J>fAY 5,Jl92ll 



^3'!^ 



' ' Early Chroh;616gy of 



ON Wednesday, April 27, Prof. S. Langdon de- 

 livered a lecture on behalf' of the Egypt Explora- 

 tion Society at the Royal Society's rooms at Burling- 

 ton House on "The Early Chronology of Sumer and 

 Egypt and the Similarities of their Culture." The 

 cfcair was taken by Lord Carnarvon, who has just 

 returned from Egypt and gave a few interesting 

 details of recent excavation work carried out there. 



Prof. Langdon said that the ancient people com- 

 monly known as the Egyptians were . not the first 

 civilised people on the banks of the Nile, but they 

 were preceded by an Asiatic people who were prob- 

 ably Sumerians or Elamites. These two Asiatic 

 peoples are now known to have belonged to the same 

 race, and they founded the first organised societies 

 known to history on the shores of the Persian Gulf 

 and in Elam in the Stone age. The Sumerians, the 

 most talented branch of a widely spread race, spoke 

 a highly organised agglutinating speech. They are 

 found in prehistoric levels from the head of the Persian 

 Gulf northwards along the banks of the Euphrates 

 and the Tigris as far as Assur, north of the Lower 

 Zab, and in Russian Turkestan. Recently discovered 

 dynastic tablets establish the date of the earliest king- 

 doms of Mesopotamia as early as 5000 B.C. At that 

 time the Semites had already invaded the Meso- 

 potamian Valley and established themselves in the 

 region of Bagdad. The history of ancient Babylonia 

 consists of two rival kingdoms, Sumer in the south, 

 the principal capital of which was Erech, and Kish 

 in the north, the principal capital of which from 

 5000-2900 B.C. was at Kish. 



The earliest Sumerian culture is strikingly similar 

 to that of prehistoric Egypt ; it must be assumed that 

 a branch of this people occupied Upper Egypt in the 

 region of Abydos and HieraconpoHs as early as 

 5000 B.C. The Sumerian linear pictographic writing is 

 clearly revealed in the Egyptian potterv markings 

 which preceded the Egyptian hieroglyphs. This 

 writing is known to have been well developed in 

 Sumer or ancient Chaldea before 3800 B.C., and the 

 prehistoric Egyptian linear style cannot be much 

 later. The Sumerians and Elamites appear to have 

 reached Egypt by sea routes, trading and adventuring 

 along the coasts of southern Arabia until they reached 

 Punt, Ethiopia, and finally the Nile Valley in the 



Sumfer and Egypti ;' * :' ' V^ 



region of Coptos. All their prehistoric reniaii\s haVip 

 been found in Upper Egypt, principally at Abydos and 

 Naghada. They brought with them into Eg5;pt ifhe 

 cylinder seal, the mace head, and a style or decora- 

 tion in stone which is characteristic of Sumeri«jn 



art., , ..:..: Ir:'. 



The characteristic features of this remarkable people 

 were a |ong head of large brain capacity, a thin, high 

 nose which joined the cranium without depression, a 

 slightly receding forehead, and eyes the axes of which 

 are not horizontal, but slant slightly outward. The 

 position of the axis of the eye is precisely the reverse 

 of the Mongolian type. It is possible to discern in 

 their prehistoric tomb paintings in Egypt the same 

 physical characteristics. They disappeared in Egypt 

 some time before the first Egyptian dynasty founded 

 by Menes, and were superseded by an African people 

 who amalgamated with Semitic races from Asia. This 

 new race invented their own system of writing, which 

 developed into the classical hieroglyph. The older 

 Sumerian linear style app>ears to have been used ia 

 Egypt without intelligence even by the Sumerian- 

 Egyptians themselves. It was probably never under-^ 

 stood in Egypt, and the signs survived only as occult 

 marks on pottery after the older Asiatic peoples had! 

 disappeared. 



The religion of the Egyptians is obviously related 

 to the Sumerian, and there is no Semitic influence in 

 the fundamental religious concepts of the ancient 

 religions of Babylonia and Egypt. The names of the 

 gods in both pantheons do not reveal a single Semitic 

 name. It is probable that the great cults of Tammuiz 

 and Osiris are the creations of two branches of the 

 same people, that of Osiris being inherited by the 

 Egyptians from the older Asiatic people. 



Prof. Langdon attempted to fix the beginning of 

 the first Egyptian dynasty by comparing the methods 

 of year-dating of the famous Semitic Emperor Naram- 

 sin (2795-39 B.C.) with those of Egypt. He argued 

 that Naram-sin borrowed his system of year-dating 

 from Egypt, and showed that this could have taken 

 place only after Den, fifth king of the first dynasty. 

 He also argued from archaeology to make Naram-sin 

 "a contemporary of the last two kings of the second 

 Egyptian dynasty. He arrived bv these two methods 

 at a date circa 3200 B.C. for Menes. 



T^HE Report of the Interdepartmental Committee 

 -*■ on Imperial Forestry Education appointed to 



prepare a scheme for giving effect to the resolutions 

 of the British Empire Forestry Conference of 1920 

 with regard to a central institution for training forest 

 officers has just been issued (Cmd. 1166, H.M. 

 Stationery Office, 2d.). Keeping in view the decision 

 of the conference that the future higher training in 

 forestry should take place at a single central institu- 

 tion, the Committee recognises that the main object 

 to be aimed at in the training of forest officers is to 

 turn out men fully equipped with theoretical and 

 practical knowledge, with minds broadened by educa- 

 tion, and with capacity, strengthened by practical 

 experience in forest work, to direct men and opera- 

 tions. It considers that it would be a retrograde 

 course to interfere with the work already done by 

 universities in establishing and maintaining courses 

 of training in forestry, and seeks rather to co-ordinate 

 all these courses, to bring them up to a common 

 level, and to utilise them as a preliminary to a 

 higher course of training at one centre. 



NO. 2688, VOL. 107] 



Imperial Forestry Education. 



Under this scheme the course of study at a uni- 

 versity would extend over three years, leading to a 

 degree in forestry ; at this stage men would be selected 

 as probationers for one or other of the forest services, 

 and admitted to the central institution for a period 

 of higher training' extending over one year in the case 

 of ordinary forest officers, or longer in the case of 

 those who propose to specialise. In order to widen 

 the field for recruitment and to obtain men with a 

 high scientific training, it is considered desirable that 

 a certain number of probationers should be selected 

 with honours degrees in science ; these men should 

 then, after a forestry course covering the second and 

 third years at a university school, spend a final year 

 at the central institution. In the case of men 

 required as specialists honours graduates in science 

 should be selected, given such a course in general 

 forestry as may be considered necessary, and then 

 sent for two years to the central institution. 



The Committee directs attention to the great value 

 of maintaining^ close relations between the central 

 training institution and research work; research inta 



