HYKSOS SPHYNX. (From photograph by Naville in Harper's Magazine.)
Manetho assigns seventy-five kings and 484 years to the fourteenth dynasty, and it is to this period that a good deal of uncertainty attaches, for there are no monuments, and nothing to confirm Manetho's lists, except a number of unknown names of kings of the dynasty enumerated among the royal ancestors in the Papyrus of Turin. If Manetho's figures are correct, the period must have been one of anarchy and civil war, for the average duration of each reign is less than six and a half years, while that of the twelfth and other well-known historical dynasties exceeds thirty years. The same remark applies to the thirteenth dynasty, the reigns of whose sixty kings average only seven and a half years each, and it is probable that the end of this dynasty and the whole of the fourteenth was a period of anarchy, during which so-called kings rose and fell in rapid succession, as in the case of our own dynasties of Lancaster and York, and the annals are so confused that the dates are unreliable. What is certain is that the great Middle Empire sank rapidly into a state of anarchy and impotence, which prepared the way for a great catastrophe. This catastrophe came in the form of an invasion of foreigners, who, about the year 2000 b.c., broke through the eastern frontier of the Delta, and apparently without much resistance, conquered the whole of Lower Egypt up to Memphis, and reduced the princes of the Upper Provinces to a state of vassalage. the princes of the Upper Provinces to a state of vassalage. There is considerable doubt who these invaders were, who were known as Hyksos or Shepherd Kings. They consisted probably, mainly of nomad tribes of Canaanites, Arabians, and other Semitic races, but the Turanian Hittites seem to have been associated with them, and the leaders to have been Turanian, judging from the portrait-statues of two of the later kings of the Hyksos dynasty which have been recently discovered by Naville at Bubastis, and which are unmistakably Turanian and even Chinese in type. Our information as to this Hyksos conquest is derived mainly from fragments of Manetho quoted by Josephus, and from traditions repeated by Herodotus, and is very vague and imperfect. But this much seems certain, that at first the Hyksos acted as savage barbarians, burning cities, demolishing temples, and massacring part of the population and reducing the rest to slavery. But, as in the parallel case of the Tartar conquest of China, as time went on they adopted the superior civilization of their subjects, and the later kings were transformed into genuine Pharaohs, differing but little from those of the old national dynasties. This is conclusively proved by the discoveries recently made at Tanis and Bubastis, which have revealed important monuments of this dynasty. At Tanis an avenue of sphynxes was discovered, copied evidently from those at Thebes and from the Great Sphynx at Gizeh, with lion bodies and human heads, the latter with a different head-dress from the Egyptian, and a different type of feature. At Bubastis two colossal statues of Hyksos kings, with their heads broken off, but one of them nearly perfect, were unexpectedly discovered by Naville in 1887, and it was proved that they had stood on each side of the entrance to an addition made by those kings to the ancient and celebrated temple of the Egyptian goddess Bast, thus proving that the Hyksos had adopted not only the civilization but also the religion of the Egyptian nation. There are but few inscriptions known of the Hyksos dynasty, for their cartouches have generally been effaced, and those of later kings chiselled over them; but enough remains to show that they were in the hieroglyphic character, and the names of two or three of their kings can still be deciphered, among which are two Apepis, the second probably the last of the dynasty. It was probably under one of these Hyksos kings that Joseph came to Egypt, and the tribes of Israel settled on its eastern frontier. The duration of the Hyksos rule is thus left in some uncertainty. Manetho, if correctly quoted by Josephus, says they ruled over Egypt for 511 years, though his lists only show one dynasty of 259 years, and then the Theban dynasty, who reigned over Upper Egypt for 260 years contemporaneously with Hyksos kings in Lower Egypt. We regain, however, firm historical ground with the rise of the eighteenth Theban dynasty of native Egyptian kings, who finally expelled the Hyksos, after a long war, and founded what is known as the New Empire. The date of this event is fixed by the best authorities at about 1750 b.c., and from this time downwards we have an uninterrupted succession of undoubted historical records, confirmed by contemporary monuments and by the annals of other nations, down to the Christian era. The reaction which followed the expulsion of the Hyksos led to campaigns in Asia on a great scale, in which Egypt came into collision with powerful nations, and for a long time was the dominant power in Western Asia, extending its conquests from the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea and Mediterranean, and receiving tribute from Babylon and Nineveh. Then followed wars, waged on more equal terms, with the Hittites, who had founded a great empire in Asia Minor and Syria; and as their power declined and that of Assyria rose, with the long series of warlike Assyrian monarchs, who gradually obtained the ascendency, and not only stripped Egypt of its foreign conquests, but on more than one occasion invaded its territory and captured its principal cities. It is during this period that we find the first of the certain synchronisms between Egyptian history and the Old Testament, beginning with the capture of Jerusalem by Shishak in the reign of Rehoboam, and ending with the captivity of the Jews and temporary conquest of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar. Then came the Persian conquest by Cambyses and alternate periods of national independence and of Persian rule, until the conquest of Alexander and the establishment of the dynasty of the Ptolemies, which lasted until the reign of Cleopatra, and ended finally by the annexation of Egypt as a province of the Roman Empire.
