A represents the early Osiris and Isis worshippers; B the first dominance of Set; C the second irruption of Set; D and E the allied Osiris and Isis worshippers of the Delta and coast who helped to expel Set; and F the hawk Horus worshippers, who took the lead in driving out B and C by alliance with A, D and E.
Earliest Promise of Greatness
DYNASTIC RACE. The most essential difference between the prehistoric and the dynastic people is in their artistic capacity. The earlier peoples, though highly skilled in mechanical detail and handling, were yet very crude in their copying of any natural forms. But as soon as we reach the dynastic race we find that there is an artistic sense and power in their work, which puts even the roughest of it far above all that had gone before. The earliest examples of their sculpture appear to be the colossal figures of the god Min, found at Koptos. These are of the most primitive style possible, the limbs scarcely marked off from the trunk, and no details of form attempted. But on the side of each there is a patch of hammer-work outlining some figures, perhaps a copy of embroideries on a skin pouch hung at the side. These are figures of a deer’s head and pteroceras shells on one, swordfish, shells, and standards of the god on another, and the same objects, together with an ostrich, elephant, hyena, and calf on the third. All are but roughly hammered round, yet the spirit and correct forms of the animals are of an entirely different order from anything that had yet appeared in Egypt. The promise of all the artistic triumphs of thousands of years to come is clearly seen in these decorations of the rudest statues known.
Mystery of Dynastic Race
The source of this dynastic race can only be inferred. Though marked off from the earlier inhabitants by their artistic taste, and by their use of hieroglyphic writing, we know so very little of the early history of any other lands near Egypt that we cannot yet trace any link to their original source. On looking in various directions, it seems at least clear that they do not belong to the southern tribes, to which they have no resemblance; nor can we suppose that the Libyans, who appear to be one with the prehistoric people, would also supply a race so different in face and in habits. The north and Syria seem barred by the earliest centres being at Abydos and Hierakonpolis in the south of Egypt, from which they conquered the north.
THE FIRST PROMISE OF THE ARTISTIC TRIUMPHS OF EGYPT
These animal figures were wrought by hammering around on the surface of the colossal statue of the god Min, found at Koptos, and show the beginning of the wonderful art of Ancient Egypt. It is the work of the earliest dynastic people, who have passed beyond the stage of making rude scratches on walls and on pottery, and have arrived, as the figures of the ox and the hyæna prove, at a real conception of the methods of sculpture.
The Way the Conquerors Came
Lastly, no source seems open except the East, the road from which joined the Nile at Koptos. It is there that the earliest statues have been found, and the decoration on those comprises the swordfish and pteroceras shell belonging to the Red Sea. Such seems to have been the road of the dynastic race into Egypt; but the origin of that race yet awaits research. There are undoubtedly some Babylonian elements in their culture, and somewhere at the south end of the Red Sea lay Punt—the “divine land” of the Egyptians. Thus we are tempted to look to some migration from Southern Arabia, whence also may have proceeded the kindred Sumerian culture, a few centuries later. From this centre in Pūn, or Punt, it may have conquered and colonised Egypt, and then later passed on up the Red Sea to the coast of the Pœni and their later Punic colony—Phœnicia and Carthage. Such is a pleasing co-ordination, but whether we shall ever recover the evidence to prove or disprove it hangs upon the chance of the past and the activity of the future.