HISTORY AND ETHjSTOLOGY. 5 



dered with scarcely the show of resistance, reduced the country to 

 bondage, and placed the priests especially under the severest yoke. Egypt 

 now remained a Persian province, until it was conquered by Alexander the 

 Great, 331 B.C. After his death (321 B.C.), it became the inheritance of 

 one of his generals, Ptolemy, who again elevated it to the dignity of an 

 independent kingdom. In this form it maintained its ascendency until the 

 battle of Actium, 31 B.C., when it changed masters again and became a 

 Roman province. 



Internal Condition of Egypt, , 



Under the reign of Sesostris, the country was divided into thirty-six 

 provinces, administered by functionaries of different grades, according to a 

 written code of laws. The population ranged between five and seven 

 millions, and was divided into several castes. The principal of these were 

 the Sacerdotal Gaste, who occupied all the valuable public offices, and 

 patronized the arts and sciences ; the Warrior^s Caste watched over the 

 external defence and internal tranquillity, constituted a complete war 

 establishment, and was the rank from which the king was usually elected. 

 Then followed in rank, respectively, the Agriculturists, the Herdsmen, the 

 Tradesmen (artists, mechanics, retailers, and merchants of every sort), the 

 Interpreters, who conducted the negotiations between the Egyptians and 

 foreigners ; and finally, the Boatmen of the Nile. Each caste lived sepa- 

 rately, and the offspring could not rise above the rank in which they were 

 born. 



The education of the priesthood was mostly practical. It was directed to 

 an intimate knowledge of the soil, climate, and productions of the country, 

 and to the sciences bearing upon these subjects : Astronomy, Mathematics 

 (especially Geometry), Architecture, Painting, Music, Botany, Medicine, 

 and Chemistry. They knew the art of WTiting, and had exclusive 

 possession of the art of recording transactions, discoveries, &c., in 

 symbolical pictures and figures (hieroglyphics) standing for w^ords and ideas, 

 decipherable only by themselves. 



The religion and its various ceremonies, of the Egyptians, are in a mea- 

 sure represented on our plates. In addition to the stars, they worshipped 

 the crocodile, the falcon, the ichneumon, the ibis, dog, cat, wolf, and abore 

 all the ox (apis). Astronomy has placed the figures of animals among the 

 constellations, and as animal worship was doubtless the result of star worship, 

 so the psychological ideas of the Egyptians had a close relation to the same 

 subject. Thus they assigned to the souls of the dead a journey of three 

 thousand years over the zodiac, when they again would return to animate 

 human bodies. This explains, also, the great care bestowed upon the 

 preservation of the bodies by embalming. It was a powerful effi)rt to 

 protect against the corroding touch of time, the human tabernacle, and have 

 it in readiness when the spirit should have accomplished its pilgrimage. 



The process of embalming was conducted by a large class of persons, 

 and formed a considerable business. The flesh was first well pressed, so as 



ICONOGRAPmC ENCTCLGP^DrA. VOL. III. 12 l77 



