The latest Roman Emperor whose names are found in hieroglyphics is Marcus Julius Philip, who reigned A.D. 244-249. His names are found in the Temple at Asnâ under the following forms :

10. Egyptian Chronology and a Sketch of the History of Egypt from the Pre-Dynastic Period to A.D. 1921.

Egyptian Chronology.—This subject is one of peculiar difficulty, and it must remain so until more material for fixing data is obtained. We need a complete list of kings, and to know both the order of their succession and the length of their reigns. But we only know the names of some of the kings, for the Palermo Stone, and the Latin Papyrus, and the tablets of Sakkârah and Abydos, and other documents only give selections. Manetho, who lived in the third century B.C., compiled a list of Dynasties, giving the names of all the kings of Egypt, and the lengths of their reigns, but his original work is lost, and we possess only copies of it, made by Julius Africanus, Eusebius of Cæsarea, and George the Monk, several hundreds of years later. One copy of his King List makes 561 kings reign over Egypt in 5,524 years, while another gives the number of the kings as 361, and the length of their total reigns as 4,480 or 4,780 years. Speaking generally, it may be said that the period of dynastic civilization in Egypt lasted between 4,000 and 5,000 years. Manetho reckoned 30 Dynasties, but he does not tell us when the first Dynasty began to reign. Some authorities have tried to date the beginning of Egyptian History by the use of the Sothic Period of 1,460 Sothic years,* but others reject their conclusions. Birch, Birch, Brugsch, and Maspero agreed that dynastic civilization lasted for about 4,000 years, and facts substantially support this view. But it must be remembered that every system of Egyptian Chronology now formulated can only be correct for the period after B.C. 1,500, and that the portion of it that deals with the period before B.C. 1,500 can only be approximately correct, and that in many cases the dates given are the result of pure guesswork. Brugsch made Menes, the first dynastic king of Egypt, to begin to reign B.C. 4400, but later scholars reduce this date to B.C. 3315, though there is no satisfactory evidence to support this reduction. We do not possess all the data necessary for constructing a complete and correct scheme of Egyptian Chronology, and therefore one cannot be constructed.

The history of Egypt from the earliest times to the present 1,460 Sothic Years = 1,461 vague years, or 1 Sothic Period.

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day must for convenience of treatment be divided into a series of Periods, for we have to consider briefly the Egyptians in the Pre-Dynastic and Archaic Periods, under the Dynasties of Pharaohs, and under the Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Arabs, and Turks.

I. THE PRE-DYNASTIC AND ARCHAIC

PERIODS.

Until comparatively recently all historians were compelled to begin their accounts of Egypt with the reign of Mená, or Menes, the first historical king of Egypt; but, thanks to the results of the excavations which have been made in Upper Egypt, more especially at Nakâdah, near Thebes, and in the neighbourhood of Abydos, a considerable number of new facts concerning the pre-dynastic inhabitants of Egypt have been ascertained. We now know that for a very long period before the reign of Menȧ the Nile Valley was occupied by a population which lived chiefly by pastoral pursuits, fishing, hunting, etc. Of their relations with the rest of the world we know nothing, but it is most probable that they confined themselves to their own country, from which, on account of its natural position, it must always have been difficult to wander far. Their tools and implements were made of flint, they wore skins, they lived in rectangular mud houses or huts in the winter, and in the open, behind reed fences, in the warmer weather. At first they had no religious belief, but as their intelligence grew they believed in spirits, and in later times in one supreme spirit or god. In many respects they resembled the tribes now living a little to the north of the Equator, especially in their manners and customs. They had not the art of writing, and therefore could not read. They possessed great skill in making earthenware vessels, but the potter's wheel was unknown to them. Their burial customs were of a primitive kind, but they undoubtedly believed in a future life of a very material character; they maintained men who were magicians by profession, or "medicine men," and several of their magical customs descended uninterruptedly to their highly civilized posterity. As among all primitive peoples, fighting for the sake of loot, or water, or cattle, or women, was general, and the country contained a large number of petty chiefs; in process of time certain chiefs were able to add largely to their lands, and became kings of districts in consequence. These kings

had their territories between Behen, or Wâdî Ḥalfah, and the Mediterranean Sea, and the most powerful of them were the overlords of the best ground for pasturing cattle, which began near Thebes, the modern Luxor, and extended northwards. Gradually all the districts which lay between Behen and the bifurcation of the Nile were regarded as forming one country, and the Delta, or all the land bounded by the two great arms of the river, as another.

These two countries have always constituted Egypt, and the oldest name for the country in the inscriptions is "The two lands" The physique of the inhabitants of

I I

each of these great divisions has always differed considerably, as likewise have their manners and customs; the presence of the mountains and deserts has greatly influenced the minds and bodies of the dwellers in the Nile Valley proper, and the sea and the neighbouring seafaring peoples have had a permanent effect upon the people of the Delta. When the Egyptians had learned to write, they represented the southern division

of Egypt by the reed plant, or by 7,

northern division by the lotus plant,,

and the

or by the hornet

or wasp, ; therefore,

or

II represented the

whole country of Egypt. In very early times the king of the southern division wore the "white crown,' , and the king of the northern division the "red crown," . As the various chiefs of the different districts of each of these two great divisions were always fighting for supremacy before they were compelled to recognize the sovereignty of the over-lord of each division, so at a very early period the over-lord of the south and the over-lord of the north contended for the mastery of the whole country. Sometimes one was victorious, and sometimes the other, but it seems that neither was able to maintain supreme rule for very long. Whilst matters were thus Egypt was invaded by foreigners from the south-east, who conquered the country, and introduced into it many important characteristics of their own civilization, which was of a far higher character than that of the Egyptians. Under the

influence of the newcomers Egypt became an agricultural country, and the manners and customs, beliefs, and social condition of the people were greatly modified, at least so far as the upper classes were concerned. The lands on each side of the river were ploughed and sown with grain, experience taught the people a system of irrigation, and the knowledge and the art of brick-making, which were introduced by the foreigner, enabled the native to build better houses for himself and his gods. From a dabbler in mud he became a hewer in stone, and his power of work and infinite patience enabled him to carry out the ideas of his more civilized conqueror, who seems to have allowed the people to keep their old beliefs and to follow their old ways, provided they acknowledged his supremacy. This state of things lasted for a considerable time, but at length a king arose who was able to make and to keep himself the master of the two great divisions of Egypt, the South and the North, and so it came to pass that Egypt became one country, under one ruler, who called himself Smai Taui, i.e., Uniter of the Two Lands," "lord of the land of the reed, and lord of the land of the hornet (or wasp)," and as the symbol of his absolute supremacy he wore the White and the Red Crowns united, thus

66

As king of the two great ecclesiastical divisions of the

country he styled himself Nebti M, i.e., “lord of the shrine

of Nekhebet (in the south), and lord of the shrine of Uatchet (in the north). In later days we know that kings cut on their thrones the design

which signified "uniter

of the land of the papyrus and the land of the lotus." When the first "uniter of the two lands" ascended the throne of Egypt the Pre-Dynastic Period ended.

As we have already said in the chapter on "The Learning of the Egyptians," the Egyptians made no attempt to write a consecutive history of their kings, but we know that they kept lists of them, and it seems that they grouped them according to their native cities. This fact is proved by the list of kings which was compiled by Manetho the priest in the 3rd century before Christ. According to the copies of this list which have been preserved in the works of later writers, Manetho divided the kings of Egypt into 30 dynasties, and as he probably had