881 



EGYPT. 



EGYPT. 



S82 



portion of laud was set apart for their maintenance ; and we read in 

 Genesis, that when Pharaoh in a season of famine bought, by the 

 advice of Joseph, all the land of the Egyptians on condition of feeding 

 them out of his stores, " only the land of the priests bought he not, 

 for the priests had a portion (of corn) assigned them of Pharaoh, and 

 did eat their portion which Pharaoh gave them, wherefore they sold 

 not their lands " (xlvii. 22, and see v. 26). The testimony of the 

 Scripture is here perfectly in accordance with that of Herodotus and 

 other historians. The priests were subject to certain strict regula- 

 tions : they abstained from certain meats, and at times from wine ; 

 made their regular ablutions ; bad but one wife, while polygamy was 

 allowed to the other classes ; and they wore a peculiar dress according 

 to their rank. 



The soldiers formed the second class, for Egypt had a standing 

 army from a very remote period, divided into regiments or battalions, 

 each having its standard with a peculiar emblem raised on a pike and 

 carried by an officer. Their arms were the bow, sword, battle-axe, 

 shield, knife or dagger, spear, club, and sling. Their besieging- 

 engines were the battering-ram, the testudo, and the scaling-ladder. 

 They had a military music, consisting of a drum similar to the 

 Indian ' tomtom,' cymbals, pipe, trumpet, and other instruments. 

 The military caste was held in high repute, and enjoyed great privi- 

 leges. Each soldier was allowed a certain measure of land, exempt 

 from every charge, whjch he either cultivated himself when not on 

 active service, or let to husbandmen or farmers. Those who did the 

 duty of royal guards had besides an ample allowance of rations. They 

 were inured to the fatigues of war by gymnastic exercises, such as 

 wrestling, cudgelling, racing, sporting, and other games, of which the 

 representations still exist on their monuments. The king and the 

 princes, and indeed all persons of rank, were always either of the 

 military or priestly class. The navy was not an exclusive service, the 

 officers of it being chosen from the military class. 



The husbandmen formed another class, which -was next in rank, 

 18 agriculture was highly esteemed among the Egyptians. They made 

 use of the plough and other implements. They had various breeds of 

 large cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and a quantity of poultry reared chiefly 

 by artificial means, the eggs being hatched in ovens, as it is the prac- 

 tice of the country in this day. The peasants appear to havo been 

 divided into hundreds, each with a peculiar banner, which they fol- 

 lowed when presenting themselves before the magistrate for the 

 registration, which was taken at stated periods, when they were 

 obliged to give an account of their conduct, and if found delinquent 

 were punished with the stick. The boatmen of the Nile, huntsmen, 

 and others were included in this class. 



The next claaa was that of the artificers, shopkeepers, and the 

 various tradesmen who lived in the towns. The progress made by 

 the Egyptians in the mechanical arts is evident from their monu- 

 ments, paintings, and sculptures, in which the various handicrafts are 

 represented. The mines of gold, copper, iron, and lead, which are in 

 the mountains between the Nile and the Red Sea, were worked at a 

 very remote date under the early Pharaohs. The Egyptians were 

 acquainted also with the art of gilding. The art of fabricating glass 

 was early known among them. Beads of glass, generally coloured 

 blue, are found on many mummies, as well as other ornaments of a 

 coarse kind of the same material. A kind of ancient porcelain, some- 

 times covered with enamel and varnish, is found in great quantities 

 in Egypt. Their pottery was often of the most elegant forms. The 

 taste displayed by the Egyptians in several of their articles of furni- 

 ture is not surpassed by our most refined manufactures of modern 

 times. Many articles of furniture, especially chairs and couches, 

 which have been discovered, and are now deposited in our museums 

 or are represented in their paintings, are singularly beautiful in their 

 forms. Linen cloth, plain or embroidered, white or dyed, was an 

 article of Egyptian manufacture highly in repute among foreign 

 nations. (Ezekiel, xxvii. 7.) The art of making leather was also 

 known to them. 



The last class or casto included pastors or herdsmen, poulterers, 

 fishermen, labourers, and servants. The herdsmen and shepherds 

 appear to have been held in peculiar contempt among the Egyptians. 

 Besides servants, they had a number of slaves, both black and white. 

 Fish wag a common article of food, e.vcept to the priests. Wine of 

 native growth was used by the rich, and a kind of beer was the 

 drink of the poor. 



The above-mentioned five classes, as specified by Diodorus, i. 74, 

 were subdivided into ranks according to the various callings and 

 trades, and this has occasioned some variety in their enumeration. 

 Herodotus reckons seven classes, Plato six, Strabo and others have 

 not reckoned the despised shepherds as a caste, and others have 

 counted the military as one caste with the husbandmen, as being 

 drafted from the body of the latter. Unlike the Hindoo, every 

 Egyptian was not required to follow his father's profession and to 

 remain in his class, but the effect was practically nearly the same : from 

 the lowest class it was in fact hardly possible to obtain admission into 

 any other. 



