EGYPTIAN HISTORY IN OUTLINE
A PRELIMINARY SURVEY COMPRISING A CURSORY VIEW OF THE SOURCES OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY, THE SWEEP OF EVENTS, AND A TABLE OF CHRONOLOGY
Until somewhat recently it has been customary to think of Egyptian history as constituting a single uniform period. Before our generation it was quite impossible for any one to realise the extreme length of time which this history involves; or if a certain few did realise it, a consensus of opinion among the many forbade the acceptance of their estimate. Now, however, limitations of time are no longer a bugbear to the historian, and we are coming to realise the full import of the fact that when one speaks of historic Egypt he is referring to an epoch at least four thousand years in extent. Prior to the nineteenth century discoveries, the historian had only the most meagre supply of material dealing with any epoch prior to that age of the Trojan War which marked the extreme limits of the historic view in Greece; but now we understand that the men who built the Pyramids in Egypt were at least as far removed from Homer as Homer is removed from us: and it is but the expression of an historical platitude to say that a vast stretch of Egyptian history must lie back of the Pyramids; for no one any longer supposes that a people recently emerged from barbarism could have created such structures.
Throughout classical times very little was known of the history of Egypt, except what was contained in the fragmentary remains of Manetho and the more lengthy descriptions of Herodotus and Diodorus. There were other references, of course, but for anything like a comprehensive knowledge of the history of the country it would have been necessary to understand the Egyptian language and decipher the hieroglyphics; and no person throughout classical times had such understanding.
There were practically no additions to the world’s knowledge of ancient Egyptian history from classical times till about the beginning of the nineteenth century. The stimulus to the new knowledge that was then acquired came about chiefly through the Egyptian expedition of Napoleon. The French expedition included various scientists who made a concerted effort to study the antiquities, and to transport as many of them as might be to Paris. In the latter regard the expedition failed, as in some more important particulars, through the interference of the British, with the result that some of the most important antiquities, including the since famous Rosetta stone, found their way to the British Museum. A large amount of material, however, was transported to Paris, and gave occupation to the savants of France for about a generation before the final publication of results in a monumental work.
But before this publication, thanks to the efforts of Thomas Young in England, and Champollion in France, the hieroglyphics had been deciphered, and at last the almost inexhaustible word treasures of Egypt were made available as witnesses for history. Very naturally, a large number of explorers entered the field, and from that day till this there has been no dearth of Egyptologists either in the field of exploration or of interpretation. Prominent among these in the first half of the century were the pupils of Champollion, the Italians, Rossellini and Salvolini. But the most important work, perhaps, was done by the German, Lepsius, who came to be recognised as the foremost Egyptologist of his time, and whose Denkmäler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien is still one of the most monumental works on the subject. In England, Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson took up the study of Egyptian life in particular, and deduced from the inscriptions of the monuments and from the pictures a comprehensive understanding of Egyptian manners and customs. The various workers at the British Museum, beginning with Birch and continuing with Renouf and with E. A. Wallis Budge, have added an ever increasing complement to our knowledge of Egyptian archæology.
The country of Champollion has been ably represented in more recent time by Mariette and Maspero; while in Germany, Dümichen, Meyer, and Wiedemann have worked and written exhaustively, the former with special reference to archæology, the two latter with reference to history. But no one else perhaps has given quite such attention to the language of old Egypt as Professor Adolf Erman. The field that Wilkinson occupied earlier in the century has also been entered by Professor Erman, and the most recent and authoritative studies of Egyptian manners and customs are those that he has deduced from the papyri and the monumental inscriptions. Wilkinson depended largely upon pictorial representations for his information, but Erman has been able to go beyond these to the subtler and sometimes more illuminative written records.
As to the early history of Egypt, no one else has made such exhaustive studies as Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie, whose publications cover a wide range, from the most technical to the relatively popular. For a strictly popular presentation of the subject, however, the works of George Ebers, of Baron Bunsen, and of Amelia B. Edwards should be consulted, together with the books of Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson and the works of Professor Adolf Erman.
A more comprehensive account of these writers and their labours, together with reasonably complete bibliographies of the entire subject, will be found at the close of the history of Egypt. The character of the materials with which the Egyptologists have worked in creating a new history of one of the oldest civilisations, will be revealed as we proceed.