probably in exactly the same manner in which the Egyptian sings songs to-day, but music in the modern sense of the term was unknown. Singers were accompanied by reeds and flutes of various kinds, generally played by men, whilst women beat tambourines or rattled sistra, the noise of which served the double purpose of driving away evil spirits and of making a pleasant sound. Harps, both large and small, were well known and often used; the number of strings varied between five and ten. Speaking generally, the Egyptians were acquainted with all the musical instruments which are mentioned in the

last Psalm (cl.). The famous Song of Pentaurt, the Poet Laureate of the day, deals with the victory of Rameses II over the Kheta, but it is so long that it must only have been sung on ceremonial occasions.

History in the modern sense of the word was not written by the Egyptians. They kept records of the order of succession of kings, with the lengths of their reigns, and it is probable that they possessed "Chronicles"; but so far as we know now no connected history of the country was ever written except that of Manetho, who was alive in the reign of Ptolemy II, and compiled his work by the order of this king. Many kings, e.g., Thothmes III, Rameses II, Seti II, took care to have the annals of their reign written. Biography is represented by numerous funeral stelæ, and inscriptions on the walls of tombs, which supply a considerable amount of valuable historical matter. The Egyptians possessed a useful group of compositions or moral aphorisms and precepts, which inculcated the great importance of a religious and moral life, and contained a number of shrewd observations, sometimes expressed in long, high-sounding phrases, and at other times in a few short, pithy words. Many of the precepts in the works attributed to Kaqemna and Ptah-hetep may for beauty of sentiment and sound common sense be compared with the sayings in the Wisdom of Solomon, the Book of Proverbs, and Ecclesiasticus.

Travels are represented by the Story of Sanehat (2500 B.C.); by the narrative of the Egyptian who visited Palestine and gives an account of his travels in a letter to a friend; by the record of the journey of Unu-Åmen, who went to Palestine to buy cedarwood to make a new barge for Amen, the great god of Thebes, about 1100 B.C.; and by the story of the shipwrecked traveller who was cast upon a sort of enchanted island, wherein dwells a monster serpent. Under fiction and fairy stories must be mentioned the Tale of the Two

Brothers, which consists of two tales that were originally separate works; the Story of the Predestined Prince; and the Story of the Peasant whose donkey was stolen, and who appealed to the local magistrate for its restoration. This official was so much interested and charmed by the learning of the poor man that he caused the hearing of the case to be continued through many days in order that he might enjoy the learning and skill which the appellant displayed in conducting his case. Fiction combined with magic is well illustrated by the stories narrated in the Westcar Papyrus, to which reference has already been made, and the Dialogue between a man and his soul proves that the most learned of the Egyptians sometimes indulged in philosophical contemplation.

The Egyptians were undoubtedly law-abiding people, and yet we have up to the present found no copy of the code of laws under which Egypt was administered and ruled. Under the early dynasties justice was probably dispensed in the rough-and-ready way which is so common in the villages all over the East, i.e., the head of each village heard the cases that were brought before him, and meted out summary punishment for the offenders. The more difficult cases were tried before a number of priests, who appear to have received a salary for sitting as judges daily in the courts The two most famous law cases of which any record has come down to us are: (1) The trial of the thieves who plundered the Royal tombs at Thebes, and (2) the trial of the officials and others who entered into a conspiracy to kill Rameses III. On the first the court at Thebes sat for several days, and the evidence was abundant; the sites of the robberies were visited, but the higher officials made such conflicting statements that it is impossible to see who was the real leader of the gang of tomb robbers. It seems as if the Governor of Thebes and the head-keeper of the necropolis were both implicated, and that they quarrelled and made misleading statements intentionally. From this case we learn that torture was sometimes employed to make unwilling witnesses speak. The second case was, it seems, a harîm conspiracy, which was not, however, tried in the ordinary way, but by a special group of judges, selected no doubt by the king; the king refused to investigate the matter, probably because he did not wish to condemn to death men who had been his trusted friends and officials. The guilt of many of those who were condemned was only too clear; they were condemned to death, but were permitted to die by suicide.

