THE ALLUVIAL LAND OF EGYPT: ANCIENT POTTERY.
Mr. L. Horner, in his recent researches near Cairo, with the view of throwing light upon the geological history of the alluvial land of Egypt, obtained from the lowest part of the boring of the sediment at the colossal statue of Rameses, at a depth of thirty-nine feet, this curious relic of the ancient world; the boring instrument bringing up a fragment of pottery about an inch square and a quarter of an inch in thickness—the two surfaces being of a brick-red colour, the interior dark gray. According to Mr. Horner’s deductions, this fragment, having been found at a depth of 39 feet (if there be no fallacy in his reasoning), must be held to be a record of the existence of man 13,375 years before A.D. 1858, reckoning by the calculated rate of increase of three inches and a half of alluvium in a century—11,517 years before the Christian era, and 7625 before the beginning assigned by Lepsius to the reign of Menos, the founder of Memphis. Moreover it proves in his opinion, that man had already reached a state of civilisation, so far at least as to be able to fashion clay into vessels, and to know how to harden it by the action of strong heat. This calculation is supported by the Chevalier Bunsen, who is of opinion that the first epochs of the history of the human race demand at the least a period of 20,000 years before our era as a fair starting-point in the earth’s history.—Proceedings of Royal Soc., 1858.
Upon this theory, a Correspondent, “An Old Indigo-Planter,” writes to the Athenæum, No. 1509, the following suggestive note: “Having lived many years on the banks of the Ganges, I have seen the stream encroach on a village, undermining the bank where it stood, and deposit, as a natural result, bricks, pottery, &c. in the bottom of the stream. On one occasion, I am certain that the depth of the stream where the bank was breaking was above 40 feet; yet in three years the current of the river drifted so much, that a fresh deposit of soil took place over the débris of the village, and the earth was raised to a level with the old bank. Now had our traveller then obtained a bit of pottery from where it had lain for only three years, could he reasonably draw the inference that it had been made 13,000 years before?”