Now 24, 1881] 
NATURE 
75 
Roman sculptor could produce it. The men were painted 
a kind of copper colour, the women yellow, like the Semitic 
races. The red tint appears later, and the lips at all 
periods seem to show that an infusion of black blood 
even at the earliest age had been transfused into the 
Egyptian race. Senefru or Senophris had already con- 
quered the Arabian Peninsula of Mount Sinai and 
worked the turquoise mines of the Wady Magarah. 
Besides turquoise, however, copper slag has been found 
at the spot, but the aff, an obscure word, sometimes 
apparently used for a light blue colour, is decidedly not 
copper. The Great Pyramids, however, are the work of 
the subsequent dynasty, whose history is chiefly an account 
of Pyramids and their construction, with an occasional 
notice of their builders, and the present work judiciously 
gives the history without the fallacious theories which 
have found favour with credulous enthusiasts. 
Although iron weapons have not been found of the age 
of Cheops, a sheet of this metal was discovered in one of 
the air-passages, and a copper tool in another, and the 
name of one of the monarchs, Merba, ‘lover of metal,’’ 
or “iron,” occurs amongst the kings of the first dynasty. 
Except for monumental remains the history of the fourth 
dynasty is unimportant, although it kept up the conquests 
and mines of the Wady Magarah, and architecture and 
technical arts improved, while sculpture and portraiture 
continued their unrivalled career. With the fifth dynasty 
the interest begins to thicken, the Pyramids are no longer 
dumb stones unable to explain their appearances on the 
great Memphite plains. The presence of pyramids and obe- 
lisks had shown that there was a religious system; the in- 
scriptions in the Pyramid of Phiops at Sakkarah, and those 
of his successor, show that the myth of Osiris and the cos- 
mogonic ideas connected with it had already developed, 
while the passage of the soul along the starry heavens, 
and the constellations, especially Orion and the dog-star, 
prove that the eschatological notions of the period differed 
exceedingly from those of subsequent periods, while the 
ethical writers of the period herald the advent of philo- 
sophy. The sixth dynasty, the inscriptions on the pyra- 
mids of which have been recently discovered, follow the 
same ideas as the fifth dynasty. Sir Erasmus Wilson has 
now been able to avail himself of these recent discoveries 
of the texts of the tombs. After the sixth dynasty lists 
perhaps supply the succession, but there is a monumental 
gap till the eleventh, and thence from the twelfth—a fair 
succession. Thebes, Tanis, and Heliopolis supplant 
Memphis. 
The fifth dynasty had no very important history, and 
that of the sixth only acquires importance from its enrolling 
negro troops for the purpose of its northern wars, and the 
religious inscriptions recently discovered in its Pyramids 
throw light not only on the earlier religion, but on the 
antiquity of the worship of the gods and their relative 
place in the religious system. The first dynasty after 
the sixth which has any history is undoubtedly the 
twelfth, although the tenth attempted to reach Punt 
or Somali, or Cape Guardafui—early evidence no doubt 
of sea-going ships on the Red Sea and eastern coast 
of Africa. The history of the twelfth dynasty, its obe- 
lisks, labyrinth, Lake Moeris, is well and fairly given, 
but no additional light is thrown on the period already 
well known from the monuments and the Turin Canon, 
and the Sallier and Berlin papyri. On the north this 
dynasty did not penetrate farther than the peninsula of 
Mount Sinai, transferring their search for turquoises and 
metals from the Wady Magarah to the Sarabout El 
Khadem in the vicinity. Distinguished as it is by the 
advance in the arts and sciences as manifested in the 
tombs of Memphis, Abydos, and Eileithyia, its principal 
features were the undying thirst for gold, and constant 
search for slaves in the South amongst the Negroes, and 
its fortifications over the South and North against Negroes 
and Asiatics. There is a fair account of the twelfth 
dynasty, but the history of that period is capable of 
some expansion. The obscure subsequent dynasties, 
especially the Shepherd rulers, various monuments and 
statues of whom have been found at Tanis, and are 
described in the writings of De Rougé and Mariette, are 
fairly given. Some further information might perhaps 
have been added, but there is enough to satisfy the Jam- 
bent curiosity of the general reader. The history of the 
eighteenth dynasty is well known, and although the rich 
discovery of mummies at the Deir-el-Bahari has not 
added one iota to this period, it has confirmed some old 
ideas. It is certain that the queen of Aahmes I., called 
Aahmes Nefertari, ‘‘the good companion of Aahmes,” was 
unequivocally black, and no sacred office could possibly 
wash that AEthiopian white. Black she was always 
painted, and an Erastian priesthood never attempted 
to whiten her face. The throne of. Egypt under this 
dynasty was occupied not by one, but by a succession of 
mulattos, and there was no deficiency either of courage 
or intelligence in the monarchs who raised Egypt to the 
highest pitch of glory, and stretched the boundaries to the 
Euphrates, if not to India itself. Egypt, in fact, always 
had a great infusion of Nigritic blood in its population, 
more Semitic perhaps on the East and European on the 
West, but undoubtedly very Nigritic on the South, where the 
misegenation with the black races prevailed. The princes 
of AEthiopia, scions of the royal family, were no doubt 
at this time red Egyptians in their parentage ; but there 
were then, as now, two kinds of Negroes, the black and 
the copper-coloured. Many of the male contemporaries 
of Cheops have a chocolate hue, which hardly agrees 
with a Caucasian origin. Sir Erasmus Wilson seems 
puzzled about the inscription at the base of the obelisk 
of Hatasu at Karnak; it did not dovetail in with chrono- 
logical theories, so Lepsius assigned it to the “ blundering 
stonecutter’’ ; but later explanations solved the seven 
months, by showing that the kings dated their regnal 
years from their accession, and that the date of the 
accession fell within the seven months, and the seven 
months were in two regnal years, and that it was un- 
necessary to add twelve months to the calculation. This 
has been generally accepted by scrupulous chronologists 
only too anxious to play at figures, and it appears a 
natural one. No one need marvel at the rapidity 
of the work, as the wishes of tyrannical princes have 
always been carried out with a marvellous rapidity, 
without the least consideration for human life, much less 
of toil. The grandeur of the works of Thothmes III. at 
Karnak, his obelisks and his exploits, are given, but the in- 
genious capture of Joppa bya stratagem worthy of the pen 
of Polyzenus, and the countries where Thothmes hunted the 
elephant, are not pointed out. India has been suggested, 
