EGYPTIAN SCIENCE 



As to government, the Egyptian of the first dynasty 

 regarded his king as a demi-god to be actually deified 

 after his death, and this point of view was not changed 

 throughout the stages of later Egyptian history. In 

 point of art, marvellous advances upon the skill of 

 the prehistoric man had been made, probably in part 

 under Asiatic influences, and that unique style of stilt- 

 ed yet expressive drawing had come into vogue, which 

 was to be remembered in after times as typically Egyp- 

 tian. More important than all else, our Egyptian of 

 the earliest historical period was in possession of the 

 art of writing. He had begun to make those specific 

 records which were impossible to the man of the Stone 

 Age, and thus he had entered fully upon the way of 

 historical progress which, as already pointed out, has 

 its very foundation in written records. From now on 

 the deeds of individual kings could find specific record. 

 It began to be possible to fix the chronology of re- 

 mote events with some accuracy; and with this same 

 fixing of chronologies came the advent of true his- 

 tory. The period which precedes what is usually 

 spoken of as the first dynasty in Egypt is one into 

 which the present-day searcher is still able to see but 

 darkly. The evidence seems to suggest than an in- 

 vasion of relatively cultured people from the East over- 

 threw, and in time supplanted, the Neolithic civiliza- 

 tion of the Nile Valley. It is impossible to date this in- 

 vasion accurately, but it cannot well have been later than 

 the year 5000 B.C., and it may have been a great many 

 centuries earlier than this. Be the exact dates what 

 they may, we find the Egyptian of the fifth millennium 

 B.C. in full possession of a highly organized civilization. 



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