I I . — EGY P T I A N ART.
Aiyv7itovh iéi>ac, boTu^v obov àçyahéiyv tE .
(H o m e e , Odvss., iy, 481.)
“ It only remains to say with Homer,
To visit Egypt's land, a long and dangerous w a y ”
(Strabo, lib. xviL)
T h e earliest of all monuments of art carry us back to the cradle of
our civilization, Egypt, of which we are scarcely accustomed sufficiently
to appreciate the real importance to the history of mankind.
We speak here not only of its political power and high culture under
the Pharaohs, nor only of the literary labors of the critical Alexandrines
under those Ptolemies who were fond to he protectors of
G-reek science ; hut we allude likewise to the fact that, long after
Egypt had merged into the Roman empire, became converted to
Christianity, and lost all tradition of independence, still its peculiar
national character was not swamped, nor its tough energy broken.
It manifested itself strongly enough in the Athanasian controversy,
in the Monophysite schism, in the many saints and legends of Christian
Egypt, and in the most important establishment of anachoret
and monastic rule- which originated in the Thehais, and thence
spread all over the world, as an evidence of the vitality of that
nation and of the indelibility of its moral type.
At the very dawn of history we meet in Egypt with statues and
bas-reliefs which, according to the hieroglyphic inscriptions, are
certainly contemporaneous with the builders of the pyramids;
though it is rather difficult to designate the precise century before
our era to which they belong, because the ^Egyptians made no use of
any conventional system or astronomical cyclus for their Chronology.
Mariette’s discoveries in the Serapeum at Memphis have proved
that no Apis-eyclus (equal to 25 years) was ever known to the Egyptians,
38 as formerly believed by scholars from the interpretation of a
passage in Plutarch. As to the Sothiac Cyclus, it was certainly
known, but its use for chronology remains more than doubtful.39
The Egyptians possessed no historical era ; they dated their public
documents by the years of each king’s reign. With such a
system the least interruption of the dates vitiates all the series.
88 M a r i e t t e , Renseignmmts sur les soixante-quatre Apis, in the Bui. archêol. de l’Alhenoeum
Français, May — Nov., 1855 .-—-p A l f r e d M a u r y , Des travaux modernes sur l’Egypte
Ancienne;” Revue des Deux Mondes, Sept., 1855, pp. 1060-3.
39 B u s s e s (Ægyptens Stelle, iii. p. 121, seqq.) trjes to prove a Sothiac Era of Menephthah ;
but is not home out by any astronomical dates on the monuments. Vide also the critical
discoveries of B io t , infra, Chap. V.
Unfortunately for our knowledge of Egyptian chronology,40 the list
of Dynasties by Manetho has reached us only in mutilated extracts,
and the ciphers annexed to the names of the sovereigns have evidently
been tampered with. They are not the same in the several
extracts of Eusebius, Syncellus, and Africanus; nor do they tally
with the original hieroglyphic documents. So much, notwithstanding,
we can say with mathematical certainty,—now that the complete
chronology of the XXIInd, or Bubastite, Dynasty has been
reconstructed by Mariette from the documents of the Serapeum at
Memphis,-—that the first year of the reign of P s am m e t ic u s I.,
answers to the 94th year of the era of Nabonassar, or to the Julian
year 654 B.C. The same series of documents places the beginning
of the reign of T i r h a k a , — ally to king Hezekiah against Sennacherib
of Assyria, — towards 695 B. C.41 But here the dates may he
already uncertain to the extent of one or two years ; and beyond
them the consecutive series of precise numerals ceases altogether.
Some further dates have been astronomically determined, hut the
intermediate figures cannot he taken for more than approximate.
For the XXIInd dynasty we obtain a synchronism, and a means of
rectifying chronology, through the conquest of Jerusalem by S h e -
sh o n k I., which happened in the 5th year of Rehohoam, king of
Judah.43 But even this synchronism does not yield an exact date,
inasmuch as the chronology of the Book of Kings presents some
difficulties not yet satisfactorily resolved.43 Accordingly, Newman
places the capture of Jerusalem in the year 950 B. C. ;44 Bunsen in
the year 962 ;45 and Winer in the year 970.46 At any rate, it is certain
that king S h e s h o n k began to reign before the middle of the tenth
century, B. C.
An astronomical fact, the heliacal rising of the dog-star, under
Harnesses HL, of the XXth dynasty, recorded in a hieroglyphical inscription
at Thebes, defines the epoch of this king, and assigns his
place, according to the calculation of M. Biot, to the 13th century B.
C., or just to the same period which had been ascribed to him before
t e discovery of this inscription, solely on the approximating caleula-
tion of the lists as rectified by the monuments.
l ÿ s e q 0 f°r the foUowing. principally De Rouoi’s Notice Sommaire, Musée de Louvre, p.
th«1 v he *HebreW °br0n0Î0g7 makes 4 nearer B- C- 710, and is scarcely reconcilable with
Egyptian computation about this synchronism.
titer.CV“B-E'IÜS0H’ Rev‘eherühie aus Ægypten. &c., Berlin, 1855 — “ Die Halle der Bubas-
«ten-Konigs at Kamao, pp. 141-4.
Newman , History of the Hebrew Monarchy—Appendix to Chapter IV., on Chronology.
«Æ g y p tJ s Stelle, iii. p. 122.
the O anJ v Z ' 7006 ISraeL So likewise Sharpe, Historic Notes on the Books of
an<tN- Testaments, London, 1854, pp. 64, 88. ‘