from which it is wonderful that the native Egyptian race should have revived. This dark season, during which the native kings were not absolutely dethroned, but depressed and made tributary, is commonly called the Middle Monarchy. It is supposed to extend from B.C. 2754 to B.C. 1825.
About this time, a visitor arrived in Egypt, and remained a short while, whose travels are interesting to us, and whose appearance affords a welcome rest to the imagination, after its wanderings in the dim regions of these old ages. The richest of the Phoenicians, who found themselves restricted for room and pasturage by the numbers of Chaldeans who moved westwards into Syria, found their way, through Arabia, to the abundance of corn which Lower Egypt afforded. Among these was Abraham, a man of such wealth and distinction that he and his followers were entertained as guests at Memphis, and his wife was lodged in the palace of