race between the Egyptians and the Chaldaeans, a race which in after times became a great nation. From this mixture of races it has been supposed the Arabs (3'n", "mixed people") had their name (Sharpe's Ear- ly Hist, of Egypt., i, 11).
The evidence of the Egj'ptians as to the primeval history of their race and country is extremely indefi- nite. They seem to have separated mankind into two great stocks, and each of these again into two branch- es, for they appear to have represented themselves and the negroes, tlie red and black races, as the children of the god Horns, and the Shemites and Europeans, the yellow and white races, as the children of the god- dess Pesht (comp. Brugsch, Geogr. Inschr. ii, CO, 91). They seem, therefore, to have held a double origin of the species. The absence of any important traditional period is very remarkable in the fragments of Egyp- tian histor}'. These commence with the divine dynas- ties, and pass aliruptly to the human dynasties. The latest portion of the first may indeed be traditional, not mythical, and the earliest part of the second may be traditional and not historical, though this last con- jecture we are hardly disposed to admit. In any case, however, there is a very short and extremely obscure time of tradition, and at no great distance from the earliest date at which it can be held to end we come upon the clear light of history in the days of the pyra- mids. The indications are of a sudden change of seat, and the settlement in Egypt of a civilized race, which, either wishing to lie believed autochthonous, or having lost all ties that could keep up the traditions of its first dwelling-place, filled up the commencement of its his- tory with materials drawn from mythology. There is no trace of the tradition of the Deluge which is found in almost every other country of the world. The
EGYPT
06
EGYPT
priests are indeed reported to have told Solon, when he spoko of one deluge, that many had occurred (Plat. Tim. 2;;>, but the reference is more likely to have been to great Hoods of the Nile than to any extraordinary catastrophes. See Deluge.
2. Uncertain Period. — The historj' of the dynasties preceding the 18th is not told by anj' continuous series of monuments. Except the bare lists indicated in the above table, there are scarcelj^ any records of the age left to the present day, and thence in a great measure arises the difficult)' of determining the chronologj'. From the time of Menes, the first king, until the Shep- herd invasion, Egypt seems to have enjoyed perfect tranquillity. During this age the Memphite line was the most powerful, and bj' it, under the 4th dynasty, Avere the most famous pyramids raised. The Shep- herds were foreigners who came from the east, and, in some manner unknown to Manetho, gained the rule of Egypt. Those whose kings composed the 15th dy- nasty were the first and most hnportant. They ap- pear to have been Phoenicians, and it is probalde that their migration into EgA'pt, and thence at last into Palestine, was part of the great movement to which the coming of the Phoenicians from the Erythriean Sea, and the Philistines from Caphtor, belong. It is not impossible that the war of the four kings — Che- dorlaonier and his allies — was directed against the power of the kings of the 15th dj'nasty. Most proba- bly the Pharaoh of Aliraham was of this line, which lived at Memphis, and at the great fort or camp of Avaris on the eastern frontier. The period of Egyp- tian history to which the Shepherd invasion should be assigned is a point of dispute. It is generally placed after the 12th dynasty, for it is argued that this power- ful line could not have reigned at the same time as one or more Shepherd dynasties. Poole is of the opin- ion that this objection is not valid, and that the Shep- herd invasion was anterior to the 12th dynasty. It is not certain that the foreigners were at the outset hos- tile to tlie Egyptians, for they maj' have come in bj' maiTiage, and it is by no means unlikel}' that the}' may have long been in a position of secondarj' impor- tance. The rule of the 12th dvnastj', which was of Thebans, lasting aljout ICO years, was a period of pros- perity to Egypt, but after its close those calamities appear to have occurred which made the Shepherds hated bj' the Egyptians. During the interval to the 18th dynasty there seems to have been no native line of any importance but that of the Thebans, and more than one Shepherd dynasty exercised a severe rule over the Egyptians. The paucit}' of the monuments proves the troubled nature of this period. See Hyk- sos.
Of these first seventeen dynasties, Menes, the first mortal king of Egypt, according to Manetho, Herodo- tus, Eratosthenes, and Diodorus, and preceded, accord- ing to tlie first, by gods, heroes, and Manes (?), viKvtc, is accepted on all hands as a historical personage. His hieroglypliic name reads MEN I or Ml^NA, and is the flrst on the list of the Rameseium of el-Kurneh. It is also met with in the hieratic of the Turin Papyrus of Kings. Strong reasons are given by IMr. Stuart Poole for fixing the date of his accession at B.C. 2717 {Hotcb yEf/ypfiaca;, p. 94-98) ; but even this date must be somewhat lowered, as it would precede that of the Flood (B.C. 2515); on the other hand, linger (ut sup.) raises it to June 27, B.C. 5G13. As one step in Poole's argument involves a very ingenious elucidation of a well-known statement of Herodotus, we cannot for- bear to mention it. Herodotus says that, in the inter- val from the first king to Sethon, the priest of He- phtcstus, the priests told him that "the sun had four times moved from his wonted course, twice rising where he now sets, and twice setting where he' now rises." Upon this Mr. Poole remarks : "It is evident that the priests told Herodotus' that great p'eriods had elapsed since the time of Menes, the first king, and