EGYPTIAN SCIENCE 



any accuracy. But they give us glimpses of the early 

 stages of civilization upon which the Egyptians of the 

 dynastic period were to advance. 



It is held that the nascent civilization of these Egyp- 

 tians of the Neolithic, or late Stone Age, was over- 

 thrown by the invading hosts of a more highly civilized 

 race which probably came from the East, and which 

 may have been of a Semitic stock. The presumption 

 is that this invading people brought with it a knowl- 

 edge of the arts of war and peace, developed or adopted 

 in its old home. The introduction of these arts served 

 to bridge somewhat suddenly, so far as Egypt is con- 

 cerned, that gap between the prehistoric and the his- 

 toric stage of culture to which we have all along re- 

 ferred. The essential structure of that bridge, let it 

 now be clearly understood, consisted of a single ele- 

 ment. That element is the capacity to make written 

 records: a knowledge of the art of writing. Clearly 

 understood, it is this element of knowledge that forms 

 the line bounding the historical period. Numberless 

 mementos are in existence that tell of the intellectual 

 activities of prehistoric man; such mementos as flint 

 implements, pieces of pottery, and fragments of bone, 

 inscribed with pictures that may fairly be spoken 

 of as works of art ; but so long as no written word ac- 

 companies these records, so long as no name of king or 

 scribe comes down to us, we feel that these records be- 

 long to the domain of archaeology rather than to that of 

 history. Yet it must be understood all along that these 

 two domains shade one into the other and, it has al- 

 ready been urged, that the distinction between them 

 is one that pertains rather to modern scholarship than 



29 



