"History," says Sir J. Seeley, "lies before science as a mass of materials out of which a political doctrine can be deduced.... Politics are vulgar when they are not liberalised by history, and history fades into mere literature when it loses sight of its relation to practical politics.... Politics and history are only different aspects of the same study."[1]
[1] 'The Expansion of England.'
These words, spoken by a great historian, form the keynote of a book which has run into nearly twenty editions; and they may therefore be regarded as having some weight. Yet what historian of old Egyptian affairs concerns himself with the present welfare and future prospects of the country, or how many statesmen in Egypt give close attention to a study of the past? To the former the Egypt of modern times offers no scope for his erudition, and gives him no opportunity of making "discoveries," which is all he cares about. To the latter, Egyptology appears to be but a pleasant amusement, the main value of which is the finding of pretty scarabs suitable for the necklaces of one's lady friends. Neither the one nor the other would for a moment admit that Egyptology and Egyptian politics "are only different aspects of the same study." And yet there can be no doubt that they are.
It will be argued that the historian of ancient Egypt deals with a period so extremely remote that it can have no bearing upon the conditions of modern times, when the inhabitants of Egypt have altered their language, religion, and customs, and the Mediterranean has ceased to be the active centre of the civilised world. But it is to be remembered that the study of Egyptology carries one down to the Muhammedan invasion without much straining of the term, and merges then into the study of the Arabic period at so many points that no real termination can be given to the science; while the fact of the remoteness of its beginnings but serves to give it a greater value, since the vista before the eyes is wider.
It is my object in this chapter to show that the ancient history of Egypt has a real bearing on certain aspects of the polemics of the country. I need not again touch upon the matters which were referred to on page 8 in order to demonstrate this fact. I will take but one subject—namely, that of Egypt's foreign relations and her wars in other lands. It will be best, for this purpose, to show first of all that the ancient and modern Egyptians are one and the same people; and, secondly, that the political conditions, broadly speaking, are much the same now as they have been throughout history.
Professor Elliot Smith, F.R.S., has shown clearly enough, from the study of bones of all ages, that the ancient and modern inhabitants of the Nile Valley are precisely the same people anthropologically; and this fact at once sets the matter upon an unique footing: for, with the possible exception of China, there is no nation in the world which can be proved thus to have retained its type for so long a period. This one fact makes any parallel with Greece or Rome impossible. The modern Greeks have not much in common, anthropologically, with the ancient Greeks, for the blood has become very mixed; the Italians are not the same as the old Romans; the English are the result of a comparatively recent conglomeration of types. But in Egypt the subjects of archaic Pharaohs, it seems certain, were exactly similar to those of the modern Khedives, and new blood has never been introduced into the nation to an appreciable extent, not even by the Arabs. Thus, if there is any importance in the bearing of history upon politics, we have in Egypt a better chance of appreciating it than we have in the case of any other country.
It is true that the language has altered, but this is not a matter of first-rate importance. A Jew is not less typical because he speaks German, French, or English; and the cracking of skulls in Ireland is introduced as easily in English as it was in Erse. The old language of the Egyptian hieroglyphs actually is not yet quite dead; for, in its Coptic form, it is still spoken by many Christian Egyptians, who will salute their friends in that tongue, or bid them good-morning or good-night. Ancient Egyptian in this form is read in the Coptic churches; and God is called upon by that same name which was given to Amon and his colleagues. Many old Egyptian words have crept into the Arabic language, and are now in common use in the country; while often the old words are confused with Arabic words of similar sound. Thus, at Abydos, the archaic fortress is now called the Shunet es Zebib, which in Arabic would have the inexplicable meaning "the store-house of raisins"; but in the old Egyptian language its name, of similar sound, meant "the fortress of the Ibis-jars," several of these sacred birds having been buried there in jars, after the place had been disused as a military stronghold. A large number of Egyptian towns still bear their hieroglyphical names: Aswan, (Kom) Ombo, Edfu, Esneh, Keft, Kus, Keneh, Dendereh, for example. The real origin of these being now forgotten, some of them have been given false Arabic derivations, and stories have been invented to account for the peculiar significance of the words thus introduced. The word Silsileh in Arabic means "a chain," and a place in Upper Egypt which bears that name is now said to be so called because a certain king here stretched a chain across the river to interrupt the shipping; but in reality the name is derived from a mispronounced hieroglyphical word meaning "a boundary." Similarly the town of Damanhur in Lower Egypt is said to be the place at which a great massacre took place, for in Arabic the name may be interpreted as meaning "rivers of blood," whereas actually the name in Ancient Egyptian means simply "the Town of Horus." The archæological traveller in Egypt meets with instances of the continued use of the language of the Pharaohs at every turn; and there are few things that make the science of Egyptology more alive, or remove it further from the dusty atmosphere of the museum, than this hearing of the old words actually spoken by the modern inhabitants of the land.
