ages of plunder and decay is singularly uninstructive. But the great tombs themselves remain; and now the development of the 'mastaba' tomb of the Old Kingdom and of the pyramid can be traced through rapid stages. First, there is the great chambered brick sepulchre of Menes himself, standing entirely above ground, the body having been laid scarcely, if at all, below the surface level of the plain; next, the body is sunk in a large subterranean chamber; then in the third dynasty the building is solidified above ground into a uniform mass of brickwork-a mastaba-with 'battered' sides, and the sepulchral chamber is reached by a staircase. This last is practically the type of the Old Kingdom tomb for nobles of the fourth to the sixth dynasty, except that, instead of a staircase, they were content with a vertical pit ending in the small burial chamber. The later kings of the third dynasty devised a lofty pile, placing one mastaba on the top of another, so as to form stepped pyramids' with three or four stages. Senefru, the last king of the dynasty, filled in the steps to form an even slope, and so produced a true pyramid. The outer form was now fixed; only the workmanship and mode of construction remained to be simplified and perfected in the Great Pyramid by his successor, Cheops, of the fourth dynasty. Thus the art and archæology of these earliest dynasties have been added to our knowledge in the space of a few years; while, at the same time, the prehistoric civilisation of Egypt has been revealed to us in an extraordinary wealth of detail and abundance of material. One may, indeed, complain that the products of one excavation among the prehistoric cemeteries are monotonously like those of another, and that the main types are soon exhausted. But instructive variations in detail are discovered, and a small percentage of really striking novelties is unearthed each year; and, quite apart from this, there are great advantages in the infinite accumulation of material, for it enables the investigator to generalise with safety. He can establish series, he can find true averages, when he has hundreds or even thousands of examples in each category on which to base the deductions. Flinders Petrie has thus instituted what he calls a 'sequence dating' for the prehistoric period in Egypt. In no other country has any prehistoric age left such a wealth of relics in intelligible order, even as they were deposited group by group for a definite purpose and on definite occasions. The plains in some parts of North America are strewn with implements, like the deserts of Somaliland and Egypt; but these preserve little or no evidence of relative dating one with another; remains of widely differing ages may be jostling each other indistinguishably. It is otherwise with the contents of a grave. Here all the objects that exist together undisturbed were deposited at one and the same time, on the day when the corpse was interred and the grave filled in. The anthropologist can study crania and skeletons from the Egyptian graves by the hundred; and large numbers of dried bodies (buried in a crouched position) have been found in wonderful preservation, and are now being subjected by medical men to minute examination. The archæologist easily perceives that he has reached a period when the potter's wheel is as yet unknown; copper is already employed, though rare, while the infinitely superior alloy of bronze is not found till late in the historic period. Such is the scientific value of these marvellous finds of relics of a remote age, far earlier than the practice of mummification, and unmarked by any of those characters that we have learnt to recognise as essentially Egyptian, while the objects themselves are often beautiful and interesting. Even the pottery is frequently of fine form and decorated with tasteful or remarkable ornaments and figures; and the stone vases are elegant and varied in shape and material. The flint knives and spearheads display the perfection of workmanship; even the choicest specimens from Denmark can scarcely rival them for fineness and accuracy in the chipping, especially as the Egyptian flint is singularly uniform in texture, so that the ancient artificer was able to calculate the effect of his blows or pressure to a nicety with little fear of disappointment. Chronology is a difficulty everywhere when once we have passed beyond the synchronism between Babylonia and Egypt in the fifteenth century B.C., which fixes the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty in the seventeenth century B.C. with close accuracy. An astronomical datum appears to place the twelfth dynasty from the twenty-first to the nineteenth centuries B.C., but many consider the dynasty to be far older. The early dynasties are put at least about 3000 B.C. but may be nearer to 5000 B.C. The prehistoric age is, of course, not to be calculated at all chronologically. Perhaps the most remarkable discoveries of late years are those we have thus summarily described; but side by side with them flows a continual stream of smaller finds, in language, literature, history, and archæology, of periods previously known with some fulness. The histories written before 1880, nay, before 1900, for popular purposes are quite out of date, though Wiedemann's will long retain its value as a storehouse of references. There is, however, an abundance of recent works, more especially for English readers. The most notable is Professor Maspero's 'Histoire de l'Orient Classique' in three large and finely illustrated volumes, bearing the titles respectively, 'Les Origines,' 'Les Premières Mêlées des Peuples,' and Les Empires,' issued between 1894 and 1899. In his first volume Professor Maspero perforce gives Egypt and Babylonia separate treatment. Later, their history becomes more interwoven; then Israel rises into prominence, until