But the writing which appeared without antecedents at the beginning of the First Dynasty was by no means primitive. It has, in fact, a complex structure. It includes three different classes of signs: ideograms, phonetic signs, and determinatives.[189] This is precisely the same state of complexity which had been reached in Mesopotamia at an advanced stage of the Protoliterate period. There, however, a more primitive stage is known in the earliest tablets, which used only ideograms. To deny, therefore, that Egyptian and Mesopotamian systems of writing are related amounts to maintaining that Egypt invented independently a complex and not very consistent system at the very moment of being influenced in its art and architecture by Mesopotamia where a precisely similar system had just been developed from a more primitive stage. To state this view is, of course, to reject it.
But, again, the Egyptians did not copy the Mesopotamian system slavishly; they were merely stimulated to develop a script of their own, once the notion that language could be rendered graphically had been conveyed. The writing signs—the “hieroglyphs”—which they invented have nothing at all in common with the Mesopotamian signs. They depict Egyptian objects; they depict them faithfully; and they remain to the end exact pictures in the majority of cases. In Mesopotamia the tendency to use abstract symbols was strong from the beginning, and prevailed at an early date. And before the middle of the third millennium even the pictograms had lost all trace of semblance to the objects they originally rendered ([Fig. 13]). This contrast between the Egyptian and Mesopotamian scripts undoubtedly has a twofold cause. The Egyptians always loved the pictorial rather than the abstract and had a strong inclination towards the concrete. This tendency (which also prevented them from distorting animal forms for the sake of ornamental schemes) made them adopt and retain minute images as writing signs. But, in the second place, writing was at first used in Egypt for a purpose different from that to which the Mesopotamians put it. In Mesopotamia writing was invented to serve the practical needs of administration. In Egypt it was used, at first, as an element of monumental art, in the form of legends added to reliefs (Figs. [26], [27], [28]).
The legends fixed the identity of the figures in the reliefs which could be made explicit only by the adding of names and titles. But once writing was introduced, it was—in Egypt also—used for practical purposes; and this required a shorter and more cursive script. In the tomb of Djet, the fourth king of the First Dynasty, a note in cursive script has been discovered;[190] and it has been pointed out[191] that documents must have been in common use in the Second Dynasty since the sign of the papyrus roll, tied up and sealed, is used from then on. For monumental inscriptions, however, the pictorial hieroglyphs were used even under the Roman emperors.
In view of the doubt which persists in many quarters, it seems worth while to represent the evidence for Mesopotamian influence in Egypt at about 3000 B.C.—excluding writing—in a table which shows that we are confronted, not by a few random resemblances, but by a group of related phenomena. And this is, in fact, corroborated by the observation that the foreign features in Egypt all derive from one and the same phase of Mesopotamian civilization, namely, the later part of the Protoliterate period.[192] Now this phase (formerly called after Jamdat Nasr) represents an age of expansion: a richly equipped temple was built at Brak in Northern Syria (see above, [p. 84]); Mesopotamian tablets were found not only at Susa in Elam but at Sialk near Kashan in Central Persia ([Fig. 51]); and Mesopotamian cylinders were found, not only at the places mentioned just now, but as far afield as Cappadocia and Troy. At a time when Mesopotamian influence radiated in all directions it was but natural that it should touch Egypt also. Thus the traces of Mesopotamian arts and crafts which we find in pre- and protodynastic Egypt represent but one more manifestation of the expansion of Mesopotamia during the latter part of the Protoliterate period.
