The view that we now have of the rise and decay of this great civilization and its connection with other lands is more complete and far-reaching than that of any other country. In the early undated age, before the monarchy which began about 4800 B. C., a flourishing civilization was spread over upper Egypt. Towns were built of brick, as in later times; clothing was made of woven linen and of leather; pottery was most skilfully formed, without the potter’s wheel, hand-made, yet of exquisite regularity and beauty of outline, while the variety of form is perhaps greater than in any other land; stone vases were made entirely by hand, without a lathe, as perfect in form as the pottery, and of the hardest rocks, as diorite and granite; wood was carved for furniture; the art of colored glazing was common, and was even applied to glazing over large carvings in rock crystal; ornaments and beads were wrought of various stones and precious metals; ivory combs with carved figures adorned the hair; ivory spoons were used at the table; finely formed weapons and tools of copper served where strength was needful, while more useful were flint knives and lances which were wrought with a miraculous finish that has never been reached by any other people; and games were played with dainty pieces made of hard stone and of ivory. But all this tasteful skill of 6000–5000 B. C. had its negative side; in the artistic copying of nature the mechanical skill of these people carried them a very little way; their figures and heads of men and animals are strangely crude. And they had no system of writing, although marks were commonly used. They always buried the body doubled up, and often preserved the head and hands separately. Commerce was already active, and large rowing-galleys carried the wares of different countries around the Mediterranean. These people were the same as the modern Kabyle, of Algeria, and akin to the South European races, but with some negro admixture. Our whole knowledge of this age has only been gained within the last five years.

At about 5000 B. C. there poured into Egypt a very different people, probably from the Red Sea. Having far more artistic taste, a commoner use of metals, a system of writing already begun, and a more organized government, these fresh people started a new civilization in Egypt; adopting readily the art and skill of the earlier race, they formed by their union the peculiar culture known as Egyptian, a type which lasted for four thousand years. The same foundation of a type is seen in the bodily structure; the early historical people had wider heads and more slender noses than the prehistoric, but from 4000 B. C. down to Roman times the form shows no change.

From this union of two able races came one of the finest peoples ever seen, the Egyptians of the old kingdom, 4500—3500 B. C. Full of grand conceptions, active, able, highly mechanical, and yet splendid artists, they have left behind them the greatest masses of building, the most accurate workmanship and exquisite sculptures in the grand pyramids and tombs of their cemeteries. They perfected the art of organizing combined labor on the immense public works. In all these respects no later age or country has advanced beyond this early ability. The moral character and ideas are preserved to us in the writings of these people; and we there read of the ability, reserve, steadfastness, and kindliness which we see reflected in the lifelike portraiture of that age.

After a partial decay about 3000 B. C. this civilization blossomed out again nobly in the twelfth dynasty about 2600 B. C.; though the works of this age hardly reach the high level of the earlier times, yet they are finer than anything that followed them. At this period more contact with other countries is seen; both Syria and the Mediterranean were known, though imperfectly.

To this succeeded another decadence, sealed by the disaster of the foreign invasion of the Hyksos. But this was thrown off by the rise of a third age of brilliance—the eighteenth dynasty, 1500 B. C.—which, though inferior to early times in its highest work, yet shines by the widespread of art and luxury throughout the upper classes. Magnificence became fashionable, and the lower classes contented themselves with most barefaced imitations of costly wares. Foreign islands came closely in contact with Egypt. The ships of the Syrian coast and Cyprus continually traded to and fro, exchanging silver, copper, and precious stones for the gold of Egypt. Greece also traded its fine pottery of the Mycenæan age for the showy necklaces of gold and the rings and amulets with names of Pharaohs. Egypt then dominated the shores of the western Mediterranean, the plains of the Euphrates, and the fertile Soudan. But this power and wealth led to disaster. Like Rome, later on, she could not resist the temptation to live on plunder; heavy tribute of corn was exacted, large numbers were employed in unproductive labor, and national disaster was the natural consequence. Egypt never recovered the dominion or the splendor that were hers in this age. Of this period some slight notions are given us from literary remains in the Bible and Greek authors; but archæology is, so far, our only practical guide, as in the earlier ages. The great temples and monuments of the eighteenth-twentieth dynasties (1600–1100 B. C.) bear hundreds of historical inscriptions, the tombs are covered with scenes of private life, the burials and the ruins of towns furnish us with all the objects of daily use. This age is one of the fullest and richest in all history, and hardly any other is better known even in Greece or Italy. Yet all this has been brought to light in the century, and the knowledge of the foreign relations of Egypt is entirely the result of the last fifteen years.

The final thousand years of the civilization of Egypt is checkered with many changes; sometimes independent, as in the ages of Shishak of Necho, and of the Ptolemies; at other times a prey to Ethiopians, Persians, Greeks, or Romans. Its arts and crafts show a constant decay, and there was but little left to resist the influence of Greek taste and design, which ran a debased course in the country. There was, however, a spread of manufactures and of cheap luxuries into lower and lower classes; and the wealth of the country accumulated under the beneficent rule of the earlier Ptolemies (300–200 B. C.).

The principal discoveries about these later ages have been in the papyri, which have been largely found during the last twenty years. The details of the government and life of the country in the Ptolemaic (305–30 B. C.) and Roman (30 B. C.–640 A. D.) periods have been cleared up; and many prizes of classical literature have also been recovered. The archæology of the Middle Ages in Egypt has also been studied. Many of the Arabic buildings have been recently cleaned and put in good condition, and the splendid collection of manuscripts in Cairo has opened a view of the beautiful art of the thirteenth-fifteenth centuries so closely akin to what was done in Europe at the same time.

Egypt is, then, before all other lands, the country of archæology. A continuous history of seven thousand years, with abundant remains of every period to illustrate it, and a rich prehistoric age before that, give completeness to the study and the fullest value to archæological research.

MESOPOTAMIA

The valley of the Euphrates might well rival that of the Nile if it were scientifically explored, but unhappily all the excavation has been done solely with a view to inscription and sculpture, and no proper record has been made, nor have any towns been examined, the only work being in palaces and temples.