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A country in the northeastern part of Africa; the modern
Egypt. The name, in Greek Aiguptos, 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"=agupta, "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 Syene; and on the west by the Great Libyan Desert. From
Syene 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 alluvial 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 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 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 plas tic skill; and
in the later centuries, when a freer treatment obtained, the lions and sphinxes
evince much spirit and vigour of execution. The architectural details of the
temples were always coloured. 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. 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 mediaeval 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 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, 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 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 Phoenician 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 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.
Another point of the Egyptian religion was a 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 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 , 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,
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, 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-Maghara, 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 Gizeh; 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.
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,
whom Manetho assigns to this dynasty, is an historical personage. Of her,Herodotus
relates various interesting stories, and the Arabs believe that she still haunts
the third pyramid of Gizeh, 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 Fayum 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.
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 Egyp [p. 29] tian history. To him, Kush and the southern tribes of Ethiopia,
the islands, as well as Assyria, Babylonia, Phoenicia, and a good part of Central
Asia, paid tribute. Under Amenhotep IV., the capital was removed to Alabastron
(Tel-el-Amarina), 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 Beyrut
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. 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. King Amenemhat I., of the Twelfth
Dynasty. 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 Sais
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. Many of the Assyrian garrisons were driven
out in B.C. 668, and when the Assyrian empire began to decline, Psametik (Psammetichus)
of Sais, 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 Phoenicia
first sailed south of the equator. Psammetichus II. warred with the Ethiopians,
and was followed by Apries, who was deposed and strangled by Amasis, who reigned
after him and fostered intercourse with Greece, marrying a Greek wife. He conquered
Cyprus, but incurred the enmity of Cambyses, 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 (Saite) 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, 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. 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., Cleopatra Berenice (81-80 B.C.); Neos Dionysus (80-51 B.C.). Last came
the famous Cleopatra, 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.
Egypt remained peaceful under Roman rule, except for the
conquest of Zenobia (270 A.D.) and the revolt of Firmus (272 A.D.). 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;
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.
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