THIRD MILLENNIUM LIBRARY
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THIRD MILLENNIUM LIBRARY |
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HISTORY OF EGYPT FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PERSIAN CONQUEST By JAMES HENRY BREASTED
THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: THE FEUDAL AGE
THE HYKSOS: THE RISE OF THE EMPIRE
BOOK SEVEN BOOK EIGHT
PREFACE
The everincreasing number of those who visit
the Nile Valley with every recurring winter should alone form, it would seem, a
sufficiently numerous public to call for the production of a modern history of
Egypt. Besides these fortunate travelers, however, there is another growing
circle of those who are beginning to realize the significance of the early East
in the history of man. As the Nile poured its life-giving waters into the broad
bosom of the Mediterranean, so from the civilization of the wonderful people
who so early emerged from barbarism on the Nile shores, there emanated and
found their way to southern Europe rich and diversified influences of culture
to which we of the western world are still indebted. Had the Euphrates flowed
into the Mediterranean likewise, our debt to Babylon would have been
correspondingly as great as that which we owe the Nile Valley. It is to Egypt
that we must look as the dominant power in the Mediterranean basin, whether by
force of arms or by sheer weight of superior civilization throughout the
earliest career of man in southern Europe, and for long after the archaic age
had been superseded by higher culture. To us who are in civilization the
children of early Europe, it is of vital interest to raise the curtain and peer
beyond into the ages which bequeathed our forefathers so precious a
legacy. Finally, there is a third and
possibly the most numerous class of those who desire an acquaintance with the
history of Egypt, viz., the students of the Old Testament. All of these readers
have been remembered in the composition of this book.
The plan adopted in the production of this history is one which will in some measure also condition its use. The sources from which our knowledge of the early career of the Nile Valley peoples is drawn are of the meagerest extent, and most inadequate in character. They will be found further discussed herein, and in the author's Ancient Records of Egypt. As used at the present day, in the historical workshop of the scholar, they are accessible chiefly in published form. These publications were in the vast majority of cases edited before the attainment of such epigraphic accuracy and care as are now deemed indispensable in the production of such work. To copy an inscription of any kind with accuracy is not easy. So close and fine an observer of material documents as Ruskin could copy a short Latin inscription with surprising inaccuracy. In his incomparable Mornings in Florence he reproduces the brief inscription on the marble slab covering the tomb which he so admired in the church of Santa Croce; and in his copy of these eight short lines, which I compared with the original, he mispells on word, and omits two entire words ("et magister") of the mediaeval Latin. This experience of the great art critic is not infrequently that of the schooled and careful paleographer as well. The best known of the Politarch inscriptions appeared in eight different publications, each of which diverges in some more or less important respect from all the rest, before a correct copy was obtained. The Greek and Latin inscriptions on the bronze crab from the base of the New York Obelisk were long incorrectly read, and the mistake in the date led Mommsen to a false theory of the early Roman prefects of Egypt. In the early clays of Egyptology, when a reading knowledge of hieroglyphic was still necessarily elementary, it required a copyist of exceptional ability to produce a copy upon which much reliance can be placed at the present day. Had
the science of Egyptology rapidly outgrown this early insufficiency, all would
now be well; but such methods have continued down to the present day, and
although many exhaustively accurate publications of hieroglyphic documents now
appear with every year, it is nevertheless true that the large majority of
standard Egyptian documents accessible in publications exhibit a degree of
incompleteness and inaccuracy not, in the author's judgment, to be found in any
other branch of epigraphic science.
Under these
circumstances the author's first obligation has been to go behind the
publications to the original monument itself in every possible instance. This
task has consumed years and demanded protracted sojourn among the great
collections of Europe. In this work a related enterprise has been of the
greatest assistance. A mission to the museums of Europe to collect their
Egyptian monuments for a Commission of the four Royal Academies of Germany
(Berlin, Leipzig, Goettingen, and Munich), in order to make these documents
available for a great Egyptian
Dictionary endowed by the German Emperor, enabled the author to copy from the
originals practically all the historical monuments of Egypt in Europe. For
those still in Egypt, the author has been able to employ his own copies of
many, especially at Thebes and Amarna, where he copied all the historical
inscriptions in the tombs there; and in the museum at Gizeh (now Cairo). Of
monuments in Egypt not included in the author's copies, squeezes were in most
instances found in the enormous collection made by Lepsius and now in the
Berlin Museum. For others the author was given access to the extensive
collations made for the Dictionary above referred to; now and then a colleague
furnished the necessary collation; and where all other sources failed, I was
able in all important cases to secure large-scale photographs of the originals.
The final remainder of monuments for which the author was dependent upon the
publications alone is very small, and in most cases the publication was one
made on modern methods, and almost as good as the original itself. In general,
therefore, it may be fairly claimed that this account of the historical career
of the Egyptians rests upon the surviving original records themselves.
The immense progress in our knowledge of the language achieved during the last twenty years cannot be said to have been applied as yet to the comprehensive study of the historical documents as a whole. Hence, in order to utilize historically the materials thus collected, it was essential, in the light of our improved philological equipment, to begin the study of the documents ab ovo, irrespective of earlier studies and results, and it was in almost all cases only after such unbiased study that any older translation or account of a document was consulted. The combined results of the revised copies from the originals and the new grammatical study of the documents have been embodied in a series of translations of the historical documents, arranged in chronological order, beginning with the earliest surviving records and continuing to the final loss of Egyptian national independence at the conquest by the Persians in 525 BC. For the average reader, a running fire of footnote references to technical and out-of-the-way publications, known only to the inner circle of initiates in the science of Egyptology, would mean absolutely nothing. Again in the realm of religion the mere quantity alone of the materials made any attempt at an exhaustive reexamination of the documents impossible. The study of Egyptian religion has but begun, and decades will pass before even the preliminary special studies shall have been completed, which shall enable the student to go forward for a general survey and symmetrical reconstruction of the phenomena in one comprehensive presentation, which shall be in some measure final. Only the Amarna period and the solar faith have been made the object of the author's special attention. All the documents on the unparalleled religious revolution of Ikhnaton, and all the known hymns to the Sun, throughout Egyptian history, were collected and examined in the case of the former from the originals. I am
indebted to Mr. R. S Padan and Miss Imogen Hart for assistance in proofreading.
My wife has constantly rendered me indispensable clerical aid, and
never-failing assistance in reading of proof. It is a great pleasure here also
gratefully to recognize the cooperation and unfailing readiness of the
publishers to do all in their power to make the typographical and illustrative
side of the work all that it should be. Of this the appearance of the finished
volume is ample evidence.
James Henry Breasted
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