PYRAMIDS OF GIZEH AND SPHYNX. (From Champollion's Egypt.)
It is singular that this extremely ancient period is the one of which, although the oldest, we know most, for the monuments, the papyri, and especially the tombs in the great cemeteries of Sakkarah and Ghizeh, give us the fullest details of the political and social life of Egypt during the fourth, fifth, and sixth dynasties, with sufficient information as to the three first dynasties to check and confirm the lists of Manetho. We really know the life of Memphis 6000 years ago better than we do that of London under the Saxon kings, or of Paris under the descendants of Clovis.
The sixth dynasty was succeeded by a period which seems to have been one of civil war and anarchy, during which there was a complete cessation of monuments; or, if they existed, they have not yet been discovered. The probable duration of this eclipse of Egyptian records is somewhat uncertain, as we cannot be sure, in the absence of monuments, that the four dynasties of short reigns assigned to the interval between the sixth and the eleventh dynasties by Manetho, and the numerous names of unknown kings on the tablets, were successive sovereigns who reigned over united Egypt, or local chiefs who got possession of power in different parts of the Empire. All we can see is that the supremacy of Memphis declined, and that its last great dynasty was replaced, either in whole or in part, by a rebellion in Upper Egypt which introduced two dynasties whose seat was at Heracleopolis on the Middle Nile, In any case the duration of this period must have been very long, for the eclipse was very complete, and when we once more find ourselves in the presence of records in the eleventh dynasty, the seat of empire is established at Thebes, and the state of the arts, religion, and civilization are different and much ruder than they were at the close of the great Memphite Empire with the sixth dynasty. Mariette says, "When Egypt, with the eleventh dynasty, awoke from its long sleep, the ancient traditions were forgotten. The proper names of the kings and ancient nobility, the titles of the high functionaries, the style of the hieroglyphic writing, and even the religion, all seemed new. The monuments are rude, primitive, and sometimes even barbarous, and to see them one would be inclined to think that Egypt under the eleventh dynasty was beginning again the period of infancy which it had already passed through 1500 years earlier under the third." The tomb of one of these kings of the eleventh dynasty, Entef I., is remarkable as showing on a funeral pillar the sportsman-king surrounded by his four favourite dogs, whose names are given, and which are of different breeds, from a large greyhound to a small turnspit.
However, the chronology of this eleventh dynasty is well attested, its kings are known, and under them Upper and Lower Egypt were once more consolidated into a single state, forming what is known as the Middle Empire. Under the twelfth dynasty, which succeeded it, this Empire bloomed rapidly into one of the greatest and most glorious periods of Egyptian history. The dynasty only lasted for 213 years, under seven kings, whose names were all either Amenemes or Osirtasen; but during their reigns the frontiers of Egypt were extended far to the south, Nubia was incorporated with the Empire, and Egyptian influence extended over the whole Soudan, and perhaps nearly to the equator on the one hand, and over Southern Syria on the other. But the dynasty was still more famous for the arts of peace.
One of the greatest works of hydraulic engineering which the world has seen was carried out by Amenemes III., who took advantage of a depression in the desert limestone near the basin of Fayoum, to form a large artificial lake connected with the Nile by canals, tunnelled through rocky ridges and provided with sluices, so as to admit the water when the river rose too high, and let it out when it fell too low, and thus regulate the inundation of a great part of Middle and Lower Egypt, independently of the seasons. Connected with this Lake Mœris was the famous Labyrinth, which Herodotus pronounced to be a greater wonder than even the great Pyramid. It was a vast square building erected on a small plateau on the east side of the lake, constructed of blocks of granite which must have been brought from Syene, with a façade of white limestone; and containing in the interior a vast number of small square chambers and vaults—Herodotus says 3000—each roofed with a single large slab of stone, and connected by narrow passages, so intricate that a stranger entering without a clue would be infallibly lost. The object seems to have been to provide a safe repository for statues of gods and kings and other precious objects. In the centre was a court containing twelve hypostyle chapels, six facing the south and six the north, and at the north angle of the square was a pyramid of brick faced with stone forming the tomb of Amenemes III.
In addition to this colossal work, the kings of this dynasty built and restored many of the most famous temples and erected statues and obelisks, among the latter the one now standing at Heliopolis. It was also an age of great literary activity, and the biographies of many of the priests, nobles, and high officers, inscribed on their tombs and recorded in papyri, give us the most minute knowledge of the history and social life of this remote period.
The prosperity of Egypt during the Middle Empire was continued under the thirteenth dynasty of sixty Theban kings, to whom Manetho assigns the period of 453 years. Less is known of this period than of the great twelfth dynasty which preceded it, but a sufficient number of monuments have been preserved to confirm the general accuracy of Manetho's statements. A colossal statue of the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth king, Sevckhotef VI., found on the island of Argo near Dongola, shows that the frontier fixed by the conquests of Amenemes at Semneh, had not only been maintained, but extended nearly fifty leagues to the south into the heart of Ethiopia; and another statue found at Tanis shows that the rule of this dynasty was firmly established in Lower Egypt. But the scarcity of the monuments, and the inferior execution of the works of art, show that this long dynasty was one of gradual decline, and the rise of the next or fourteenth dynasty at Xois, transferring the seat of power from Thebes to the Delta, points to civil wars and revolutions.
FELLAH WOMAN AND HEAD OF SECOND HYKSOS STATUE. (From photograph by Naville in Harper's Magazine.)