ultimately the Persian Empire blends all together. Professor Maspero, in his bibliographical footnotes, shows an extraordinary acquaintance with the literature of his vast subject. When one remembers his activity as administrator of the Department of Antiquities in Egypt, as an explorer, and as a brilliant editor of Egyptian texts, it is astonishing that he can find time besides for researches in so wide a field. There seems no department of Egyptology which is not touched upon with a sure hand in his pages; and the history of Babylonia, Assyria, and the other countries is handled with proportionate fulness. The history seems somewhat unwieldly and unmethodical to the reader in spite of the consummate ease with which Maspero can apply his * Good English versions of this work have been published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, under the titles of 'The Dawn of Civilisation,' 'The Struggle of the Nations,' and 'The Passing of the Empires,' and the first of these volumes has already reached a fourth edition. In this great work is displayed the whole early history of the nearer Fast, the civilisations of the Nile valley and of Mesopotamia naturally taking the first place. immense learning; but it is a veritable mine of information, and of ideas where information fails. A different treatment is to be found in the series of volumes edited by that indefatigable explorer and archæologist, Flinders Petrie, the pioneer of scientific excavation in Egypt. Petrie himself has contributed two volumes reaching to the end of the eighteenth dynasty; a third from his pen is to bring the history down to the occupation by Alexander. Professor Petrie's plan makes his books a catalogue or work of reference rather than a consecutive history. All the information that can be collected about each ruler, whether notable or obscure, is thus given separately, comprising a list of his monuments and references to the publications. The illustrations are well selected, but not well reproduced; the utility and value of the work, however, are beyond dispute. A more attractive-looking work for the general reader or amateur Egyptologist is that issued by Dr E. A. Wallis Budge of the British Museum. The eight volumes, simultaneously published, range from the prehistoric period down to the end of the Ptolemaic rule. The style is more popular and less pregnant than that of the closely packed volumes of Petrie. The one is a work for students by a very original investigator, who is sometimes led astray by the very abundance of his ideas, and by the lack of trustworthy translations; the other is intended for popular use, though written by an expert in many Oriental tongues, who can therefore pronounce with authority on points which Egyptologists. as a rule, have to leave alone as outside their sphere of knowledge. Unfortunately, it contains blunders of the most obvious description. Many of the full-page illustrations of royal portraits involve astounding confusions between persons belonging to widely different ages, that were current in old works, and are again adopted without question. The work is not the result of painstaking original thought and research, like those of Maspero and Petrie; but Dr Budge's wide reading and a certain dogmatising common-sense have enabled him to give an account of Egyptian history which is not without instruction for the specialist, and should suit the general reader very well, especially if the author will take the trouble to revise it carefully for future editions. It will be recognised that, however grateful we must be to all these able pioneers and guides, we are far from having an ideal history of Egypt. The active Egyptologists are so fully occupied-some with administrative work in the formation and care of the national collections, others with excavations, others again with special researchesthat they cannot undertake the arduous preparation needed when a sound general history of ancient Egypt is to be written. The archæologist may err radically for want of adequate knowledge of the language; the philologist through having no grasp of the archæology, and all alike, however brilliant or sound they may be, through lack of general preparation. To write a good history of Egypt, a thorough knowledge of the country and of the monuments is absolutely necessary, as well as ample philological training and patience in the collection and verification of the written material, a recognition of style in antiquities, and insight into the meaning of inscriptions. Probably no one at the present time combines all these qualifications, and as yet they cannot be replaced by authoritative information at second hand. But never was there so much activity in Egyptology, nor so many workers aiming at a high degree of accuracy in copies and translations of inscriptions and in archæological observation; never were there so many paths of investigation opened up. When the specialists have had their say, and the main points are agreed upon, it will be easier for the historian to cover the field. A few years will probably see a great solidification of knowledge on these lines. Egyptian archæology has been treated by Maspero in a separate work, which was translated into English by the late Amelia B. Edwards in 1887. The English version, again, has been revised and re-edited, the fifth edition being issued in 1902. It forms a handy volume, well illustrated. Archæology is a wide term, but even if it be restricted to the arts and crafts, as is the case in this volume, the material for its study in Egypt is abundant enough. For four thousand years at least pagan Egypt produced works of art in a variety of materials. art of glazing was discovered in the prehistoric age, very likely as an accompaniment of metal-smelting; some of the examples dating from the early periods are artistic, The |