Aegyptus
A country in the northeastern part of Africa; the modern Egypt. The name, in Greek
Αἴγυπτος, is perhaps a corruption of
Hakeptah (City
of Ptah), i. e. Memphis. Others explain it with less probability as formed from the Sanskrit
gup, “to guard”=
âgupta, “guarded about.” In Coptic, as in hieroglyphs, it
is called
Kemi (Black Land) from the colour of the soil. The Jews styled it
Mazor, “fortified,” or in the dual, to denote both Upper
and Lower Egypt,
Mizraim. This name is preserved in the modern Arabic
Misr—a word applied by the Arabs both to the country and to its
capital, Cairo.
Aegyptus was bounded on the north by the Mediterranean; on the east by Palestine, Arabia
Petraea, and the Red Sea; on the south by Aethiopia, the division between the two countries
being at the First or Little Cataract of the Nile, close to Syené; and on the west
by the Great Libyan Desert. From Syené the Nile flows due north for about 500
miles, through a valley whose average breadth is about seven miles, to a point some few miles
below Memphis. Here the river divides into branches (seven in ancient times, but now only
two), which flow through a low alluvial land, called, from its shape, the Delta, into the
Mediterranean. The whole district thus described is periodically laid under water by the
overflowing of the Nile from April to October. The river, in subsiding, leaves behind a rich
deposit of fine mud, which forms the soil of Egypt. All beyond the reach of the inundation is
rock or sand. Hence Egypt was called the “Gift of the Nile.” The outlying
portions of ancient Egypt consisted of three cultivable valleys (called oases), in the midst
of the Western or Libyan Desert.
Ethnology and Civilization.—At the earliest period of
which any record has been preserved, Egypt possessed a very high degree of civilization, and
one which presupposes many centuries of development. It was the home, too, of a very large
population, since during the Fourth Dynasty (about 3600 B.C.) some 100,000 men were employed
in constructing the Great Pyramid. At the time of Nero (A.D. 54) the Egyptians numbered
7,800,000; and the population is estimated to have been not much less under the Pharaohs, at
which time the towns numbered 1800 as against 3000 under the Ptolemies. The population of
modern Egypt Proper in 1882 was 6,806,000. The ancient Egyptians appear to have been of mixed
origin, partly Asiatic and partly Nigritic, superimposed upon an aboriginal type,
copper-coloured, with high cheek-bones, large lips, thin legs, and large feet. Both these
types appear upon the monuments. It is not true, as
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Egypt under the Romans.
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stated by the Greek writers, that a caste system prevailed.
As to the knowledge and culture of the ancient Egyptians, it is sufficient to mention
certain interesting and significant facts. As early as 4000 B.C., the pyramid-builders
possessed a definite system of chronology, a decimal system of numbers, a knowledge of
geographical science, of geometry, of astronomy, and probably of chemistry, anatomy, and
medicine. Literature dates equally far back, since of this period fragments of the so-called
Hermetic Books have come down to us; while
Cheops
(q.v.) himself was numbered among the authors of Egypt. Architecture and sculpture had
attained an extraordinary development, as shown by the remarkably fine specimens of masonry
still existing, by the admirably scientific construction of the temples, the elegance of the
columns, the chiselled statues of Chephren, and the sculptures found at Meydoun. Egyptian art
was rigidly conventional, yet its remains show unusual plastic skill; and in the later
centuries, when a freer treatment obtained, the lions and sphinxes evince
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Head of Wooden Statue from Bûlak.
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much spirit and vigour of execution. The architectural details of the
temples were always coloured.
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Ancient Profiles (from the Monuments): 1. Egypto-Ethiopian (the Tirhake of Scripture);
2, 4. Ethiopian; 3. Egyptian.
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In architecture the vault or arch was known at least 800 years before it can be
shown to have been used by the Romans. To transport the huge blocks of stone found in Egyptian
structures involved an advanced knowledge of engineering. The mechanical arts also flourished,
and many inventions, often regarded as modern, had been made as early as the Fifth Dynasty.
The blow-pipe, bellows, and siphons, the saw, chisel, press, balance, harpoon, lever, plough,
and adze, were all employed. Razors appear during the Twelfth Dynasty. An opaque kind of glass
was made about 3500 B.C., and dated specimens of the reign of Thothmes III. exist. At the same
period the potter's wheel and the kiln were known, as well as applications of metallurgy and
the use of tin.
Music was cultivated, for the harp and flute were known in the Fourth Dynasty; and later are
found the heptachord, pentachord, lyres, drums, trumpets, guitars, and the national
instrument, the
sistrum (q.v.). Many of these
instruments were of considerable size.