The religion of Ancient Egypt, like those of Greece and Rome, was killed by Christianity, which largely gave place, at a later date, to Muhammedanism; and yet, in the hearts of the people there are still an extraordinary number of the old pagan beliefs. I will mention a few instances, taking them at random from my memory.
In, ancient days the ithiphallic god Min was the patron of the crops, who watched over the growth of the grain. In modern times a degenerate figure of this god Min, made of whitewashed wood and mud, may be seen standing, like a scarecrow, in the fields throughout Egypt. When the sailors cross the Nile they may often be heard singing Ya Amuni, Ya Amuni, "O Amon, O Amon," as though calling upon that forgotten god for assistance. At Aswan those who are about to travel far still go up to pray at the site of the travellers' shrine, which was dedicated to the gods of the cataracts. At Thebes the women climb a certain hill to make their supplications at the now lost sanctuary of Meretsegert, the serpent-goddess of olden times. A snake, the relic of the household goddess, is often kept as a kind of pet in the houses of the peasants. Barren women still go to the ruined temples of the forsaken gods in the hope that there is virtue in the stones; and I myself have given permission to disappointed husbands to take their childless wives to these places, where they have kissed the stones and embraced the figures of the gods. The hair of the jackal is burnt in the presence of dying people, even of the upper classes, unknowingly to avert the jackal-god Anubis, the Lord of Death. A scarab representing the god of creation is sometimes placed in the bath of a young married woman to give virtue to the water. A decoration in white paint over the doorways of certain houses in the south is a relic of the religious custom of placing a bucranium there to avert evil. Certain temple-watchmen still call upon the spirits resident in the sanctuaries to depart before they will enter the building. At Karnak a statue of the goddess Sekhmet is regarded with holy awe; and the goddess who once was said to have massacred mankind is even now thought to delight in slaughter. The golden barque of Amon-Ra, which once floated upon the sacred lake of Karnak, is said to be seen sometimes by the natives at the present time, who have not yet forgotten its former existence. In the processional festival of Abu'l Haggag, the patron saint of Luxor, whose mosque and tomb stand upon the ruins of the Temple of Amon, a boat is dragged over the ground in unwitting remembrance of the dragging of the boat of Amon in the processions of that god. Similarly in the Mouled el Nebi procession at Luxor, boats placed upon carts are drawn through the streets, just as one may see them in the ancient paintings and reliefs. The patron gods of Kom Ombo, Horur and Sebek, yet remain in the memories of the peasants of the neighbourhood as the two brothers who lived in the temple in the days of old. A robber entering a tomb will smash the eyes of the figures of the gods and deceased persons represented therein, that they may not observe his actions, just as did his ancestors four thousand years ago. At Gurneh a farmer recently broke the arms of an ancient statue, which lay half-buried near his fields, because he believed that they had damaged his crops. In the south of Egypt a pot of water is placed upon the graves of the dead, that their ghost, or ka, as it would have been called in old times, may not suffer from thirst; and the living will sometimes call upon the name of the dead, standing at night in the cemeteries.
The ancient magic of Egypt is still widely practised, and many of the formulæ used in modern times are familiar to the Egyptologist. The Egyptian, indeed, lives in a world much influenced by magic and thickly populated by spirits, demons, and djins. Educated men holding Government appointments, and dressing in the smartest European manner, will describe their miraculous adventures and their meetings with djins. An Egyptian gentleman holding an important administrative post, told me the other day how his cousin was wont to change himself into a cat at night time, and to prowl about the town. When a boy, his father noticed this peculiarity, and on one occasion chased and beat the cat, with the result that the boy's body next morning was found to be covered with stripes and bruises. The uncle of my informant once read such strong language (magically) in a certain book that it began to tremble violently, and finally made a dash for it out of the window. This same personage was once sitting beneath a palm-tree with a certain magician (who, I fear, was also a conjurer), when, happening to remark on the clusters of dates twenty feet or so above his head, his friend stretched his arms upwards and his hands were immediately filled with the fruit. At another time this magician left his overcoat by mistake in a railway carriage, and only remembered it when the train was a mere speck upon the horizon; but, on the utterance of certain words, the coat immediately flew through the air back to him.