The history of this long period is extremely interesting, as showing what may be called the commencement of the modern era of great wars, and of the rise and fall of civilized empires; but for the present purpose I only refer to it as helping to establish the chronological standard which I am in search of as a measuring-rod to gauge the duration of historical time. We may sum up the conclusions derived from Manetho's lists and the monuments as follows:—
Manetho's lists, as they have come down to us, show a date of 5867 years b.c. for the accession of Menes. Of this period, we may say that we know 1750 years for the New Empire and the period of the Persians and the Ptolemies, from contemporary monuments and records, with such certainty that any possible error cannot exceed fifty or one hundred years. The Hyksos period is less certain, but there is no sufficient reason for doubting that it may have lasted for about 511 years. Manetho could have had no object in overstating the duration of the rule of hated foreigners, and a long time must have elapsed before the rude invaders could have so completely adopted the civilization of the subject race. The dates of the Middle Empire, to which Manetho assigns 1241 years, are more uncertain, and we can only check them by monuments for the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth dynasties. The length of the fourteenth Xoite dynasty seems to be exaggerated, and the later obscure Theban dynasties may have been contemporary with the rule of the Hyksos in Lower Egypt. Of the 2105 years assigned to the Ancient Empire, the first 1645 from Menes to the end of the sixth dynasty are well authenticated by monuments and inscriptions, and the 460 for the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth are obscure, though a considerable time must have elapsed for such a complete eclipse of the monuments and arts as appears to have occurred between the nourishing period of the sixth dynasty and the revival of the Middle Empire under the eleventh. We may say, therefore, that we have about 4000 years of undoubted history between the accession of Menes and the Christian era, and 1600 more years for which we have only the authority of Manetho's lists, and the names of unknown kings in genealogical records, with a few scattered monuments, and to which it is difficult to assign specific dates. This may enable us to appreciate the nature of the evidence upon which Mariette and so many of the best and oldest authorities base their estimates in assigning a date of about 5000 b.c. for the accession of Menes.
The glimpses of light into the prehistoric stages of Egyptian civilization prior to Menes are few and far between. We are told that before the consolidation of the Empire by Menes, Egypt was divided into a number of separate nomes or provinces, each gathered about its own independent city and temple, and ruled by the Horsheshu or servants of Horus, who were apparently the chief priests of the respective temples, combining with the character of priest that of king, or local ruler. Parts of the Todtenbuch or Sacred Book of the Dead certainly date from this period, and the great Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis had been founded, for we are told that certain prehistoric Heliopolitan hymns formed the basis of the sacred books of a later age. At Edfu the later temple occupies the site of a very ancient structure, traditionally said to date back to the mythic reign of the gods, and to have been built according to a plan designed by Nuhotef the son of Pthah. At Denderah an inscription found by Mariette in one of the crypts of the great temple, expressly identifies the earliest sanctuary built upon the spot with the time of the Horsheshu. It reads, "There was found the great fundamental ordinance of Denderah, written upon goatskin in ancient writing of the time of the Horsheshu. It was found in the inside of a brick wall during the reign of King Pepi (i.e. Pepi-Merira of the sixth dynasty). The name of Chufu, the king of the fourth dynasty, who built the great pyramid, was found by Naville in a restoration of part of the famous temple of Bubastis, and its foundation doubtless dates back to the same prehistoric period.