Painting was almost as conventional as architecture and sculpture, the colours generally
being the primary ones on a white background. The papyri containing rituals often exhibit
illuminations like those of the mediæval missals. Frescoes were not unknown;
encaustic is found to date back to only a comparatively late period.
In warfare, the Egyptians used shields, cuirasses of leather, helmets, bows, spears, clubs,
swords, and axes. In conducting sieges, they employed the
testudo (q. v.)
and scaling-ladders, and appear to have had a knowledge of the principles of mining and
counter-mining. Under the Eighteenth Dynasty, war-chariots were introduced, prior to which
time the army was composed entirely of infantry. Sea-going vessels were not earlier than B.C.
2500, though galleys and small sailing craft plied on the Nile at a very early period.
Coined money was first introduced by the Persians, previous to which time it is possible
that gold circulated in rings or in portions of definite weight. Popular amusements were
fencing, juggling, dancing, dice, and bull-fighting.
Religion.—The religion of the ancient Egyptians was a
pantheistic system, each god, as with the Romans, standing for some special attribute. Each
principal divinity is accompanied by a
put,
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Siphons used by the Egyptians.
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or retinue of associated gods. As with the Assyrians, the pantheon is grouped in
triads, or family groups, each consisting of the parent deity, his wife and sister, and a son.
Thus the god Ptah forms a triad with Sekhet or Bast and Imhotep. These triads are often
associated with inferior deities to complete the
put. The worship of
many triads was restricted to particular localities; but other triads, such as those of
Osiris, Isis, and Horus (all of which see), were adored all over Egypt. The dual conception
that embodies the antagonism of good and evil is seen in the opposition of the sun gods to the
Great Serpent, Apap, the type of darkness; while Osiris is pitted against Set. On the
monuments the gods are generally represented with human bodies but the heads of animals,
animals being their living emblems. At the close
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Colossal Head of a Hyksos King. (Black Granite Sculpture from the
Fayûm.)
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Egyptian Buffoons.
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of the eighteenth dynasty, some foreign deities were admitted into the religious
system of Egypt. Among these were Bar (Baal), Ashtarata (Ashtaroth), Ken (Kuin), and Reshpu
(Reseph). As with the Greeks and Romans, so with the Egyptians, the gods were conceived as
possessed of all the human passions and emotions.
The chief of the Egyptian deities is Ptah, the Opener, the creator of all things, the same
as the Phœnician Pataikos. To him belong Sekhet, the Lioness, Bast, Bubastis, the
goddess of fire, identified with Artemis. Ptah is depicted as a bowlegged dwarf. His son,
Nefer-Tum, wears the lotus on his head. Other gods are Khnum, the ramheaded god of water;
Heka, the Frog; Sati, the Sunbeam; Nit, the Shuttle; Khons (Force), the Heracles of Egyptian
mythology; Ra, the Sun; Amenra, the hidden power of the Sun; Seb, Time; and Nut, the
Firmament. Seb and Nut (Cronos and Rhea) gave birth to Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, Set, and the
elder Horus. The myth of
Osiris (q.v.) was the
Egyptian type of the judgment and future destiny of man; and all the dead are called by his
name. Each deity had its sacred animal, which was regarded as the second life of the deity
whom it represented. The most famous of these animals was the Apis, or sacred bull, at
Memphis, whose worship was national. See
Apis.
Another point of the Egyptian religion was a
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Temple of Thothmes III. at Karnak.
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belief in the transmigration of souls. All who were too impure to be admitted to the
Courts of the Sun, or whose bodies when embalmed perished before the end of 3000 years, passed
from body to body, having first descended to the lower world. The Sacred Bark in which the
mummy was carried over the Nile to its tomb was a type of the Sunboat which would at last bear
the purified spirit to Paradise.
The chief remains of Egyptian architecture are religious—tombs, temples, and
pyramids—the last-named being royal tombs reared to mark the burial-places of the
kings. They are the most ancient of the Egyptian monuments, the next in point of antiquity
being the rock-tombs of the Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties, with their mummy-pits. Later still
come the hill-tombs, with a temple before them.
Government.—Ecclesiastical government was in the hands
of the high-priests, in conjunction with an inferior hierarchy, overseers, and superintendents
of revenues, domains, and gifts. The civil government was carried on by the royal secretaries
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Bronze Figure of Apis.
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of justice, finance, foreign affairs, and internal administration. The
army—at one time numbering some 400,000 men—was officered by nomarchs,
colonels, and captains. In the time of Rameses II. there were territorial regiments. Circuit
judges administered law.