The learning of the Egyptians was tho admiration of every people 

 who had communication with them. As already mentioned it was 

 the almost exclusive possession of the priests. In science and art 

 they also far excelled their less civilised contemporaries. Their pro- 



OEOO. niv. vor-. ii. 



gress in the exact sciences has however been taken for granted without 

 sufficient evidence. Of their astronomy we know but little, but it 

 appears to have been confounded with mythology and astrology, and 

 made subservient to religious polity. Their year was of 365 clays : 

 their method of correcting it was by the adoption of the Sothiac Period 

 of 1461 years. Diodorus says that they foretold comets; but he also 

 says that they foretold future events, leaving us in doubt whether 

 they were successful in either or both cases. That they hail some 

 practical knowledge of geometry, which indeed must have been 

 requisite for the construction of their buildings, &c., is generally 

 admitted. Yet they appear not to have known until a comparatively 

 late period that the level of the Ked Sea was higher than that of 

 the Mediterranean or of the Nile. Their boats were rude aud clumsy, 

 and chiefly constructed for river navigation. It was not until the 

 period of the new monarchy that they had their ships of war both 

 on the Mediterranean and Red Sea, but under Apries Egypt had 

 sufficient naval power and skill to cope with the fleets of Tyre. His 

 predecessor Necos II. is said by Herodotus to have dispatched some 

 Phoenician vessels by the Red Sea to circumnavigate Libya (Africa), 

 and to return to Egypt by the Pillars of Hercules, which they effected. 

 The truth, or at least the extent of this expedition has however been 

 much questioned. There is a curious story in Plato's ' Critias,' of 

 Sonchis, an Egyptian priest, having told Solon of the Atlantic Isles, 

 which he said were larger than Asia and Africa united, which sterns 

 to imply something like a knowledge of the existence of the Western 

 Continent. 



The fine arts were cultivated by the Egyptians with considerable 

 success, though in every branch they exhibited a certain incomplete- 

 ness. In architecture they had made great progress, as the ruins of 

 many of their works attest : in sculpture their advance was stayed 

 at a certain point by the rigid conventional laws, which forbad any 

 material deviation from the established types in representations of the 

 human figure, or in the symbols and forms of their deities : in paint- 

 ing there was somewhat more of freedom, because the objects depicted 

 were of a more trivial kind, but as the rules of perspective were 

 unknown, and scarcely any attempt was ever made to combine the 

 parts of the painting into a complete picture, painting remained in 

 a merely rudimentary stage. Yet though the arts of Egypt were 

 thus imperfect, it is evident from existing early examples of Greek 

 sculpture and architecture that for a considerable period the Grecian 

 artists formed their works on Egyptian models, and only gradually 

 emancipated themselves from Egyptian influence. The monuments 

 recently discovered at Nineveh in like manner show that it was to 

 Egypt that the Assyrian sculptors looked for their guiding principles. 

 Indeed there can be little doubt that during the long period when 

 Egypt was the dominant nation and the centre of civilisation, it 

 exercised a very powerful influence over the intellect of other nations 

 less advanced in civilisation. 



With regard to the principal existing monuments of ancient Egypt 

 we refer the reader to the respective heads, such as DENDERAH, EDFU, 

 THEIIKS, &c., aud for the general character of Egyptian architecture 

 to the Division ARTS and SCIENCES in the ENOLISU CYCLOPEDIA. 



The agriculture of ancient Egypt has been noticed in speaking of the 

 class of husbandmen, and, as well as the commerce, incidentally in other 

 parts of this article. For further particulars respecting the agriculture, 

 commerce, resources, aud policy of ancient Egypt, \ve must refer the 

 reader to the various authorities quoted at the end of this article, 

 especially to Heereu's ' Researches ' and the works of Sir J. Gardner 

 Wilkinson. The money of the Egyptians was in rings of silver and 

 gold, similar to those still used in Sennaar, and its value was ascer- 

 tained by weight, aud its purity by fire. Gold was brought to Egypt 

 from different tributary countries of Ethiopia and Asia, besides what 

 they drew from their own mines. The revenue of Egypt, derived 

 from the taxes alone, amounted, even during the negligent adminis- 

 tration of Ptolemy Auletes, to 12,500 talents, between three and four 

 millions sterling. 



Modern History. Passing over the ages during which Egypt was a 

 province of the Roman Empire (for which see Hamilton's ' ^Egyptiaca,' 

 on the State of Egypt under the Homaus, and * Map of Egypt,' with 

 the names of the Roman period, by Raoul Rochette), we begin the 

 modern history of Egypt at the Mohammedan conquest. Under the 

 caliphate of Omar, Amer Ebn el As invaded Egypt, A.D. C38, and took 

 Pelusium aud Babylon of Egypt, a strong Roman station, which sus- 

 tained seven months' siege. John Mocaukes, governor of Memphis 

 for the Byzantine emperor, treacherously surrendered his trust, aud 

 the Copts agreed to pay tribute or a capitation tax to the caliph, with 

 the exception of old men, women and monks. Tho hatred, not only 

 political but religious, which the Copts bore to the Greeks, facilitated 

 the success of the Moslems. The first mosque on Egyptian ground 

 rose with the new town of Fostat on the site of Roman Babylon. 

 Alexandria made a long and obstinate defence ; it fell at last, and was 

 plundered. The Saracen general asked the caliph what was to be 

 done with the library, and Omar ordered it to be burnt. But tho 

 libraries of the Ptolemies had perished before the Bruchiou was 

 destroyed during the siege of Julius C'jcsar, and that of the Serapion 

 was dispersed by Theophilua the Patriarch in 390; the library 

 destroyed by Omar's order was therefore a more recent collection. 

 The whole of Egypt as far as Syene was soon reduced to a province 



3 I. 



