308 NORTH-EAST AFEICA. 



forest, armed only with clubs and sharpened flints, at a time when astronomical 

 observations, arithmetic, geometry, architecture, all the arts and nearly all the 

 industries of the present day, as well as the games which now delight our child- 

 hood, or afford relaxation from the serious work of life, were already known to 

 their Egyptian contemporaries. The origin of our sciences, and many moral pre- 

 cepts still taught by the " wisdom of nations," are found recorded on the papyri 

 and on the bas-reliefs of the monuments of Upper Egypt ; whilst many a dogma on 

 which existing religions are based, may be traced in its original form to the 

 documents discovered in the tombs of Thebes and Abydos. 



To Egypt we owe the art of writing, afterwards modified by the Phœnioians, 

 by whom it was communicated to all the peoples of the Mediterranean basin. The 

 very groove of our thoughts had its origin on the banks of the Nile. Mankind is 

 undoubtedly ignorant of its first epochs, nor can anyone assert positively that 

 civilisation first arose in Egypt. Nevertheless, we are unable to trace it further 

 back than the written records of this land, whose pyramids mark for us the limit 

 of past times. 



Egyptian Chronology. 



The Egyptians had no chronology properly so-called, their only division of 

 time consisting of the length of reign of their successive sovereigns. But the 

 uncertain dates obtained from the succession of the reigns partially indicated on 

 the buildings, and those handed down by Manetho, a priest under Ptolemy Phila- 

 delphus, can be checked by a few fixed dates, such as those of astronomical pheno- 

 mena. Biot, when examining the hieroglyphics translated by Emmanuel de 

 Rouge, was thus enabled to determine three dates in the history of Egypt com- 

 prised between the fifteenth and thirteenth centuries of the ancient era. In the 

 series of events the Egyptian annals accordingly yield us at least one established 

 date, seven centuries anterior to the Chaldean era of Nabonassar, which another 

 astronomical coincidence has enabled us to place in the year 746. Chabas has also 

 found in a " medical " papyrus in the library of Leipzig the cartouche of Menkerâ 

 or Mycerinus, followed by a reference to the solar ascension of Sothis or Sirius, as 

 having taken place in the ninth year of his reign. If the interpretation of the 

 text be correct, calculation would fix the date between the year 3,007 and 3,010 of 

 the ancient era, or a thousand years after the epoch attributed to the reign of 

 Menkerâ in Mariette' s chronological table. In any case, it is to be hoped that future 

 discoveries will enable us with certainty to trace back the course of ages, and to 

 determine positive dates for the origins of history, with which maj^ be connected 

 the fluctuating chronology of the most remote events of which the human race has 

 preserved the memory. The same necessity which has caused the metrical system 

 to be adopted for the measurement of terrestrial spaces, and which is now 

 endeavouring to establish a common meridian, renders it equally indispensable 

 that a common era should be sought, so as to establish a concordance for the events 

 of various nations. Sooner or later, when the savants shall endeavour to get rid 

 of the absurd chronological system which at present prevails in Christian Europe, 