History.—In the third century B.C.,
Manetho (q.v.), a priest of Heliopolis, prepared, at the
request of King Ptolemy Philadelphus, a history of Egypt from Menes (B.C. 4455) to the
conquest of Egypt by Alexander, B.C. 332, a period which he divided into thirty dynasties. The
work of Manetho is preserved in the form of epitomes by Iulius Africanus (A.D. 300), Ensebius
(q. v.), and Georgius Syncellus (A.D. 800). Much weight is now given to the statements of
Manetho, since he undoubtedly had access to the most authentic records of Egypt; and the study
of the monumental inscriptions in modern times has served to justify this confidence.
Myth declares Egypt to have been originally governed by a dynasty of
divinities—Ptah, Ra, Shu, Seb, Hesiri (Osiris), Set, and Har (Horus)—
reigning 13,900 years, and succeeded by demigods who ruled for a further
period of 4000 years. The first purely human monarch of Egypt is said to have been Menes,
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Thoth, the God of Writing.
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whose epoch is variously dated by different Egyptologists. Brugsch fixes it at B.C.
4455, and Lepsius at B.C. 3892. No monuments of Menes exist. The seat of his power is said to
have been This, near Abydos, and he is believed to have founded Memphis. His dynasty reigned
some 250 years, being succeeded by the Second Dynasty, which held sway for 300 years. Under it
the worship of sacred animals is asserted to have begun. With the succeeding dynasty (B.C.
3966 according to Brugsch) the monumental history of Egypt commences. The king Senoferu
conquered the Sinaitic peninsula and opened the copper-mines of Wady-Maghâra, where
his name and portrait may still be seen. The seated figures of Rahotep and his wife Nefert,
the oldest statues in the world, date from this reign.
The Fourth Dynasty lasted 167 years (B.C. 3733-3566). Under it Khufu (Cheops) built the
Great Pyramid at Gîzeh; his successor Khafra (Chephrenes) built the second pyramid;
and Menkaura (Mycerinus) the third. From this period dates also the famous ritual known as the
Book of the Dead, and various works of art.
The Fifth Dynasty comprised nine kings, and lasted some 200 years. The last of the line,
Unas, built the truncated pyramid near Sakkara, now called Pharaoh's Seat. See
Pyramis.
The Sixth Dynasty contains the name of King Pepi, whose general, Una, undertook various wars
and expeditions, among them one to Palestine, in which he used negro troops from Nubia. A
number of texts belonging to this reign were found in pyramids opened in 1880. It is doubtful
whether Queen
Nitocris (q.v.), whom Manetho assigns
to this dynasty, is an historical personage. Of her,
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Hieratic Papyrus. (Twentieth Dynasty.)
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Herodotus relates various interesting stories, and the Arabs believe that she still
haunts the third pyramid of Gîzeh, where she is said to have been buried.
From the Seventh to the Twelfth Dynasty, Egyptian history is obscure. One reason, perhaps,
is to be found in the fact that the nomarchs or local governors became more and more
independent, to the detriment of the importance of the kings. The inscriptions at Siat,
recently published by Griffith, show that in the Ninth and Tenth Dynasties, the kings of Egypt
waged war against these rebellious nomarchs, especially those of Thebes. These last, under the
Tenth Dynasty, began to claim the title of royalty, and did in fact succeed in establishing
their claim. More than that, they overran and conquered the whole country after a protracted
struggle, so that the Eleventh Dynasty is Theban. Thebes, from being an insignificant
provincial town, became the royal capital; and from the time of the Twelfth Dynasty (about
B.C. 2500) begins a new period of political unity and intellectual achievement, so that in
later times it was regarded as Egypt's Golden Age. Literature flourished, and great material
prosperity prevailed. Nubia was conquered as far as the Second Cataract. Besides Thebes, other
cities, such as On (Heliopolis), Tanis, and Bubastis, were embellished and enlarged; while the
province of Fayûm was gained for agriculture. The excavations of Petrie prove that
Amenemhat III. was the Moiris of Herodotus who constructed a great basin for a branch of the
Nile flowing into that oasis and losing itself in swamps. In the middle of the basin were
found two pyramids with colossal statues surmounting them; and near by, the largest of all the
temples of Egypt, the so-called Labyrinth, of which, however, only the foundation stones have
been preserved. See
Labyrinthus.
