History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria in the Light of Recent Discovery

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History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria,
Babylonia, and Assyria in the
Light of Recent Discovery

The Project Gutenberg EBook of History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria,
Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery, by L.W.
King and H.R. Hall This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no
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Title: History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In
The Light Of Recent Discovery
Author: L.W. King and H.R. Hall
Release Date: December 16, 2005 [EBook #17321]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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OF EGYPT ***

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HISTORY OF EGYPT
CHALDEA, SYRIA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA
IN THE LIGHT OF RECENT DISCOVERY
BY L. W. KING and H. R. HALL
Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, British Museum

Containing over 1200 colored plates and illustrations.
Copyright 1906
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PUBLISHERS' NOTE
It should be noted that many of the monuments and sites of excavations
in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Kurdistan described in this volume
have been visited by the authors in connection with their own work in
those countries. The greater number of the photographs here published
were taken by the authors themselves. Their thanks are due to M.

Ernest Leroux, of Paris, for his kind permission to reproduce a certain
number of plates from the works of M. de Morgan, illustrating his
recent discoveries in Egypt and Persia, and to Messrs. W. A. Mansell &
Co., of London, for kindly allowing them to make use of a number of
photographs issued by them.

PREFACE
The present volume contains an account of the most important
additions which have been made to our knowledge of the ancient
history of Egypt and Western Asia during the few years which have
elapsed since the publication of Prof. Maspero's _Histoire Ancienne des
Peuples de l'Orient Classique_, and includes short descriptions of the
excavations from which these results have been obtained. It is in no
sense a connected and continuous history of these countries, for that
has already been written by Prof. Maspero, but is rather intended as an
appendix or addendum to his work, briefly recapitulating and
describing the discoveries made since its appearance. On this account
we have followed a geographical rather than a chronological system of
arrangement, but at the same time the attempt has been made to suggest
to the mind of the reader the historical sequence of events.
At no period have excavations been pursued with more energy and
activity, both in Egypt and Western Asia, than at the present time, and
every season's work obliges us to modify former theories, and extends
our knowledge of periods of history which even ten years ago were
unknown to the historian. For instance, a whole chapter has been added
to Egyptian history by the discovery of the Neolithic culture of the
primitive Egyptians, while the recent excavations at Susa are revealing
a hitherto totally unsuspected epoch of proto-Elamite civilization.
Further than this, we have discovered the relics of the oldest historical
kings of Egypt, and we are now enabled to reconstitute from material as
yet unpublished the inter-relations of the early dynasties of Babylon.
Important discoveries have also been made with regard to isolated
points in the later historical periods. We have therefore attempted to
include the most important of these in our survey of recent excavations

and their results. We would again remind the reader that Prof.
Maspero's great work must be consulted for the complete history of the
period, the present volume being, not a connected history of Egypt and
Western Asia, but a description and discussion of the manner in which
recent discovery and research have added to and modified our
conceptions of ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilization.

CONTENTS
I. The Discovery of Prehistoric Egypt
II. Abydos and the First Three Dynasties
III. Memphis and the Pyramids
IV. Recent Excavations in Western Asia and the Dawn of Chaldæan
History
V. Elam and Babylon, the Country of the Sea and the Kassites
VI. Early Babylonian Life and Customs
VII. Temples and Tombs of Thebes
VIII. The Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires in the Light of Recent
Research
IX. The Last Days of Ancient Egypt

EGYPT AND MESOPOTAMIA
In the Light of Recent Excavation and Research

CHAPTER I

--THE DISCOVERY OF PREHISTORIC EGYPT
During the last ten years our conception of the beginnings of Egyptian
antiquity has profoundly altered. When Prof. Maspero published the
first volume of his great _Histoire