336 DECIMAL AND DUODECIMAL CALCULATION. APP. BOOK 11. week (4 x 7), The time of mortification imposed on the priests lasted from seven to forty-two days (one to six weeks): oi μèv δυοῖν καὶ τεσσαράκοντα, οἱ δὲ τούτων πλείους, οἱ δὲ ἐλάσσους, οὐδέποτε μÉVTOI TÜV ËпTX Xenoμéras (Porphyr. de Abstin. iv. 7); which shows the entire number to have been based on seven, and the same occurs again in the forty-two books of Hermes, as well as 19. in the forty-two assessors of Amenti. Indeed the frequent occurrence of seven shows that it was a favourite number with the Egyptians as with the Jews; and the Pythagoreans borrowed their preference for the hebdomal division from Egypt. There is no reason to conclude the Egyptians had not weeks of seven days 20. because they divided their solar month into the very natural division of three parts of ten each; it would rather argue that the original lunar month was divided into seven-day weeks, and that the decad division was a later introduction, when the months were made to consist of thirty days. And as the monuments are all of a time long after the thirty days were adopted, the more frequent mention of a decad instead of the hebdomal division, is readily accounted for. Moreover these months of thirty days still continued to be called "moons," as at the present day. Dion Cassius also distinctly states that the seven days were first referred to the seven planets by the Egyptians. (See note on ch. 82, and note on ch. 8, B. iii.) 21. The Greeks, like the Egyptians, divided their month into three parts, and their year into three decads of months, corresponding to the three seasons of the Egyptians; and the Roman month consisted of calends, nones, and ides, the periods before each being of different lengths; but they afterwards adopted the division of weeks, giving the names of the sun, moon, and five planets to the seven days we now use. The Egyptians had both the decimal and duodecimal calculation, as the twelve hours of day and night, the twelve kings, twelve gods, twelve months: 12 × 30 = 360 days; and 360 cups at Osiris' tomb in Philæ; 12 x 672 conspirators against Osiris; and 12 × 6 = 72, which some fix as the number of days of the embalmed; and instances of both methods of notation are found on the oldest monuments of the 4th dynasty.-[G. W.] CHAP. VIII. HISTORICAL NOTICE. 337 CHAPTER VIII. HISTORICAL NOTICE OF EGYPT. 1. Fabulous period of history -- Rule of the Gods - Name of Menes; supposed to be Mizraim-Believed to be a real person by the Egyptians, and to have founded Memphis. 2. This and Memphis - Egyptians from Asia -- Memphis older than Thebes. 3. Precedence of Upper Egypt. 4. Earliest notice of Thebes- Absence of early buildings. 5. Contemporary kings-Arrangement of the early dynasties. 6. Uncertainty of chronological dates of the Exodus. 7. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd dynasties - Menes and his successors. 8. In the 2nd dynasty sacred animals worshipped; and women allowed to hold the sceptre. 9. 4th and 5th dynasties. 10. The same customs in the early Pyramid period - Mount Sinai Shafre built the 2nd pyramid. - Date Con 11. 6th dynasty - The prenomen of kings.-12. 7th, 8th, and 9th dynasties 1. THE early history of Egypt is enveloped in the same obscurity as that of other ancient nations, and begins in like manner with its fabulous period. The oldest dynasty therefore given by Manetho is said to have been of the "gods and demigods," and VOL. II. Z 338 THE EGYPTIANS FROM ASIA. APP. BOOK II. the list of kings in the Turin papyrus commences also with the rule of the gods, the last of whom was Horus the son of Isis and Osiris. And if in the seven last names that remain of that very imperfect papyrus the order of the gods does not exactly agree with Manetho, still there is sufficient to show that both accounts were derived from the same source, universally acknowledged by the Egyptian priests. The rule of the gods has been supposed to be that of the priesthood of those deities who governed the country before the election of a king, like the Judges in Israel; but all accounts agree in considering Menes the first king of Egypt. His name is mentioned in the sculptures of the temple of Remeses II. at Thebes, and in the Turin papyrus, as well as by Manetho and other authorities; and though the frequent occurrence of a similar name (as Manes the first king of Lydia, the Phrygian Manis, the Minos of Crete, the Indian Menu, the Tibetan Mani, the Siamese Manu, the German Mannus, the Welsh Menw, and others) may seem to assign him a place among mythical beings; and though he has been thought to be Mizraim, a personification of the "two Misrs," or provinces of Upper and Lower Egypt; yet he was believed to be a real personage by the Egyptians themselves, and the events of his reign were accepted as undoubted facts. He was represented as having changed the course of the Nile, and founded Memphis on the site thus artificially made for it, where he began the famous temple of Pthah (Vulcan); and the change he made in the habits of the Egyptians was recorded by a stela put up by Tnephachthus, the father of Bocchoris, in the temple of Amun at Thebes; which pronounced a curse against Menes for having induced the Egyptians to abandon their hitherto simple mode of life. Some might be disposed to doubt whether This, or any city 2. in Upper Egypt, was older than Memphis; and, as the Egyptians were a people who immigrated from Asia into the valley of the Nile, might conclude that they founded their first capital in Lower rather than in Upper Egypt. The whole valley indeed was peopled from Asia; and to this day the inhabitants bear the evident marks of an Asiatic and Caucasian origin. Nor is it necessary to notice the long-exploded notion of civilisation having descended, together with hieroglyphic writing, from Ethiopia―a country always socially and intellectually inferior to Egypt, and where hieroglyphics were only properly written when directly copied from it. 3. 