EGYPT 



mostly in petty market wares, and 

 in raw material not produced on 

 the estate. The government was 

 on the same model. The royal court 

 was only the greatest of the nobles' 

 estates, and the ordinary govern- 

 ment was carried on by the officers 

 of the king's household, who only 

 interfered when needful with the 

 local administration of the nobles. 

 It was something like the British 

 control over the native states 

 of India. When a noble wanted 

 great blocks of stone, or anything 

 only produced on the royal estates, 

 he applied, and was granted the 

 present of the material. The tribute 

 sent from different nobles to the 

 court was trifling, merely pin- 

 money for personal use, showing 

 that all cost of government was 

 borne locally by the nobles. The 

 system gave great social stability 

 to the country, everything went on 

 as usual, whether the king was 

 strong or weak. The only purpose 

 of the kingdom was to prevent 

 local fighting and to unify the land 

 for defence. 



The official class was probably 

 always corrupt ; the management 

 of cases and witnesses under 

 Rameses X reads like modern 

 police work. Where a capable noble 

 can be found, the purely local ad- 

 ministration is more likely to be 

 just than where a centralized pro- 

 fessional police are in authority. 



The army was originally on a 

 small scale, probably the king's 

 people from his estates. By the 

 Xllth dynasty the scribe of re- 

 cruits is found, and in the great 

 military age of the Xlllth 

 XXth dynasties the recruiting 

 was severe in Egypt. 



Native Troops and Auxiliaries 



The army was divided into four 

 brigades, named after the great 

 gods of different regions ; the army 

 of Amen from the Thebaid, that 

 of Ptah from middle Egypt, that 

 of Ra from the upper Delta, and 

 that of Sutekh from the E. and 

 lower Delta. Besides the native 

 troops, there were many auxiliaries 

 Libyan and negro archers in 

 early times, Sardinian and other 

 Mediterranean folk later. The 

 Greek accounts of the army form- 

 ing a regular caste with hereditary 

 lands, was probably a continua- 

 tion of the Rameside system. The 

 Ptolemies further settled Greek 

 troops, largely in the basin of the 

 Fayum, which they reclaimed by 

 reducing the inflow of the Nile. 



The position of women was 

 always high until the Arab con- 

 quest. Property was essentially 

 held by women. A man might even 

 have to declare at marriage that 

 all his earnings passed to his wife. 

 Down to Coptic times a wife's 



consent was necessary for a valid 

 sale in an open market ; even 

 though a mere formula, it proves 

 original intention. The wife 

 always appears side by side with 

 her husband on monuments, and 

 parentage was almost always 

 reckoned one or two generations 

 farther back on the female than 

 on the male side. Apparently the 

 inheritance to the kingdom de- 

 pended entirely on the female line, 

 and whoever was king in fact had 

 in law to marry the heiress. 

 Polygamy was unusual but not 



Erohibited ; in one case of a child- 

 ;ss wife the husband took six 

 others. There is no ceremony of 

 marriage preserved, and as in 

 Christian Egypt it was a legal 

 contract, rather than religious, it 

 was doubtless so before then. In 

 the Christian contract there was a 

 divorce clause, stating that either 

 party could cause divorce by 

 proclaiming it in the congregation. 

 The husband's gift was only 12s. 

 and the divorce penalty seven 

 times that sum. In the XXVIth 

 dynasty the penalty was only the 

 returning of half the marriage 

 portion. 



Simplicity of Native Costumes 

 Dress was simple, befitting the 

 climate. In prehistoric ages the 

 men wore a girdle, the women a 

 short linen petticoat like the 

 Dyaks, or later the Malay sarong. 

 The dynastic men wore a waist - 

 cloth or kilt, like that enjoined 

 by Mahomet, from the navel to 

 the knees ; the women wore a long, 

 white wrapper, from below the 

 breast to the ankles, held up by 

 shoulder-straps. These remained 

 the dress represented in art till 

 the XlXth dynasty ; but in reality, 

 as early as the Vth dynasty women 

 wore tight, high dresses with very 

 tight sleeves, like the modern 

 galabiyeh. At the same period, 

 pleated linen drawn into folds was 

 also used. In the late XVIIIth 

 dynasty and onward, very full 

 pleated linen dresses were used for 

 men and women. For the winter, a 

 thick, quilted robe was worn, as 

 shown on an aged king of the 

 1st dynasty ; thick, stiff, long 

 wrappers were usual for viziers 

 and high officers in the Xllth 

 dynasty. In Greek times, thick 

 outer wraps, often with fringes, 

 were usual. Stuff with very long, 

 loose threads all over it, like a 

 shaggy fur, was woven in the 

 XXIst dynasty. The weaving of 

 coloured patterns began in the 

 XVIIIth dynasty, but was ex- 

 tremely rare. The common use of 

 colour patterns on clothing is 

 entirely of the Roman period, and 

 most used in the Christian age, as 

 satirised by Jerome. 



EGYPT 



EDUCATION. The Egyptian was 

 always business-like, and kept 

 tallies of all goods, from the 1st 

 dynasty onward. . A tally of the 

 XVIIIth dynasty gives the ensign 

 of the Nile boats and the number 

 of blocks of stone which each 

 carried. From these tallies 

 elaborate accounts were drawn up, 

 listing every goat or pigeon on an 

 estate, or putting down as gifts 

 to the gods every item of 106,792 

 loaves of one kind or 1,975,800 

 nosegays. Every noble had a staff 

 of scribes on his estates to keep all 

 the bailiff's accounts, and they 

 are very often shown in the tomb 

 sculptures. By far the greater part 

 of the documents that are pre- 

 served of all periods are the 

 accounts. This proves that there 

 was a large class of men all 

 through the country who could 

 write, though probably the peasant 

 or petty trader was not as well 

 educated as in Babylonia. 



Education was probably in 

 general from father to son, but in 

 the XVIIIth dynasty schools were 

 attended in the towns. A rough 

 and practical geometry was used 

 by the scribes, for the areas of 

 fields and the contents of conical 

 granaries. There was certainly 

 also a much more skilled geometry 

 and astronomy by the pyramid 

 builders, who were capable of 

 setting out a building true to 1 in 

 10,000 and positions by the stars 

 to 1 in 1,000. In the XVIIIth 

 dynasty the clepsydra or water 

 clock was made as a wide conical 

 vessel, to compensate for the 

 quicker flow of water at greater 

 pressure, and was graduated for 

 each month to compensate for the 

 changes of temperature. In the 

 same age botany was studied, and 

 Tehutmes III sculptured a chamber 

 with the foreign plants of his 

 Syrian wars, having separate figures 

 of fruit and seed like a botanical 

 work. The Egyptian always had a 

 keen eye for differences of race, and 

 showed on monuments the types 

 of all the peoples that he visited. 



Egyptian Literature 

 The literature begins in the 

 pyramid period with maxims and 

 wonder- tales of magicians, parallel 

 to medieval tales of miracles. In 

 the Xllth dynasty tales of foreign 

 adventure were in fashion, suc- 

 ceeded in the XVIIIth dynasty by 

 tales of character. The growth 

 was therefore much the same as in 

 the last few centuries in Europe. 

 There were also serious works 

 which showed the deeper thoughts 

 of the time. In the Xlth dynasty 

 they wrote : 



Since the time of the ancestors 

 The gods who were aforetime 

 Who rest in their pyramids . . . 

 Their place is no more . . . 



