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that of reading the hieroglyphic inscriptions on old Egyptian 
monuments, tombs, and manuscripts; the other that of reading 
the cuneiform inscriptions on brick tablets, which carry us back to 
the earliest days of Chaldean civilization. We are thus able to 
test the historical dates of these ancient empires by contemporary 
monuments compared with one another, and with the fragments 
of annals which have come down to us from historians of un- 
doubted date and authority, like Manetho and Berosus. It would 
take far too much time to explain this in detail, and it is a case 
where all who are not themselves experts must rely on the 
latest conclusions of the men of highest authority who have devoted 
their lives to those studies. In the case of Egypt, Mariette, who 
has done more than any man to discover monuments of the older 
dynasties, after a careful comparison of all the records with the 
lists of Manetho, arrives at 5,004 B.c. as the date of Menes, the 
first historical king of the united provinces of Upper and Lower 
Egypt ; and there is a general consensus of opinion among all 
modern Egyptologists, that this date must lie between the limits 
of 4,500 and 5,500 B.c. In the case of Chaldea there is equally a 
consensus of the best and latest authorities, that the date of 3,800 
B.C., fixed by the tablets for the reign of Sargon the First of 
Accade, must be accepted as historical, and that a long preceding 
period must be allowed for the Accadian civilization, which pre- 
ceded the growth of a Semitic population and influences which led 
to the establishment of a Semitic dynasty under Sargon. 
THe Aces oF MytH AnD LEGEND. 
In each case, therefore, we arrive at the same conclusion, thata 
period of about 7,000 years from the present time must be 
assigned for the commencement of authentic history, beyond which 
we pass into a pre-historic period prior to written records, when 
everything fades rapidly away into myth and legend. In each 
case also we arrive at the same result, that at this dawn of 
authentic history Egypt and Chaldea are already far removed 
from the primitive conditions of the neolithic period, and are 
already populous and civilized communities, with old and famous 
cities and temples, far advanced in mechanical science and in the 
fine and industrial arts, with no mean knowledge of astronomy, 
and with highly metaphysical systems of philosophies and religions 
strangely intermixed with old superstitions and popular practices 
of magic, fetishism and animal worship. 
Tue NeEouitHic PERIOD. 
How long this may have taken prior to the commencement of 
written history is a matter of conjecture. We have no data to go 
upon as to the number of years which it may have taken to 
develop such an advanced. civilization, without contact with 
