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upon which we assign relative dates to the various periods of Egyptian civilization, and which imperatively demand that a very early date indeed should be assigned to the origin of that civilization.

ANTIQUITY AND CHARACTERISTICS

OF

EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION.

Egyptian Chronology depends upon Monuments
recording Contemporary Facts.

I PROMISED to explain the kind of evidence which compels us to assign a very remote antiquity to Egyptian civilization-so remote indeed as to appear simply fabulous to men whose studies of ancient history have been confined to Greece and Rome, and who know how very soon historical evidence fails at the distance of a few centuries from the Christian era. Such men are not unnaturally inclined to suspect us of uncritically attaching importance to exaggerated or even fictitious. numbers handed down by untrustworthy authorities. Such a suspicion is entirely without foundation. There is not a single Egyptian monument known which in its bearings upon chronology is liable to the charge of numerical exaggeration. The monuments, as a rule,

never speak except of contemporary events. There are a few instances in which a temple built by an ancient sovereign is said to have been repaired or rebuilt by another, but the interval between the two sovereigns is unfortunately never stated.

Monuments mentioning the Year of a Reign.

Although Mena is the first of the Egyptian kings, and is repeatedly named, dates are never reckoned from his or from any other era, but are given by the year of the reigning king. This is never so high as to justify a doubt. We can certainly conceive the case of a forged inscription on a tombstone, saying that John Smith died on the 9th September, 1876, or (were such the custom of the country) in the 39th year of Queen Victoria; but unless good reasons for rejecting such a statement are produced, the law of historical evidence compels us to admit it. Most of the documents upon which we rely for Egyptian chronology are of this simple nature, and no one who has seen the tombs or buildings from which they have been taken, can dream for an instant that these inscriptions are less trustworthy than those in an English churchyard.

The manifest defect for chronological purposes of such inscriptions is, that the last monumental year which happens to be preserved to us of a king is not necessarily the last of his reign. An error of several

(perhaps of many) years is possible in each reign when there is no direct evidence to the contrary. But the error is at all events not on the side of exaggerated numbers.

Monuments furnishing Evidence of a Succession of

Reigns.

Still more important than the monuments which mention the year of the king, of the king, are those in which two or more sovereigns of the same period are mentioned, especially if their succession or other precise data are given. Such is the treaty made in the twenty-first of his reign between Rameses II. and the king of the Cheta, wherein Rameses II. calls himself the son of Seti I., who in his turn is called the son of Rameses I.1 There is a very large number of inscriptions belonging to personages who have been born in one reign and died in another, or who have served several kings in succession. And the inscriptions of the same period naturally confirm one another, or supply details which were missing.

Thus, to take the case of the eighteenth dynasty, the sepulchral inscriptions of Aahmes, the son of Abana,2 gives the account of a naval officer who served three sovereigns one after the other,-Aahmes I., Amenhotep I. and Tehutimes I. (commonly called Thothmes or Thoth

1 "Records of the Past," Vol. IV. p. 25. 2 Ibid. Vol. VI. p. 5.

mosis). His father, the same inscription tells us, served the king Sekenen-Ra. Another well-known inscription, now in the Louvre at Paris,1 begins the tale of its hero in the reign of Aahmes I., and ends it in that of Tehutimes III. The tablet of Nebuaiu, now in the Museum at Bulaq, gives thanks to Tehutimes III. and his son Amenhotep II., who had honoured Nebuaiu. King Amenhotep II. himself, on a tablet at Amada, speaks of Tehutimes III. as his father. And a third and independent witness, Amenemheb,2 tells us that Tehutimes III., in whose service he was, died on the last day of the month Phamenoth, in the 54th year of his reign, and that he was succeeded by his son Amenhotep II. The entire succession of the dynasty is established on a large mass of evidence of the same kind, as may be seen at length in an excellent dissertation of Dr. Wiedemann.3 And the chronology of other periods has been established in like manner.

The most remarkable series of inscriptions which has been utilized for chronological purposes consists of the inscriptions relating to the Apis bulls, whose wonderful tombs were discovered by M. Mariette. One of these sacred animals was born in the twenty-eighth year of king Sheshonk III., lived twenty years, and died in

1 "Records of the Past," Vol. IV. p. 7. 2 Ibid. Vol. II. p. 59. 3 "Geschichte der achtzehnten ägyptischen Dynastie bis zum Tode Tutmes III.," in the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Bd. xxxi.

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