Material for History of Early Times
It is naturally a question what sort of material existed for an accurate history of the early times. The fragment of annals known as the Palermo Stone was engraved in the fifth dynasty, and it recorded the principal events of all the years back to the beginning of the kingdom, a thousand years before, the height of the Nile for every year, the length of every king’s reign and of interregnum to the exact days. With such a record of the most remote times carefully maintained we have every reason to suppose that the high-priests and sacred scribes had adequate information as to the general course of their history. And we can see by the Turin papyrus how in the eighteenth dynasty there was a full historical list of all the kings, with their length of reigns, dynasties, and summations of numbers and years at each of the large divisions. Thus it is proved that there were historians at various periods who compiled and edited the history, and so provided a solid groundwork for later writers, such as Manetho.
A RECORD OF EVENTS IN 4750 B.C.
A part of early annals known as the Palermo Stone. Each compartment contains the events of one year, with the height of the Nile in cubits stated below it. The lower right division records: “Building of a ship 170 feet long, and of 60 ships 100 feet long. Conquest of negroes, bringing 4,000 men, 3,000 women, and 200,000 cattle. Building a wall of the palaces of King Sneferu. Bringing 40 ships of cedar (from Syria).” The left division reads: “Making 35 hunting lodges and 122 tanks for cattle. Building a ship of cedar 170 feet long, and two other ships of 170 feet. 7th census of cattle.”
The Witness to Early Civilisation
The materials that we have for studying the civilisation of the early dynasties are the royal tombs and steles, the tablets of the annals, the sealings of officials, the inscribed stone bowls, glazed pottery, ivory, and wood, the rock steles of Sinai, fragments of buildings of the second dynasty and onward, the steles of private persons and their graves.
In the Kings’ Tombs
ROYAL TOMBS. The tombs show that brickwork was familiar on a large scale. The prehistoric houses and tomb chambers were by no means slight. The town at Naqada has house-walls about two feet thick, and a town wall nearly eight feet thick. The brick-lined tombs are sometimes as large as 8 ft. by 12 ft. The kings’ tombs of Dynasty O are about 10 ft. by 20 ft. Those of Narmer, Sma, and Mena are about 17 ft. by 26 ft., with walls 5 ft. to 7 ft. thick. Under Zer there is a great extension; the brick pit is 39 ft. by 43 ft.; it contained a wooden chamber 28 ft. by 34 ft., and it was surrounded by many rows of graves—318 in all. The later tombs of the first dynasty are less imposing. At the end of the second dynasty the tomb of Khasekhemui consisted of fifty-eight chambers covering a ground 223 ft. long and 40 ft. wide. The sizes of bricks were between 9 in. and 10 in. long, half as wide, and under 3 in. thick, in the prehistoric and through the first and second dynasties. Wood was used on a large scale. The royal tombs show beams for framing of about 10 in. wide and 7 in. deep, and 18 ft. or 20 ft. long, and these beams supported chamber sides and floors formed of planks 2 in. or 3 in. thick. The roof was made of similar beams, covered with boards and mats, which sustained 3 ft. or 4 ft. of sand laid over the tomb. Such was an extension of the roofs of poles and brushwood which were laid over the prehistoric tombs, and over the lesser tombs of the officials of the early kings. The sign for royal architect in the earliest inscriptions is that of a carpenter, the “two-axe man.”
The stone steles were of limestone in the first dynasty, and in the end of the first dynasty the steles of Oa are of black quartzose stone. Those of Perabsen in the second dynasty are of very tough syenite. The carving of all these is in high relief, finely and boldly cut in a simple, clear style. At the end of the second dynasty a stone-built chamber appears for the first time; the blocks have naturally cloven surfaces so far as possible, and the rest of the faces are dressed with a flint adze. Of the same reign of Khasekhemui there is a granite door-jamb with signs in high relief. Granite had already been wrought flat for pavements in the previous dynasty, at the tomb of Den.