Not only did the topography of the land surface determine the political fortunes of the ancient Egyptians in a large degree; it materially influenced the very temperament of the people. Many civilizations have developed in lands broken by hills and valleys, plains and plateaus, dotted with lakes, skirted by forests, bays, inlets and a thousand irregularities of nature. Few trees grow in Egypt and few wild flowers are found. Each spot that might have become a tangled thicket was early appropriated by the practical tiller of the soil. The valley has always supported too dense a population to permit of wilds and abandoned corners, and only that remains uncultivated which has proved too marshy for grain production. Possessing no timber suitable for ship-building, the Nile dwellers did not become sailors. Their communication from one part of the country to the other was established by means of small boats or donkey paths. Rain was scanty and mud huts sufficed to shelter the people. While constant attention was required to maintain an extensive system of irrigation, the soil was so fertile and the climate so favorable that two, three and even more crops per year were possible. Nature worked with—not against—man. "A serene temper, and a reliance in nature were fostered. A submissiveness was developed which allowed the king to turn all into a fighting people, or into a body of forced laborers." The absence of nearly all that inspires, that stimulates the energy and quickens the imagination may largely account for the placid temperament of the ancient Egyptians. Passing their lives in a land of slightly varying processes, they could imagine nothing more satisfactory for a hereafter than a shadowy land wherein they might till the soil as of yore, only water should always reach the needs of the remotest, and perplexities removed, each should complete his yearly circuit through eternity.
Prehistoric Egypt.
Long before northern Africa acquired its present land surface, made up so largely of deserts, it is believed that the portion which we call Egypt was a fertile country, visited by frequent rains. It is possible that the Nile did not exist; at least, it had not eroded its present channel, and the fertility of the soil was due to causes other than yearly inundations. This, we must remember, was many geological ages ago and cannot be computed in years at all. Remains of rude flint implements are scattered over the heights of the desert plateau to the west of the Nile valley. The people who used these lived in settlements, traces of many of which have been found; but of their relation to the later inhabitants of Egypt we know nothing. They belong to the field of archaeology rather than to history.
Climatic changes took place in Africa. Gradually the country assumed its present surface of desert and valley. It is supposed that Libyan tribes came from northwestern Africa and settled in Egypt; these were joined later by Asiatic hordes who crossed the Isthmus of Suez in search of better pastures for their flocks, or because of some shifting of the tribes in their rear. This inference, based upon the Semitic elements in the grammar and vocabulary of the language of the earliest Egyptian inscriptions, has been raised almost beyond doubt by the latest researches. From the mingling of these Asiatic tribes with others already established in western Africa, sprang, so it is believed, the early Egyptians. The Egyptians, however, like the ancient Greeks, regarded themselves as autochthonous.
Roughly speaking, prehistoric events in Egypt include all those preceding the year 4000 B.C., and our knowledge of them has been gathered from the disclosures of excavated tombs. While a discussion of the Egyptian religion will be taken up later on, some slight knowledge of it is necessary at the start.
The Egyptian of both early and later periods believed firmly in a future life, but he believed further that the future welfare of the soul depended wholly upon the preservation of the body. This belief led him to study how best to preserve the dead body, and to bring embalming to such an art that tombs opened today, after the flight of five thousand years, reveal bodies in complete states of preservation. Again, it was believed that the same needs would be felt in the future life as had been experienced during the earthly career. For this reason, foods, vessels of pottery, weapons, and even toilet preparations for personal adornment, were enclosed in the tomb. From a study of the contents of these ancient tombs most that is at present known of the ancient Egyptian has been ascertained.
When many implements furnished with ivory handles are found in these tombs, together with occasional pictures of elephants scratched on bone and bits of pottery, even those of us who are neither antiquarians nor historians might infer that the elephant was contemporaneous with the prehistoric Egyptian. Pictures of boats, of animals and men, decorating pieces of pottery, throw light upon this early civilization.
From all remains recovered in tombs antedating the year 4000 B.C. the following conclusions have been reached: these primitive people reached considerable skill in the making of pottery and stone receptacles. From copper they made knives and implements; they built very fair river boats, wove coarse fabrics, although skins of wild animals usually constituted their clothing: they hunted and fished and were to some extent an agricultural people. At this remote time Egypt was not the one united country it later became. It was composed of nomes, or districts, of which the late lists give 22 for Upper and 20 for Lower Egypt. Their number probably varied considerably during the course of Egyptian history. In early times each nome probably had been the home of an independent tribe, having its own chief and its own religious customs. Gradually, however, powerful chieftains conquered other nomes, until just before our written records begin, the two more or less compact kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt were established. Throughout Egyptian history each locality held to its peculiar religious beliefs, and although there was always a state religion and a state god, dearer to the hearts of men were the deities of their own vicinity; and it is possible to trace several religions in the one composite system of later years.
By 4300 B.C. the men of the Delta had divided the year into 365 days, and again into twelve months of thirty days each, with five extra days for sacred festival. For six thousand years, then, the calendar which we use has experienced little change. Take it all in all, the Egyptians of this age had traveled far from the state of savagery.
