482 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



and probably even in prehistoric ages. Thus Snefru, last king 

 of the 3rd dynasty, warred with the nomads of Arabia Petraea, 

 and left records of his exploits on the rocks of Sinai. But such 

 events are quite recent compared with the actual beginnings of 

 Egyptian culture, which go back to an epoch twice as long as the 

 historic period (Bunsen, Renan). Indications of a thoroughly 

 established social and political organisation have been traced by 

 Oppert back to 11,500 years B.C. Amongst the first cultivated 

 plants were wheat, barley, sorghum, vetches, lupins, lentils, pease, 

 most of which belong essentially to the African flora. 



Corresponding with this progress in agriculture is the progress 

 in the arts, as revealed by the bas-reliefs and inscriptions carved 

 by Snefru on the rocks of the Wady Magharah, which although 

 some 6000 years old, show a state of culture as fully developed as 

 that under the New Empire, with thoroughly original features, and 

 all the marks of a long previous existence. At this remote period 

 written form had been given to the Egyptian language, which had 

 already been completely developed and differentiated from the 

 allied Libyan (Berber), and from the still more remotely connected 

 Semitic family. When we consider the amazing tenacity both of 

 the Hamitic and Semitic sections of this linguistic stock, such 

 a statement alone should satisfy the most sceptical as to the 

 immense antiquity of civilised man in the Nile valley. And proofs 

 are accumulating that this race was already highly specialised 

 with features of European type. At the Deshasheh necropolis 

 nearly opposite Beni Suef, Petrie found in 1897 the portrait 

 statue of Prince Nenkheftka of the 5th dynasty (3700 B.C.), a 

 man of pleasing expression and " European features 1 ." M. Loret 

 also describes several royal persons from the tomb of Amenophis II. 

 (1500 B.C.) as distinguished by luxuriant hair and well-preserved 

 features "to a marked degree like those of the present Fellahin 2 ." 

 Sergi tabulates eight primary varieties of old Egyptian 

 skulls with several sub-varieties, all specified in his 

 formidable (some have called it bewildering) nomen- 

 clature, and all still persisting both in Egypt and amongst the 



1 Deshasheh, \th Mem. Egypt. Expl. Fund, 1898. 



2 Nature, April 14, 1898, p. 566. 