Between the Thirteenth and the Eighteenth Dynasties there exists a blank. About B.C. 2000,
the progress of the kings of Chaldea in Asia, or some other disturbance, sent the Hyksos or
“Shepherd Kings” into Lower Egypt. These invaders appear to have been of
Tartar race. They carried Memphis by storm, expelled the Theban dynasty, and made the city of
Avaris (the later Tanis) their seat. Of these kings, Joseph was probably prime-minister to
Apepi at Tanis. His granaries are still visible at Pithom. The Hyksos made some religious
changes and tried to replace the worship of Ra by that of Set. They were finally overthrown by
the Egyptians of Upper Egypt under Aahmes I. (Amosis), who took Avaris by assault and restored
the old religion. The succeeding kings, Amenhotep I., Thothmes I., Thothmes II., and Thothmes
III., carried the arms of Egypt far into Ethiopia, Nubia, and Asia, subduing the whole of
Syria and part of Mesopotamia. The reign of Thothmes III. is the most brilliant period of
Egyptian history. To him, Kush and the southern tribes of Ethiopia, the
islands, as well as Assyria, Babylonia, Phœnicia, and a good part of Central Asia,
paid tribute. Under Amenhotep IV., the capital was removed to Alabastron
(Tel-el-Amârina), and the monotheistic worship of the sun was allowed to diminish
the regard paid to the other deities. The true religion was restored by Haremhebi (Horus)
after a period of some thirty-five years. He was succeeded by Rameses I., who heads a long
dynasty. His successor, Seti I. (Sethos), by his victories in Asia, introduced the worship of
Baal and Ashtaroth into Egypt. His troops garrisoned Tyre, and Aradus, and Bethanath in
Canaan. Rameses II., son of Seti, defeated the Hittites and took Shaluma, the ancient site of
Jerusalem, in a war which lasted four years. A tablet of this monarch has been found near
Beyrût in Syria. Rameses II. also reconquered Ethiopia, which had revolted, and
established a fleet on the Mediterranean. He it is whose exploits form a basis for the myths
woven around the legendary
Sesostris (q.v.). His
date is about B.C. 1322. His son Meneptah transferred the seat of government to Memphis, and
is probably the Pharaoh of the Jewish Exodus.
Rameses III., of the Twentieth Dynasty, waged war with the Philistines, and with some of the
maritime tribes of Greece, gaining naval victories in the Mediterranean. His favourite temple
and palace were at Medinet Habu. The Ramessids who followed were ended by the high-priests of
Thebes, who deposed the last king. A new dynasty from Tanis succeeded, and reigned with little
power. Under them, the police ceased trying to protect the tombs of the kings from plunderers,
who, in consequence, stole many of the mummies and hid them in an excavation, where they were
found in 1881.
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King Amenemhat I., of the Twelfth Dynasty. (Head in Red Granite from the Great Temple
of Tanis. Photographed by Mr. W. M. F. Petrie.)
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Egyptian of the time of the Fifth Dynasty, circa B.C. 3300. (Limestone Statue in the
Museum of Ghizeh.)
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The Twenty-second Dynasty (B.C. 950) was of Libyan origin, probably established by the
powerful Libyan body-guard which had become extremely influential. Shoshank I. (the Biblical
Shishak) plundered cities in India, and made war upon the Jewish kings Jeroboam and Rehoboam.
Under the Twenty-third Dynasty (of Tanis), the unity of the Empire was lost. The different
provinces fell away from the central power, and in the Twenty-fourth Dynasty King Bocchoris
ruled over Saïs and Memphis alone. Under the Twentyfifth Dynasty (B.C. 728), the
whole of Egypt became an Ethiopian province, and its viceking suffered defeat at the hands of
the Assyrians, who, in B.C. 671, under Assar-haddon, conquered Egypt and divided it among
tributary princes. (See
Assyria.) Many of the
Assyrian garrisons were driven out in B.C. 668, and when the Assyrian empire began to decline,
Psametik (Psammetichus) of Saïs, descended from the kings of the Twenty-fourth
Dynasty, founded a new line with the aid of Greek mercenaries from Ionia and Caria. Under him
and his successors, art and learning revived. His successor, Nekao II., began a canal to
connect the Red Sea with the Mediterranean, but desisted at the warning of an oracle, having
also lost a large number of workmen in the attempt. He it was who defeated
Josiah, king of Judah, and conquered Palestine, but was himself defeated by Nebuchadnezzar. In
the time of his reign, navigators from Phœnicia first sailed south of the equator.
