taken from that monument, and the wooden cubit found at Memphis, described by M. Jomard*, which he reckons at 520 millimètres, or 20-47291 English inches,

which last far exceeds my calculation.

The careless manner in which the graduation of the scales of the Nilometer at Elephantine has been made by the Egyptians, renders the precise length of its cubit difficult to determine; but as I have carefully measured all of them, and have been guided by their general length as well as by the averages of the whole, I am disposed to think my measurement as near the truth as possible; and judging from the close approximation of different wooden cubits, whose average M. Jomard estimates at 523 506 millimètres, we may conclude that they were all intended to represent the same measures, strongly arguing against the supposition of different cubits having been in use, one of 24 and others of 28 and 32 digits; and indeed, if at any time the Egyptians employed a cubit of a different length, consisting of 24 digits, it is not probable that it was used in their Nilometers, for architectural purposes, or for measuring land.

* Vide Jomard's E'talon métrique, and Lettre à M. Abel Remusat sur une nouvelle Mesure de Coudée.

If it really existed, the name of Royal Cubit*, inscribed on these wooden measures, was doubtless applied exclusively to that of 28 digits (which I have shown to be the usual length of the wooden measures, and of the cubit of Elephantine), and the simple cubit may have contained only 24; but there is no authority for that of 32 digits above alluded to; nor, indeed, is it at all certain that a smaller one of 24 was actually used by the Egyptians.

Since writing the above, I have received from Mr. Harris, of Alexandria, an account of a measure which has been discovered at Karnak, on the removal of some stones from one of the towers of a propylon, between which it appears to have been accidentally left by the masons, at the time of its erection, at the remote period† of the 18th Dynasty. It is divided into 14 parts, but each part is double in length those of the cubit of Elephantine, and therefore consists of 4 digits; and the whole measure is equal to 2 cubits, being 41 inches English. Thus then one of these contains 20-6500 inches, which suffices to show that the cubit of

two cubits was perhaps taken from the measurement at the upper side

of the arm A to B,

A

B

C

and the under or outside from

A to C, which would be a difference of about four fingers.

These towers were erected by Horus or Amun-men? 9th King of the 18th Dynasty, who reigned from 1408 to 1395 B. C., and who used stones from older monuments, bearing the ovals of the King_whose name occurs at Tel el Amarna (vide pl. 5. of my Materia Hierog. V. and W.), who had also erased the name of an Amunoph.

Elephantine was employed for ordinary purposes (differing from it only in 0250 decimal parts), and confirms my opinion respecting the general use of one and the same measure.

This double cubit has the first division in its scale of 14 parts subdivided into halves, and the next into quarters, one of these last being equal to 1 digit.

It is highly probable that the aroura, or square land measure, was divided into poles, answering to the kassobeh (reed) now used in Egypt, by which the feddán is measured; and in the absence of any explanation of the ancient land measure, it may not be irrelevant to notice the mode of dividing the modern feddán. Till lately, it was a square of 20 keerát (carrots), or 400 kassobeh (reeds) or rods; and each kassobeh was divided into 24 kharoobeh or kubdeh. But various alterations have taken place in the modern land measure of Egypt; and even supposing the ancient aroura to have been divided in a similar manner, nothing can be obtained respecting the real contents of it, beyond what we learn from Herodotus, of its being a square of 100 cubits.

There is also much uncertainty respecting the length of the stade. It is generally estimated at 600 feet or 606·875; though, from Herodotus at one time specifying "a stade of six plethra*,” it would seem that on ordinary occasions he uses another of a different length; and the proportionate value of the measures, and of the dimen

VOL. I.

SECOND SERIES.

Ꭰ

sions of the monuments he describes in Egypt, are far from satisfactory. Nor is the schoene accurately defined; and Strabo *, on the authority of Artemidorus, states that the length of the schoene varied among the Egyptians.

CULTIVATION OF THE LANDS.

Of the nomes, or provinces, of Egypt I have already treated †; and have shown that the nomarchs, who were similar to "the officers appointed over the land" by Pharaoh ‡, and answered to the beys of the present system, superintended all the agricultural regulations, established for the interests of the peasant, or connected with the claims of government. I do not believe that the government interfered directly with the peasant respecting the nature of the produce he cultivated, or that any of the vexations of later times existed under the Pharaohs. The peasants were naturally supposed to have obtained, from actual observation, the most accurate knowledge on all subjects connected with husbandry; and, as Diodorus observes §,"being from their infancy brought up to agricultural pursuits, they far excelled the husbandmen of other countries, and had become acquainted with the capabilities of the land, the mode of irrigation, the exact season for sowing and reaping, as well as all the most useful secrets connected with the harvest, which they had derived from

* Strabo, xvii. p. 553.
Gen. xli. 34.

+ Vol. II. p. 72. 75.
Diodor. i. 72.

66

their ancestors, and had improved by their own experience." They rent," says the same historian, "the arable land belonging to the kings, the priests, and the military class, for a small sum, and employ their whole time in the tillage of their farms;" and the labourers who cultivated land for the rich peasant, or other landed proprietors, were superintended by the steward or owner of the estate, who had authority over them, and the power of condemning delinquents to the bastinado; and the paintings of the tombs frequently represent a person of consequence inspecting the tillage of the field, either seated in a chariot, walking, or leaning on his staff, accompanied by a favourite dog. *

Their mode of irrigation I have already noticed.t It was the same in the field of the peasant as in the garden of the villa; and the principal difference in the mode of tilling the former consisted in the use of the plough.

The water of the inundation was differently managed in various districts. This depended either on the relative levels of the adjacent lands, or on the crops they happened to be cultivating at the time. When a field lay fallow, or the last crop had been gathered, the water was permitted to overflow it as soon as its turn came to receive it from the nearest sluices; or, in those parts where the levels were low, and open to the ingress of the rising stream, as soon as the Nile arrived at a sufficient height; but when the last autumn crop was in the ground, + Vol. II. p. 1. 137. 139.

* Vol. II. p. 136.