MESOPOTAMIAN INFLUENCE IN PRE- AND PROTODYNASTIC EGYPT
I. EVIDENCE OUTSIDE THE FIELD OF ART. A. Mesopotamian Objects found in Egypt. 1. Three cylinder seals of the late Protoliterate period. B. Mesopotamian Usages temporarily adopted in Egypt. 1. Sealing with engraved cylinders. 2. Recessed brick building for monumental purposes. C. Mesopotamian Objects depicted on Egyptian Monuments. 1. Costume, on the Gebel el Arak knife-handle. 2. Scalloped battle-axe on fragment of late predynastic stone vase.[193] 3. Ships, on Gebel el Arak knife-handle, “decorated” vases, and ivory labels of First Dynasty.[194] II. EVIDENCE IN THE FIELD OF ART. A. Mesopotamian Motifs depicted in Egypt. 1. Composite animals, especially winged griffins and serpent-necked felines, on palettes and knife-handles. 2. Group of hero dominating two lions, on Gebel el Arak knife-handle and in tomb at Hierakonpolis. 3. Pairs of entwined animals, on knife-handles and Narmer palette. B. Mesopotamian peculiarities of Style apparent in Egypt. 1. Antithetical group, on knife-handles and palettes. 2. Group of carnivore attacking impassive prey, on knife-handles. 3. Drawing of musculature, on Gebel el Arak knife-handle.
It would, however, be an error to see the birth of Egyptian civilization as a consequence of contact with Mesopotamia. The signs of change accumulating towards the end of the predynastic age are too numerous and the outcome of the change is too emphatically Egyptian in its general character and its particulars to allow us to speak of derivation or dependence. In fact, Mesopotamian influence can be entirely discounted—except in the field of writing—without altering in any essential respect the outcome of the change. We have said elsewhere that there is no necessity to assume Mesopotamian influence in order to explain the development of Pharaonic civilization, but it so happens that we have evidence that such influence was, in fact, exercised. We observe that Egypt, in a period of intensified creativity, became acquainted with the achievements of Mesopotamia; that it was stimulated; and that it adapted to its own rapid development such elements as seemed compatible with its efforts. It mostly transformed what it borrowed and after a time rejected even these modified derivations.
It is unfortunate that we cannot yet answer the question where and how contact between Egypt and Mesopotamia was established. We only know the time at which it took place. The signs of Sumerian influence point, one and all, to the Protoliterate period in Mesopotamia, and more especially to the latter half of that period; and they appear in Egypt towards the end of the Gerzean period and during the very beginning of the First Dynasty. This is, of course, an invaluable synchronism, even though it is still impossible to express it in exact dates. It may also have a bearing on the question in which locality contact was established.
In Egypt, signs of contact with Sumer almost cease after Narmer’s reign; and since contact with Syria increased rather than diminished during the First Dynasty, it seems unlikely that the Mesopotamian influences reached Egypt from the north. The argument is not conclusive; we have seen that Sumerian culture moved upstream along the Tigris and Euphrates, and that a great temple was built at Brak on the Khabur in North Syria in Protoliterate times. But in Syria we do not find signs that native culture was deeply affected by contact with Sumer. This may be due to the incompleteness of our evidence; or it may be that Syrian culture was so unprogressive that it could not profit from such contact in the way Egypt demonstrably did. But before we accept this view we must consider an alternative.
It is possible that the Egyptians came into contact with Mesopotamia in the south, on the route which led from the Red Sea, past Southern Arabia, to the Persian Gulf. There are two arguments against this assumption: it has no analogy in historical times; and there is absolutely no sign of contact with Egypt to be found in Mesopotamia. But it is possible that the meeting-place was a region along the southern route, outside Sumer. In both Sumerian and Egyptian temples censing with aromatics was usual. In the time of Herodotus, frankincense was used for this purpose in Babylon, but we do not know at what date this was first introduced. In Egypt frankincense was known very early; if that holds good for Sumer also, contact might have been established in the regions from which frankincense was obtained—Southern Arabia or the Somali coast. There missions might have met, or middlemen might have acquainted Egyptians with Sumerian achievements. We know that the route to the Red Sea from Egypt—through the Wadi Hammamat—was used at a very early date. Archaic statues of the god Min were found at Koptos at the Egyptian end of that route.[195] They belong to the end of the Gerzean period or to the First Dynasty, and bear designs scratched on their sides which include the sword of the swordfish and pteroceras shells, found in the Red Sea. But the bearing of these facts upon the question where contact between Egypt and Sumer took place must remain, for the moment, a matter of surmise.