Psammetichus II. warred with the Ethiopians, and was followed by Apries, who was deposed and
strangled by
Amasis (q.v.), who reigned after him and
fostered intercourse with Greece, marrying a Greek wife. He conquered Cyprus, but incurred the
enmity of
Cambyses (q.v.), second king of the Medes
and Persians, who invaded Egypt, and overthrew the son of Amasis at the battle of Pelusium
(B.C. 527), thus insuring the conquest of Egypt, which now became a Persian province. Becoming
insane, Cambyses committed many barbarous acts, stabbed the sacred bull Apis, and gave himself
up to gross debauchery. He was succeeded by Darius I., Xerxes I., and Artaxerxes I., who
governed with comparative mildness, but against whom the Egyptians rose in unsuccessful
revolt, being aided by the Athenians. The Twenty-eighth (Saïte) Dynasty struggled
with varying success against the Persians; the Twenty-ninth maintained a Greek alliance with
the same object; but with the Thirtieth, the Persians finally prevailed, and Egypt remained
subject to them until the time of Alexander the Great (B.C. 332), who in that year founded
Alexandria (q.v.), after having conquered
Persia. In B.C. 306, Alexander's general, Ptolemaeus, assumed the title of King of Egypt. His
successors transformed Egypt into a Greek kingdom, both the language of the government and of
scholarship being Greek. (See
Alexandrian
School.) The court of the Ptolemies became a centre of learning; and Ptolemy
Philadelphus built the famous Museum, founded the great Library, and procured the Septuagint
translations of the Hebrew Scriptures. From this time the list of his successors is as
follows: Euergetes (246-221 B.C.); Philopator (221-204 B.C.), who persecuted the Jews and
warred with Antiochus; Epiphanes (204-180 B.C.); Philometor (180-145 B.C.); Euergetes II.
(145-116 B.C.); Ptolemy Soter II. and his mother Cleopatra (116- 81 B.C.); Alexander II.,
BerenicCleopatra é (81-80 B.C.); Neos Dionysus (80-51 B.C.). Last came the famous
Cleopatra (q.v.), the mistress of Antony. After
her defeat at the battle of Actium (31 B.C.), Egypt was made a Roman province by Augustus
Caesar, under a governor of equestrian rank. See
Ptolemaeus.
Egypt remained peaceful under Roman rule, except for the conquest of Zenobia (270 A.D.) and
the revolt of Firmus (272 A.D.). (See
Zenobia;
Firmus.) The most interesting events of this period are,
besides the two just mentioned, the visits of Vespasian, Hadrian, and Caracalla to Alexandria;
the persecutions of
Diocletian (q.v.); the rise
of the Gnostics, Manichaeans, and Arians; and the final supremacy of the Christian faith in
379 A.D.
When the Roman Empire was divided in 395 A.D., Egypt went with the Eastern division, and
later became one of the great patriarchates of the Church. In 616 A.D., owing to bitter
religious feuds, it became a Persian province for twelve years. In the year 639, when the
Arabs invaded the country, a native (Coptic) governor was over Egypt, administering it in the
name of the Emperor Heraclius. Seeing in the invasion a means for throwing off the rule of the
Greeks, he made only a pretended resistance to the Arab chief, 'Amr Ibn el-Asi, who in
the year 641 took Alexandria, and made the whole of Egypt a province of the calif Omar.
Bibliography.—See Wilkinson,
Manners and
Customs of the Ancient Egyptians (1847; new ed. by Birch, 1879); Brugsch,
Recueil des Monuments Egyptiens (1862-63); Bunsen,
Aegyptens Stelle (1844-57); Lepsius,
Denkmäler (1849-74);
Sharpe, History of
Egypt (1846):
Mariette, Monuments of Upper Egypt
(1877);
Rawlinson, History of Ancient Egypt (1881); Ebers,
Egypt, Historical and Descriptive (Eng. trans. 2d ed. 1887);
Lane-Poole, Art of the Saracens (1886); Brugsch Pasha,
Egypt under the Pharaohs (2d ed. 1861);
Erman,
Aegypten (1885);
Lepage-Renouf, Lectures
(1880); Maspéro,
Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria
(Engl. trans. 1892);
Brimmer, Egypt (1892).
For the language,
Brugsch's Grammaire Hiéroglyphique
(1872) may be recommended, and
Loret's Manuel (1887); with
Brugsch's dictionary
(1880). Grammars of special periods have been written by
Prof. Erman of Berlin. On Egyptian art, see Perrot and Chipiez,
History of Art;
Maspéro,
Archéologie Egyptienne; Reber,
History of Ancient Art (Engl. trans. 1882); Lübke,
Geschichte der Kunst, 11th ed.
(1892);
Goodyear, A
Grammar of the Lotus (1892).