4. CHAP. VIII. ANTIQUITY OF THIS, MEMPHIS, AND THEBES, 339 The colour and features, as well as the conformation of their skull, show that the immigration was one of those where a new race took entire possession of the land, scarcely if at all amalgamating with the aboriginal population; and in this the difference between the later invasion by the Arabs is evident; for the old Egyptian character is still preserved, and the foreign Arab element has, after a lapse of many centuries, been mostly absorbed into that of the native race. There is always this marked differ ence between immigration and conquest, that in the latter the invaders are only a powerful minority, marrying the native women, and leaving the whole working population in the land; though at the same time it is evident that the foreign admixture has the effect of changing the features, and even the colour, of the succeeding generations, which are retained long after all the other elements are absorbed ; and this explains the resemblance of character in the ancient and modern Egyptians, and the fact of the varied features of the latter differing so much from those both of the ancient Egyptians and the Arabs. The monuments at Memphis are undoubtedly much older than those of Thebes; but the precedence always given to Upper Egypt seems to prove that some other capital there was older than Memphis; and though no monuments remain at This, still, from its being the reputed birthplace of Menes, and the chief city of the Thinite nome, as well as the royal residence of the first or Thinite dynasty, it claims the honour of having been the oldest capital of Egypt. Both Abydus and Hermonthis, as well as other cities, were older than Thebes, which is not even mentioned on the altar of King Papi; and the earliest evidences of the existence of Thebes are the tombs of the Enentefs of the 9th dynasty, and the vestiges of temples built by Amun-m-he I. and Osirtasen. It is probable that Thebes succeeded to the smaller city of Hermonthis, as This gave place to Abydus; and the absence of early monuments of the 3rd and 4th dynasties in Upper Egypt may be explained by Memphis having been the royal residence of the then great ruling dynasties; while the monuments which preceded that age, from their insignificance, and the transfer of the capital of Upper Egypt to a new site, have not been preserved, or were destroyed at the period of the Shepherd invasion. Nor can any argument be safely derived from the absence of monuments of a In the Turin Museum. 340 UNCERTAINTY OF EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY. APP. BOOK II. particular era; for at the pyramids there are no records of kings between the 5th and 26th dynasties, except the name of Remeses II. on the rock scarped to form the area half encircling the 2nd pyramid; and yet several hundred Pharaohs ruled during that interval, many of whose names are found in Upper Egypt. Again, no building remains of any early Memphite king, even about Memphis and the pyramids, except those monuments themselves and the neighbouring tombs; and with the exception of these, and the Labyrinth, some fragments and small objects, some stele, and the obelisks of Osirtasen I. at Heliopolis and in the Fyóom, nothing is met with of old times before the 18th dynasty. This may be reasonably ascribed to the invasion of the Shepherds, as the preservation of the early tombs may be explained by the feeling common at all times of respect for the dead. The names of kings and the number of years given by Manetho 5. are not all to be taken as of consecutive reigns; for not only do we know, from the authority of Manetho, that there were contemporary "kings of Thebaïs and of the other provinces of Egypt," but the monuments themselves decide this point by the mention of the years of one king's reign corresponding with those of another; and by the representation of one king meeting another, generally as his superior; as well as by various statements in papyri and other documents. The manner in which the dynasties succeeded, and were reckoned, has been very ingeniously explained by Mr. Stuart Poole (suggested as he states by Mr. Lane); and by this scheme the difficulty of the great lapse of time required for so many consecutive Pharaohs, and the occurrence of synchronous reigns, have been reconciled. According to it the first nineteen dynasties were thus arranged :— With regard to the age of Menes and the chronology of the 6. Egyptian kings, all is of course very uncertain. No era is given |