It is quite clear from the general testimony of the inscriptions that the fundamental laws of Egypt were few, and it is equally clear that they were very old; mutilation, i.e., the cutting off of a hand, the slitting or cutting out of the tongue, cutting off the nose and ears, etc., was certainly the punishment for murder, theft, slander, and even for lying under certain circumstances. Adultery and treason were punished with death. A good idea of the sins and crimes which were held in abomination by the ancient Egyptians can be obtained from the CXXVth Chapter of the Book of the Dead. In this we see that 42 sins are enumerated, and that the deceased declares to 42 gods that he has not committed them. These sins include murder, manslaughter, adultery, and acts against chastity, theft, arson, sacrilege, contempt of God, treason against the king, anger, cruelty, deceit, hastiness of speech, envy, hatred, etc., and they show that, under the XVIIIth dynasty at least, the conception of what a moral and religious life should be was a very high one. The Egyptian idea of law and right and truth was a straight line which was called maat, and any deviation from that line was sin; the type of physical law was the path of the sun which was supposed to have been laid down by THOTн and his female counterpart MAĀT, and maāt, i.e., right and moral integrity, was the ideal at which all good and pious Egyptians aimed.

8. Architecture.

We have now briefly considered the learning of the Egyptians, i.e., the product of their minds, and we must now refer to the skill and cunning which they displayed in their handicrafts, i.e., the product of their hands. In architecture the Egyptians excelled all the other Oriental nations of antiquity of which remains have come down to us. They devoted their best energies to the building of tombs and temples, the former as the everlasting abodes of the deified ancestors whom they worshipped, and the latter as the houses wherein their gods dwelt. In pre-dynastic times tombs were of a very simple character, and they consisted of holes dug in the sand; at a later period such holes were lined with bricks or slabs of stone, and eventually little houses were raised over such graves. When the relatives and friends of the dead began to visit the tombs the grave-house was made larger, and accommodation was provided for those who wished to make offerings to the dead. The pit for the body was sunk deeper and deeper as

time went on, and when men had learned how to mummify the dead, a special room, or mummy chamber, came into use, and stone sarcophagi

for the mummies of the dead were placed inside it. By this time masons had become skilled in working stone, and continuous employment resulted in increased expert knowledge.

The oldest form of tomb building is called maṣṭabah by the Arabs, because it resembles in shape a bench. The top is flat, the sides slope outwards slightly; the outsides of the walls are solidly built of well-cut stones, but the cores of the walls are made of masons' rubbish. The maṣṭabah is entered on the east side, and the door is sometimes ornamented with square pillars. Inside are a stele recording the name and titles of the deceased, an altar for the offerings of relatives and friends, and often a small chamber intended to hold the statue of the de

Pyramid Tomb with Funeral Chapel.
(From Prisse d'Avennes.)

ceased. This is called the sardâb, and it was connected by an opening with the tomb, so that the ka, or double of the

deceased, might hear the prayers and enjoy the smell of the incense and offerings. The pit leading to the mummy chamber was square, and large enough to allow the mummy and its sarcophagus to be passed down; maṣṭabahs were built in rows with narrow passages between them, and thus a cemetery of the IVth or Vth dynasty resembled a little town of detached stone houses of the same shape built in rows.

Contemporary with the maṣṭabah was the pyramid tomb, the largest examples of which are to be seen at Gîzah.

The mummy chamber was built either below the centre of the pyramid, or in it, and it was approached by a slanting corridor, which was provided with doors arranged at intervals. Each pyramid was provided with a chapel in which funeral services were performed by a staff of priests. So long as the dead had to be buried in stony plains, mastabahs and pyramids were the classes of tomb most suitable for kings and noblemen, but when, on account of the great value of the land, the dead had to be buried in the hills, a modification of the plan of the tombs of the wealthy became necessary. Between 3500 and 2500 B.C. pyramidal tombs were built of brick, and were from 15 to 20 feet high; they were often surrounded by a wall. On the

east side was a small porch, which took the place of the chapel of the larger buildings, and here offerings were made and prayers said on behalf of the dead. The next stage in tomb building was to hew the chapel and shaft leading to the mummy chamber, and the mummy chamber itself, out of the solid rock, only the shaft was hewn horizontally instead of