History of Egypt | Page 2

Khufu, and Khafra (Cheops and
Chephren), and the legendary lists of earlier kings preserved at Abydos
and Sakkara were still quoted as the only source of knowledge of the
time before the IVth Dynasty. Of a prehistoric Egypt nothing was
known, beyond a few flint flakes gathered here and there upon the
desert plateaus, which might or might not tell of an age when the
ancestors of the Pyramid-builders knew only the stone tools and
weapons of the primeval savage.
Now, however, the veil which has hidden the beginnings of Egyptian
civilization from us has been lifted, and we see things, more or less, as
they actually were, unobscured by the traditions of a later day. Until the
last few years nothing of the real beginnings of history in either Egypt
or Mesopotamia had been found; legend supplied the only material for
the reconstruction of the earliest history of the oldest civilized nations
of the globe. Nor was it seriously supposed that any relics of prehistoric
Egypt or Mesopotamia ever would be found. The antiquity of the
known history of these countries already appeared so great that nobody
took into consideration the possibility of our discovering a prehistoric
Egypt or Mesopotamia; the idea was too remote from practical work.
And further, civilization in these countries had lasted so long that it
seemed more than probable that all traces of their prehistoric age had
long since been swept away. Yet the possibility, which seemed hardly
worth a moment's consideration in 1895, is in 1905 an assured reality,
at least as far as Egypt is concerned. Prehistoric Babylonia has yet to be
discovered. It is true, for example, that at Mukay-yar, the site of ancient
Ur of the Chaldees, burials in earthenware coffins, in which the
skeletons lie in the doubled-up position characteristic of Neolithic
interments, have been found; but there is no doubt whatever that these
are burials of a much later date, belonging, quite possibly, to the
Parthian period. Nothing that may rightfully be termed prehistoric has
yet been found in the Euphrates valley, whereas in Egypt prehistoric
antiquities are now almost as well known and as well represented in our
museums as are the prehistoric antiquities of Europe and America.
With the exception of a few palasoliths from the surface of the Syrian

desert, near the Euphrates valley, not a single implement of the Age of
Stone has yet been found in Southern Mesopotamia, whereas Egypt has
yielded to us the most perfect examples of the flint-knapper's art known,
flint tools and weapons more beautiful than the finest that Europe and
America can show. The reason is not far to seek. Southern
Mesopotamia is an alluvial country, and the ancient cities, which
doubtless mark the sites of the oldest settlements in the land, are
situated in the alluvial marshy plain between the Tigris and the
Euphrates; so that all traces of the Neolithic culture of the country
would seem to have disappeared, buried deep beneath city-mounds,
clay and marsh. It is the same in the Egyptian Delta, a similar country;
and here no traces of the prehistoric culture of Egypt have been found.
The attempt to find them was made last year at Buto, which is known
to be one of the most antique centres of civilization, and probably was
one of the earliest settlements in Egypt, but without success. The
infiltration of water had made excavation impossible and had no doubt
destroyed everything belonging to the most ancient settlement. It is not
going too far to predict that exactly the same thing will be found by any
explorer who tries to discover a Neolithic stratum beneath a city-mound
of Babylonia. There is little hope that prehistoric Chaldæa will ever be
known to us. But in Egypt the conditions are different. The Delta is like
Babylonia, it is true; but in the Upper Nile valley the river flows down
with but a thin border of alluvial land on either side, through the rocky
and hilly desert, the dry Sahara, where rain falls but once in two or
three years. Antiquities buried in this soil in the most remote ages are
preserved intact as they were first interred, until the modern
investigator comes along to look for them. And it is on the desert
margin of the valley that the remains of prehistoric Egypt have been
found. That is the reason for their perfect preservation till our own day,
and why we know prehistoric Egypt so well.
The chief work of Egyptian civilization was the proper irrigation of the
alluvial soil, the turning of marsh into cultivated fields, and the
reclamation of land from the desert for the purposes of agriculture.
Owing to the rainless character of the country, the only means of
obtaining water for the crops is by irrigation,