History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1

History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria,
by G.
Maspero

The Project Gutenberg EBook of History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria,
Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12), by G. Maspero This eBook is for the use of
anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it,
give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with
this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12)
Author: G. Maspero
Editor: A.H. Sayce
Translator: M.L. McClure
Release Date: September 28, 2006 [EBook #19400]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF EGYPT ***

Produced by David Widger

[Illustration: Spines]
[Illustration: Cover]

HISTORY OF EGYPT CHALDEA, SYRIA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA
By G. MASPERO, Honorable Doctor of Civil Laws, and Fellow of Queen's College,
Oxford; Member of the Institute and Professor at the College of France

Edited by A. H. SAYCE, Professor of Assyriology, Oxford
Translated by M. L. McCLURE, Member of the Committee of the Egypt Exploration
Fund
CONTAINING OVER TWELVE HUNDRED COLORED PLATES AND
ILLUSTRATIONS
Volume I., Part A.
LONDON
THE GROLIER SOCIETY
PUBLISHERS
[Illustration: Frontispiece]
[Illustration: Titlepage]

EDITOR'S PREFACE
Professor Maspero does not need to be introduced to us. His name is well known in
England and America as that of one of the chief masters of Egyptian science as well as of
ancient Oriental history and archaeology. Alike as a philologist, a historian, and an
archaeologist, he occupies a foremost place in the annals of modern knowledge and
research. He possesses that quick apprehension and fertility of resource without which
the decipherment of ancient texts is impossible, and he also possesses a sympathy with
the past and a power of realizing it which are indispensable if we would picture it aright.
His intimate acquaintance with Egypt and its literature, and the opportunities of discovery
afforded him by his position for several years as director of the Bulaq Museum, give him
an unique claim to speak with authority on the history of the valley of the Nile. In the
present work he has been prodigal of his abundant stores of learning and knowledge, and
it may therefore be regarded as the most complete account of ancient Egypt that has ever
yet been published.
In the case of Babylonia and Assyria he no longer, it is true, speaks at first hand. But he
has thoroughly studied the latest and best authorities on the subject, and has weighed
their statements with the judgment which comes from an exhaustive acquaintance with a
similar department of knowledge.
Naturally, in progressive studies like those of Egyptology and Assyriology, a good many
theories and conclusions must be tentative and provisional only. Discovery crowds so
quickly on discovery, that the truth of to-day is often apt to be modified or amplified by
the truth of to-morrow. A single fresh fact may throw a wholly new and unexpected light
upon the results we have already gained, and cause them to assume a somewhat changed
aspect. But this is what must happen in all sciences in which there is a healthy growth,

and archaeological science is no exception to the rule.
The spelling of ancient Egyptian proper names adopted by Professor Maspero will
perhaps seem strange to many. But it must be remembered that all our attempts to
represent the pronunciation of ancient Egyptian words can be approximate only; we can
never ascertain with certainty how they were actually sounded. All that can be done is to
determine what pronunciation was assigned to them in the Greek period, and to work
backwards from this, so far as it is possible, to more remote ages. This is what Professor
Maspero has done, and it must be no slight satisfaction to him to find that on the whole
his system of transliteration is confirmed by the cuneiform tablets of Tel el-Amarna.
The difficulties attaching to the spelling of Assyrian names are different from those
which beset our attempts to reproduce, even approximately, the names of ancient Egypt.
The cuneiform system of writing was syllabic, each character denoting a syllable, so that
we know what were the vowels in a proper name as well as the consonants. Moreover,
the pronunciation of the consonants resembled that of the Hebrew consonants, the
transliteration of which has long since become conventional. When, therefore, an
Assyrian or Babylonian name is written phonetically, its correct transliteration is not
often a matter of question. But, unfortunately, the names are not always written
phonetically. The cuneiform script was an inheritance from the non-Semitic predecessors
of the Semites in Babylonia, and in this script the characters represented words as well as
sounds. Not unfrequently the Semitic Assyrians continued to write a name