560 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1907. 
As soon as they appear we see domestic animals, the bull, the ass, the 
sheep, which are not found on the pictures of the prehistoric vases. 
The careful researches made by Doctor Lortet on the mummies of 
Egyptian bulls have led him to the conclusion that the long-horned 
bull, which is the oldest breed found on the monuments, is a native 
race and has not been imported from Asia. Doctor Lortet says the 
same of the ass and of the sheep. Thus the foreign invaders domesti- 
cated the animals which they found in the country. The fact of their 
having practiced domestication implies that in that people there was 
a propensity toward civilization and progress, which did not exist in 
the natives. Probably also they were agriculturists. When they set- 
tled below the cataracts they took with them the papyrus, which even 
now 1s found on the upper Nile, although it has disappeared entirely 
from Egypt. This plant was used for various purposes, and not only 
for making paper. 
Looking at their civilization in general, we find that there is hardly 
an element of it which could not originate in Egypt. They must soon 
have perceived that dry Nile mud was a very good material for build- 
ing, which did not require to be burnt. The art of building certainly 
began in Egypt with brick and wood. The first step afterwards was 
to replace the bricks by stone, of which there were various kinds par- 
ticularly well suited for that purpose. It is natural that, having such 
fine material as the sandstone of Silsilis, the limestone from the 
quarries of Turah and Thebes, the diorite and black granite from 
Hamamat, and especially the beautiful red granite from Assuan, the 
Egyptians should have become great builders. It is perhaps the only 
art in which they far excelled the neighboring nations, much more 
than in sculpture or in painting. . 
As we have said before, the writing also is of decidedly Egyptian 
origin. We can find in it no trace of a foreign element. Civiliza- 
tion seems to have grown entirely in the last settlement of the in- 
vaders. They adopted and developed the rudimentary culture of 
their subjects. They improved it so as to produce the admirable dis- 
play of Egyptian art and industry which occurs under the fourth 
dynasty. If the followers of Horus had brought their animals 
from Arabia, one would expect to see among them the horse, which 
does not appear before the Hyksos invasion. If they had been 
already civilized before reaching Africa they would have left traces 
of their passage in the various places where they stopped. At 
present no vestiges of an early Egyptian civilization have been dis- 
covered in southern Arabia, or even on the upper Nile. However, 
there is one side of their culture which decidedly comes from abroad, 
the art of working metal. Except, perhaps, for a little gold in the 
country between the Nile and the Red Sea, no metal is found in 
Egypt, neither copper nor iron. The arrows of the Anu certainly 
