Evelyn Abbott - The History of Antiquity, Vol. 1 (of 6)

So far as our knowledge reaches, the northern edge of Africa, like the valley of the Nile as far as the marshes at the foot of the Abyssinian hills, was inhabited by nations who in colour, language, and customs were sharply distinguished from the negro. These nations belong to the whites: their languages were most closely allied to the Semitic. 1 1 Bunsen, "Ægypten," 5, 1, 75 ff.; Ebers, "Ægypten and die Bücher Moses," p. 43; Renan ("Histoire générale et système comparé des langues Sémitiques") will not admit this close connection. From this, and from their physical peculiarities, the conclusion has been drawn that these nations at some time migrated from Asia to the soil of Africa. They formed a vast family, whose dialects still continue in the language of the Berbers. Assisted by the favourable conditions of their land, the tribe which settled on the Lower Nile quickly left their kinsmen far behind. Indeed the latter hardly rose above a pastoral life. The descendants of these old inhabitants of the valley of the Nile, in spite of the numerous layers which the course of centuries has subsequently laid upon the soil of the land, still form the larger part of the population of Egypt, and the ancient language is preserved in the dialect of the Copts. 2

In the eighteenth century B.C., according to their reckoning, the tradition of the Hebrews presents us with a complete picture of court and civic life in the valley of the Nile, and it tells us of the building of cities in the east of the Delta, which, according to the same computation, must have been founded about the year 1550 B.C. The Homeric poems contain accounts of the land of Ægyptus, of the fair-flowing Zeus-born river of the same name, of the very beautiful fields and cities of Egypt, of princes who fought from their chariots, and finally of "Egyptian Thebes, where in the palaces lie the greatest treasures; a city with a hundred gates, from each of which go forth two hundred men with horses and chariots." They also add "that the fruitful earth bears abundance of drugs in Egypt, some mingled for good, others for evil, and there every one is a physician and has acquaintance with men; they are all sprung from the god of healing." 3

According to the account given by the Greeks the Egyptians boasted to be the oldest of mankind, and to possess the most ancient traditions. 4Their priests believed that they could compute the history of Egypt by thousands of years. When Herodotus was in Egypt about the middle of the fifth century B.C., the priests at Thebes read to him from a book the names of 331 kings who had reigned from Menes, the first ruler of Egypt, and the founder of Memphis, down to Moeris inclusive; among these were eighteen Ethiopians, and one queen; the rest were Egyptians. After Moeris came Sesostris, Pheron, Proteus, Rhampsinitus, Cheops and Chephren, Mycerinus, Asychis, Anysis, Sabakon, and Sethos, so that from Menes to Sethos 341 kings had reigned over Egypt in as many generations. Herodotus remarks that the priests assured him that they had an accurate knowledge of what they said, for the years were always enumerated and put down. To convince him they carried him into the great temple at Thebes and showed him there 345 wooden colossi of the chief priests who had presided over the temple through as many generations, in regular succession from father to son; for every chief priest placed his statue here during his own life-time. Before these kings and chief priests the gods had ruled over Egypt; first the Eight Gods, then the Twelve, then Osiris the Greek Dionysus, after him Typhon, and, last of all, Horus. From the time of King Amasis (570-526 B.C.) to the time of Osiris 15,000 years had passed, but from the time of the Twelve Gods to Amasis 17,000 years. 5

Herodotus does not conceal the doubts raised in his mind by the high antiquity claimed in these accounts by the priests. He found an especial difficulty in the fact that Dionysus Osiris, who, according to his computation, was born 1,600 years at the most before his own time ( i. e. about 2050 B.C.), must have lived more than 15,000 years earlier, according to the assertion of the Egyptians. By their account 341 kings reigned from Menes to Sethos; and on this basis Herodotus reckoned the duration and commencement of the Egyptian kingdom. He took 33⅓ years as the length of a generation, and thus Menes must have begun to reign 340 generations, or 11,340 years before the accession of Sethos. Further, Herodotus placed over 150 years between the accession of Sethos and the death of Amasis, and thus according to his data we get the enormous total of 11,500 years for the duration of the Egyptian kingdom from Menes till its overthrow by the Persians. Menes therefore must have ascended the throne before the year 12000 B.C.; the rule of Osiris commenced 15500 B.C.; and that of the Twelve Gods 17500 B.C.

If we leave the gods out of the question, and reduce the length of a generation, which Herodotus has put too high, to its real average of twenty-five years, the 340 generations with those of Sethos, Psammetichus, Necho, Psammetichus II., Apries, and Amasis, make up 8,650 years, and since the Persians took Egypt in 525 B.C., the beginning of the reign of Menes still falls in the year 9175 B.C. This incredible fact is not made more credible because Plato represents an Egyptian priest asserting to Solon that the annals of Sais reached back 8,000 years; or speaks in the "Laws" of works of Egyptian art, ten thousand years old. 6

Four hundred years after Herodotus, Diodorus travelled to Egypt. 7He tells that, according to some fabulous accounts, gods and heroes first ruled over Egypt for something less than 18,000 years. The last of these was Horus, the son of Isis. After these came 470 native kings, of whom the first was Menes, before the time of the Macedonian and Persian rule, and also four Ethiopian kings and five queens. The Ethiopians did not immediately succeed each other, but at intervals, and their united reigns amounted to a little less than thirty-six years. "Of all these kings the priests have sketches in their holy books, handed down through successive generations from extreme antiquity, showing how tall each king was, what he was like, and what he accomplished in his reign." If we place the reign of Menes 479 generations before Cambyses, this computation, on the reckoning of Herodotus, would place the accession of Menes in the year 16492 B.C.; taking a shorter average length for the generations, we may bring it to the year 12500 B.C. But Diodorus shows from other accounts that this mode of computation is inadmissible. He tells us that the priests of Egypt numbered about 23,000 8years from the reign of Helius or Hephæstus, who, according to other priests, was the first of the gods to reign, 9till the entrance of Alexander into Asia (334 B.C.). If of this total we allow about 18,000 years to the gods, the accession of Menes would have to be placed about the year 5300 B.C. 10But as Diodorus also says that something less than 5,000 years had elapsed since the first human king to his arrival in Egypt, Menes' reign would fall about the year 5000 B.C. Diodorus fixes the accession of this king even more closely when he remarks, in a third passage, that the Egyptians assured him that, "for more than 4,700 years, kings, mostly natives, had ruled, and the land had prospered greatly under them." 11With this agrees the further account given by Diodorus, that according to some the largest pyramid was built 3,400 years before his time. According to this Menes cannot be carried back further than 4,800 years B.C.

If Menes founded the kingdom of Egypt 4,800 years B.C., it continued for 4,275 years under native kings; and if in this period 346 kings ascended the throne, as Herodotus says, or 479, as Diodorus, the average duration of each reign would be in the first case more than twelve years, in the second less than nine, which contradicts all credible history. The lowest average of oriental reigns is fifteen years.