MAN FROM THE FARTHEST PAST 
very slowly in Egypt, which thus remained largely in the 
Stone Age long after Babylonia had begun to use bronze. 
It seems likely that a true agricultural civilization in 
Egypt first arose in the Delta, where intercourse with 
other countries was easiest and where new ideas as well as 
new materials could be most easily introduced. The 
Delta, for example, first adopted that important aid to 
agriculture, a regular calendar, in the year 4241 B.c., which 
has therefore been called “‘the first fixed date in history.” 
This calendar consisted of a year of twelve months, each 
containing thirty days, with five holy days added at the 
end, an arrangement in some ways even more convenient 
than our own. But the year actually exceeds 365 days by 
nearly six hours, so Egyptian dates revolved through a 
cycle of 1,460 years (6 X 1,460=8,760 hours=1 year) 
before returning to their original astronomical position. 
During the Neolithic Period the scattered settlements of 
the dwellers along the Nile had gradually coalesced into 
small city states, of which there were roughly twenty in 
the Delta and as many others in the Valley. Later yet, al- 
though still in prehistoric times, these two regions came 
to form two kingdoms, known throughout history as 
Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt. Finally a king of Upper 
Egypt attacked and annexed Lower Egypt and united 
the two crowns, founding the First Dynasty. With this 
event history begins, although Egyptologists are not yet 
fully agreed as to the precise time when it occurred. 
The Nile dwellers, of course, had long had boats and 
canoes, and they seem to have been using regular sails even 
before the close of the predynastic period. Some believe 
that the sail as it has existed in historic time was an 
Egyptian invention and that it spread thence to surround- 
ing regions. Certainly the Egyptians very early had trade 
relations with countries across the Mediterranean and also 
far down the Red Sea. 
Stone seems to have come into use as a building material 
for temples toward the end of the Second Dynasty. But 
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