According to history the ancient Egyptians were red men. They recognized four races of men, the red, the yellow, the black, and the white. In subsequent ages they were so desirous of preserving this aristocratic distinction of color that they represented themselves in crimson upon their monuments.
The present inhabitants of Egypt range from a yellow color in the north to a deep bronze. One writer believes that the ancient Egyptians belonged to a brown race which included the Nubian tribes and to some extent the Berber tribes of Algiers and Tunis.
The record of the greatness of ancient Egypt is preserved in her works. The pyramids, though but the ruins of their former grandeur, are the marvels of mankind. The river Nile, by means of enormous embankments, was diverted from its course to make a place for the old city of Memphis. The artificial lake of Moëro was created to make a reservoir for the Nile waters. It measured four hundred and fifty miles in circumference. Its depth was three hundred and fifty feet, and it possessed subterranean channels, flood gates, locks, and dams, by means of which a sterile wilderness could be redeemed and changed into a fruitful valley.
The mason work of the ancient Egyptians was magnificent. In the casing of the Great Pyramid, we are told, the joints are scarcely perceptible, and not wider than the thickness of paper, and the cement so tenacious that fragments of the casing stones still remain in their original position, notwithstanding the lapse of so many centuries.
At one time the whole valley and delta of the Nile from the Cataracts to the sea was covered with temples, palaces, tombs, pyramids, and pillars, and almost every stone was covered with inscriptions.
The ancient Egyptians were the first mathematicians of the Old World and the first surveyors of land. They were the first astronomers, and they not only calculated eclipses but watched the periods of the planets and constellations. They were even aware of the rotundity of the earth, although Columbus has always been credited with being the first to discover this truth.
As early as the year 1722 b.c. the signs of the zodiac were in use among the Egyptians. A delineation of these signs was found upon a mummy case in the British Museum, and the date to which they pointed indicated the autumnal equinox of the year 1722 b.c.
These ancient Egyptians had clocks and dials for measuring time, and they possessed coins of gold and silver. They were the first agriculturists of the Old World, for history tells us that they raised cereals, and gave attention to the rearing of cattle, horses, and sheep. They manufactured linen fabrics of so fine a quality that, 600 b.c., a single thread of a king's garment was comprised of three hundred and sixty-five fibers. They worked in gold and silver, in copper, bronze, and iron. The latter they tempered to the hardness of steel.
They were the first chemists, and manufactured glass and various kinds of pottery. Out of earthenware they made their boats, and manufactured vessels of paper, just as in modern times we make the wheels for railway cars out of paper. Their dentists understood the art of filling teeth with gold, and their farmers hatched poultry by means of artificial heat.
They were the first musicians, and used guitars, cymbals, drums, lyres, harps, flutes, etc. In medicine and surgery they had acquired such skill that, several hundred years before Christ the removal of cataract from the eye, a most delicate and difficult surgical operation, was performed among them. Their carpenters' and masons' tools were almost identical with those in use to-day.