But the most important prehistoric monuments are those connected with the great Sphynx. An inscription of Chufu (Cheops) preserved in the museum of Boulak, says that a temple adjoining the Sphynx was discovered by chance in his reign, which had been buried under the sand of the desert, and forgotten for many generations. This temple was uncovered by Mariette, and found to be constructed of enormous blocks of granite of Syene and of alabaster, supported by square pillars, each of a single block of stone, without any mouldings or ornaments, and no trace of hieroglyphics. It is, in fact, a sort of transition from the rude dolmen to scientific architecture. But the masonry, and still more the transport of such enormous blocks from Syene to the plateau of the desert at Gizeh, show a great advance already attained in the resources of the country and the state of the industrial arts. The Sphynx itself probably dates from the same period, for it is mentioned on the same inscription as being much older than the great Pyramids, and requiring repairs in the time of Chufu. It is a gigantic work consisting of a natural rock sculptured into the form of a lion's body, to which a human head has been added, built up of huge blocks of hewn stone. It is directed accurately towards the east so as to face the rising sun at the equinox, and was an image of Hormachen, the Sun of the Lower World, which traverses the abode of the dead. In addition to the direct evidence for its prehistoric antiquity, it is certain that if such a monument had been erected by any of the historical kings, it would have been inscribed with hieroglyphics, and the fact recorded in Manetho's lists and contemporary records, whereas all tradition of its origin seems to have been lost in the night of ages.
Although there are no monuments of the Stone Age in Egypt like those of the Swiss lake villages and Danish kitchen-middens, to enable us to trace in detail the progress of arts and civilization from rude commencements through the neolithic and prehistoric ages, yet there is abundant evidence to show that the same stages had been traversed in the valley of the Nile long prior to the time of Menes. Borings have been made on various occasions and at various localities through the alluvial deposits of the Nile valley, from which fragments of pottery have been brought up from depths which show a high antiquity. Horner sunk ninety-six shafts in four rows at intervals of eight miles, across the valley of the Nile, at right angles to the river near Memphis, and brought up pottery from various depths, which, at the known rate of deposit of the Nile mud of about three inches per century, indicate an antiquity of at least 11,000 years. In another boring a copper knife was brought up from a depth of twenty-four feet, and pottery, from sixty feet below the surface. This is specially interesting, as making it probable that here, as in many other countries, an age of copper preceded that of bronze, while a depth of sixty feet at the normal rate of deposit would imply an antiquity of 26,000 years. Borings, however, are not very conclusive, as it is always open to contend that they may have been made at spots where, owing to some local circumstances, the deposit was much more rapid than the average.
These objections, however, cannot apply to the evidence which has been afforded by the discovery of flint implements, both of the neolithic and palæolithic type, in many localities and by various skilled observers. Professor Haynes found, a few miles east of Cairo, not only a number of flint implements of the types usual in Europe, but an actual workshop or manufactory where they had been made, showing that they had not been imported, but produced in the country in the course of its native development. He also found multitudes of worked flints of the ordinary neolithic and palæolithic types scattered on the hills near Thebes. Lenormant and Hamy saw the same workshop and remains of the stone period, and various other finds have been reported by other observers. Finally, General Pitt-Rivers and Professor Haynes found well-developed palæolithic implements of the. St. Acheul type, not only on the surface and in superficial deposits, but from six and a half to ten feet deep in hard stratified gravel at Djebel-Assas, near Thebes, in a terrace on the side of one of the ravines falling from the Libyan desert into the Nile valley, which was certainly deposited in early quaternary ages by a torrent pouring down from a plateau where, under existing geographical and climatic conditions, rain seldom or never falls. These relics, as Mr. Campbell says, who was associated with General Pitt-Rivers in the discovery, are "beyond calculation older than the oldest Egyptian temples and tombs," and they certainly go far to prove that the high civilization of Egypt at the earliest dawn of history or tradition had been a plant of extremely slow growth from a state of provincial savagery.