For the XTXth dynasty, we have seemingly again a synchronism,
that of Moses with B am e s s e s II., and with Menephthah II. ; hnt it is
of little value for exact dates, because the duration of the government
of the Hebrews by their Judges is very uncertain. Biot's
astronomical calculation is more valuable, with the aid of which wo
may establish that S e t i I., father of B am e s s e s the great, lived about
1500 B. C. — [say 15th century B. C.] ; and hence that the XV 11th
dynasty began to reign towards the eighteenth century B. C. Nevertheless,
as the Vicomte de Bougé, (whose authority we follow in
preference to other Egyptologists, since he expresses himself most
cautiously in dealing with chronological figures, and avoids hypotheses)
says, “ it would not he astonishing if we should he here
mistaken to the extent of one or two centuries, inasmuch as the
historical documents are vitiated, and the hieroglyphical monuments
incomplete.”
“ Thus we have reached,” continues de Bougé, “ the time of the
expulsion of the Shepherds, beyond whom no certain calculation is
as yet possible from the monuments known. The texts do not agree
how long these terrible guests occupied and ravaged Egypt, and the
monuments are silent about them. However, their domination
lasted for a long time, since several dynasties succeeded one another
before the deliverance, and that is all we know about it. Nor are
we better informed concerning the duration of the first empire, and
we have no certain means for measuring the age of those pyramids
which hear evidence of the grandeur of the first Egypt. Nevertheless,
if we remember that the generations which built them are
separated from our era, first by the eighteen centuries of the second
empire, then by the very long period of the Asiatic invasion, and
lastly by several dynasties of numerous powerful kings, the age of
the pyramids will not lose anything of its majesty in the eyes of the
historian, although he he unable to fix it with exact precision.”
It is to such an early period of the history of mankind that some
of the statues and reliefs of Egypt can now he traced hack with certainty;
and even they do not present us with the rudiments of an
infantine art, hut are actually specimens of the highest artistic character.
Like Minerva springing forth from the head of Jupiter, a
full-grown armed virgin, Art in Egypt appears, in the very earliest
monuments, fully developed,—archaic in some respects, hut not at
all barbarous.
Through the kindness of MM. de Bougé, Mariette, Devéria, and
Salzmann, and of Chev. Lepsius at Berlin, and their regard for Mr.
Grliddon, we are enabled to publish a series of royal and princely
effigies of the first or Old Empire, carefully copied, often photographicallv,
from these original statues and reliefs at the Louvre and other
Museums. They are the earliest monuments of human art known
to us; being portraits of the Egyptian aristocracy at a time preceding
Abraham by many centuries. They enable us to form a correct idea
of Egyptian art in its first phasis, before it became fettered by a
traditionary hieratic type. In an ethnological respect, they give us
the true features of the .original Egyptians : and it is very remarkable
that many statues and reliefs, later by more than two thousand
years, bear exactly the same character; that, again, two thousand
years subsequently have not changed the national type,—the Fellàh
(peasant) of the present day resembling his ancestors of fifty centuries
ago, viz: the builders of the pyramids, so closely, that his
Nilotic pedigree never can be seriously questioned henceforward.
The character of the Egyptian race is most distinctly expressed
upon its monuments throughout all the phases of its history ; and
these sculptures of the TVth dynasty differ from those of later ages
merely in details, not in spirit. Ernest Benan, the great Shemitic
philologue, describes that character in the following words :
“ The earliest [Cushite and Hamitic] civilizations stamped with a
character peculiarly materialistic ; the religious and poetical instincts
little developed; the artistical feeling rather weak; hut the sentiment
of elegance very refined ; a great aptitude for handicraft, and
for mathematical and astronomical-sciences; literature practically
exact, but without idealism; the mind positive, bent on business,
welfare, and the pleasures ; neither public spirit nor political life ;
on the contrary, a most elaborate civil administration, such as European
nations never beeame acquainted with, until the Boman epoch,
and in our modern times.” 47
The Egyptians were eminently a practical people, of so little
imagination, that in religion they conceived no heroic mythology.
Whilst their gods were personified abstractions, all of them, with
the only exception of the Osirian group, stand without life or history.
In literature the Egyptians never rose above dry historical annals,
religious hymns, proverbial precepts, poetical panegyrics, and liturgical
compositions. Epic and dramatic poetry was feeble,48 romance
47 Histoire et ^Système comparé des Langues Sémitiques, Paris, 1855; le. partie, p. 474.
The publication, of M. de Rougé’s critical translation of the Sallier Papyrus, containing
the poetic recital of the Wars of Ramses, 14th century, B. C., against the Asiatic Sheta, or
Kheta (recently read to the Imperial Institute), will prove that the metrical style of these
Egyptian canticles frequently resembles Hebrew psalmody. Meanwhile, see some brief
^bÎéT6118 P k^ S typ hica l poetry in Biroh, Crystal Palace Catalogue, Egypt, 1856 ; pp.