EGYPT'S PLACE

IN

UNIVERSAL HISTORY.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

I.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION.-PROBLEM AND METHOD.-THE ORIGINES AND AGES OF THE WORLD.

THE purport of this work has been to establish the position of the most ancient historical people on the globe, with reference to the entire process of the development of mankind, according to the plan laid down in the First Book. In doing this, we had to measure, first, the length of the period comprised between the reign of Menes and the conquest of Alexander, in the authentic history of the Egyptian state.

Starting from well established facts, we then, in the Second and Third Books, found various fixed points of synchronism between these Egyptian monuments and the histories and records of Asiatic nations. Calculating upwards from below, we failed in obtaining from the sacred records of the Hebrews any certain points of contact prior to the end of the tenth century B. C. By the aid of Egyptian records, however, we ascertained

the date of the great Jewish lawgiver, which was not laid down in his own national records, and from it we came to the conclusion, that the Exodus coincided with the reign of the Pharaoh whose name is attached to the last Canicular cycle while Egypt was an empire. We think also, that by collating these two classes of records, and by comparing them with the astronomical synchronisms, we have fixed the age of Joseph, the imperial minister of the Pharaoh of the 12th Dynasty, who was a Sesortōsis, that is to say, Sesostris. By establishing this date we have likewise been enabled to find a method of determining upon critical grounds the important epoch when Abraham, as seer and lawgiver, emerged from the dark night of the primeval Semitic world.

The conclusion at which we arrived was, that this the first strictly historical human personage lived as many years after the reign of Menes as our Saviour did after the first Olympiad, namely, about 750 years. Abraham's date is the commencement of the 29th century, about 2870 B. C.; the reign of Menes began about 3620. The antiquity and importance of the Egyptian records and histories will be more apparent, when we take into account that contemporary monuments exist of the last three of those almost eight centuries, and that there are points of synchronism between Egyptian history and astronomical observations down to the time of Joseph.

The inference consequently was, that this period of 33 centuries between Menes and Alexander, in fixing which historical records and unimpeachable astronomical calculations combined, was neither indefinite nor undefinable, nor devoid of historical interest. It turned out on the contrary, upon closer examination, to be a period of increasing organic connexion. We may fairly assume, therefore, that it has upon the whole a settled basis, and bears on the face of it the stamp of being his

torical. But we may go further and confidently add, that it is the real chronometer of the most ancient history. We possess in Egyptian chronology, and its authentic world of monuments, the framework for the most ancient definitions of time in historical Asia. It is the complement to, and throws light upon, many of the most important events in Jewish, Assyrian, and Babylonian history. But if we turn from these results to the further objects we have in view, we shall find there is still much to be done before the outline of the historical picture is filled up. Shall we conclude that there can be no history antecedent to the establishment of a settled chronology, and that no approximate estimate can be made before the existence of a systematic calculation by years? Is there no history of the earth itself, and must it be computed solely by epochs? Are not the epochs of primitive history as obvious and intelligible as those which are more brief and nearer to our own times?

The empire of Menes, with which regular chronology commences, is based upon two necessary and demonstrable strata of early facts. The first is that which was requisite in order to the establishment of a double kingdom of the Upper and Lower Country. There existed registers of the princes of both the one and the other, consequently, prior to Menes; Thinite princes in Upper Egypt, and Memphite princes, or those of the Lower Country, who were immediately succeeded by the imperial dynasties of Memphis. In order to be on the safe side, we will consider these two kingdoms as contemporaneous, not insisting upon a few centuries one way or the other. But even under these conditions we reach to a period of 5,500 years, one which is not by any means too long for the number and importance of the combinations which must have taken place before a kingdom like that of Menes, with an established language and religion-indeed, with a regular hieroglyphical and phonetic system of written characters,-could

have been constituted. This notion of a double government especially was so thoroughly a part of their whole system that they never afterwards designated Egypt by any other name than that of the "Double Empire" of the Upper and Lower Country. Indeed, the word "Mizraim," in the Bible, means nothing but the two Misr. The Pharaohs, down to the latest tines, were styled Lords of the Upper and Lower Country. But this double government again was based upon 27 provinces or Nomes, the partition of which between the Upper and Lower Country was doubtless made by degrees. Ten of these we find assigned to the one, ten to the other; the remaining seven were known as Central Egypt, the Seven Provinces, or Heptanomis.

Nor were these Nomes arbitrary divisions of later date, but roots of a natural growth, out of which the empire itself sprang up. They form the independent basis of all constitutional or popular Egyptian life, which is clear proof that they must have contained very ancient and vital germs of self-government and freedom. They were in antagonism to the despotic principle of later Pharaonic government, which was in full force in the Old Empire, except as regarded the privileges of the priests and the constitution of the Nomes. When Menes instituted the empire, he must have continued and guaranteed a considerable amount of independence to the separate provinces; for towards the close of the Old Empire, when the regal power was so vastly increased, they still enjoyed a good deal of self-government. The Labyrinth was at once the temple and sepulchral monument of the last of the liberties of Egypt. But even in the New Empire every province possessed its own capital, a shrine, and privileges of its own. The formation and continuance, therefore, of these Nomes compose the first period in popular history, representing the lowest and oldest stratum in the constitutional development of the Egyptians before Menes.