EGYPTOLOGICAL AND ASSYKIOLOGICAL RESEARCH. 



259 



to the time when the chronological reckoning 

 is lost. Beyond, scarcely anything is known 

 more than that the third as well as the fourth 

 dynasty had its seat at Memphis, and the first 

 two their seats at This; perhaps the kingdom 

 of Thinites was contemporary with the former 

 dynasties. 



Thus, before Moses, were three very long 

 periods, separated from one another by unde- 

 termined intervals, each of which abounds in 

 texts of every kind preserved in the original. 

 There is also a great work on Egyptian theol- 

 ogy of more than a hundred and sixty chap- 

 ters, of which a part exists in manuscripts an- 

 terior to Moses, some portions of which are 

 engraved on one or more sepulchres anterior 

 even to the twelfth dynasty. Concerning the 

 value of the conclusions drawn from the hiero- 

 glyphic writings, it is proper to say that though 

 they often present subtilties hard to compre- 

 hend, and grammatical difficulties, the princi- 

 ples on which they are used and their general 

 meaning have been carefully and intelligently 

 studied out, and no room has been left for any 

 serious mistake in the matter. Great aid has 

 been rendered in the study and translation of 

 the Coptic, the liturgical language of the na- 

 tive Christians, which it has been found is 

 hardly more different from Pharaonic Egyp- 

 tian than Italian from Latin. 



Numerous monuments exist in the region of 

 the Euphrates and the Tigris, the country of 

 the Abrahamic ancestors of Israel, with in- 

 scriptions in the cuneiform characters, and 

 texts preserved on cylinders of clay, which, 

 besides being of the greatest historical value, 

 give important information concerning polit- 

 ical conditions and the religious beliefs and 

 rites of many centuries anterior to Moses. 



These texts present a doctrine remarkably 

 different from the later Babylonian religion 

 with which that of the Assyrians, or Nine- 

 vites, was nearly identical. It is known by 

 numerous texts and accordances during a long 

 succession of centuries. The difference of the 

 two doctrines does not represent the simple 

 opposition of a sect, but rather a distinction 

 of races marked by one of languages. The 

 documents of that country which are not 

 Babylonian are written in an idiom called Su- 

 merian by M. Oppert and Accadian by M. 

 Lenormant, or rather two dialects distinguished 

 by those names, representing a language analo- 

 gous to that of ancient Media. 



The preserved copies of the Suinerian or 

 Accadian mythological texts came from a royal 

 library (of clay cylinders) of the seventh cen- 

 tury before the Christian era, where they were 

 preserved with, and without, Assyrian transla- 

 tions ; the texts themselves go back to an 

 epoch very ancient, and far anterior to the fif- 

 teenth century B. o. Among them also is a 

 mythological epic poem in the Babylonian lan- 

 guage, in which there is a recital of the Deluge 

 nearly like that in the book of Genesis. 



Ascending further back into the pre-monu- 



mental periods from which these texts descend, 

 we draw nearer to a monotheism of which the 

 character is more or less exalted, or more or less 

 gross, according to the races of men ; and which 

 passes very easily into a real polytheism, but 

 which, nevertheless, manifests itself as a point 

 of departure, and not as a point of arrival. 



M. Pictet, in his "Origines Indo-Euro- 

 pe>nes," establishes also the spiritualistic char- 

 acter of the primitive civilization of the whole 

 .Aryan race, by going back to the epoch when 

 the Hindoos, Slavs, Iranians, Celts, Hellenes, 

 and Germans, lived together and spoke only 

 one language ; or, to express it more precisely, 

 by ascending up to the epoch when the com- 

 mon ancestors of all these people formed only 

 one great Japhetic tribe. The common roots 

 of different Indo-European languages, express- 

 ing sensible objects, have enabled him to recog- 

 nize very many elements, both material and 

 intellectual, of the ancient civilization, which 

 was that of our common ancestors; and the 

 proper signification and etymological relations 

 established by the comparison of words repre- 

 senting moral and religious habits, offer a for- 

 cible and solid answer to that hypothesis which 

 assumes that the point of departure of the hu- 

 man race was from a bestial state. 



There are extensive and numerous Egyptian 

 texts ascending up to the epoch of the sixth, 

 fifth, and fourth dynasties, and some lines 

 whose date was at the end of the third dy- 

 nasty. It was during the fourth dynasty that 

 the great pyramids of Gezeh were built. The in- 

 scriptions are most frequently funereal. There 

 is found, also, in one of the tombs of that epoch, 

 an autobiography of a high functionary, a real 

 page of contemporary history. There is also, 

 on papyrus, a book on morals and religion, 

 composed a very few generations after the con- 

 struction of the great pyramids ; and a copy of 

 that book which has been traced to the time 

 of the ninth dynasty, a number of centuries 

 anterior to Moses. Religions and historical 

 texts abound on the monuments of the twelfth 

 dynasty ; and the eighteenth dynasty,which is 

 wholly anterior not only to the writing of the 

 Pentateuch, but probably to the birth of Moses, 

 is one of the richest in monuments of every 

 kind ; and these monuments have been deco- 

 rated with a profusion of hieroglyphic texts. 



At the age of the pyramids, an epoch which 

 nearly touches the cradle of the Egyptian mon- 

 archy, probably but little separated from the 

 first dispersion of the descendants of Noe, the 

 fundamental principle of the religion of Egypt 

 was monotheism, or one God. But very early 

 also, the imperfect language of that theology, 

 the figurative denominations by which it ex- 

 pressed the attributes or the acts of the divin- 

 ity, afforded an occasion for polytheistic and 

 mythological interpretations which, without 

 doubt, dominated the popular sentiment of an 

 epoch very remote. 



Mythological polytheism grows toward the 

 Graaco-Roman period. Monotheism becomes 



