07. The Origin of Civilization in Egypt.

The Origin of Civilization in Egypt.

It has often been confidently affirmed in modern times, that colonization and civilization descended from Ethiopia down the Nile to Egypt. From this view one can hardly avoid a certain suspicion of the notices respecting Egypt in the Pentateuch. Already, in Abraham’s time, we find the seat, not of a, but of the flourishing Egyptian kingdom in Lower Egypt, whither colonization and civilization could scarcely, at that time, have been carried. Zoan or Tanis in the Delta appears in Numbers 13:23, as one of the oldest cities in Egypt. But this position is entirely hypothetical, and its inadmissibility, as is now more and more acknowledged, appears, even when we for the present leave the Pentateuch, out of the account. From antiquity arises a distinguished witness, Herodotus, who^[88] derives the civilization of Ethiopia from the deserters from the army of Psamaticus. Among the moderns, Jomard^[89] has most thoroughly confuted this position. “Nubia,” he remarks, “consists almost entirely of barren rocks. Such a land, where the most urgent wants of man can only be supplied with the utmost exertion, is not the cradle of the fine arts. Accordingly the majority of French travellers have not embraced the opinion, that the arts have descended further and further from the mountains of Ethiopia.” “So soon as I received information of the true character of the antiquities of Nubia, when I in the pictures and sculptures saw the same objects which are represented on the monuments of Thebes, it was clear to me, that most of the monuments of Nubia are far later than those of Thebes, and by no means served as models for them. The climate is different in the two lands, the productions of the vegetable kingdom are not the same, the most distinguished plants which the Egyptian artists have so often represented,—the lotus, the papyrus, the vine, etc., are not found in this high region, and the reed and the date tree but seldom. The arts, already cultivated and perfected, could have been brought to these shores, but their inhabitants could not have transplanted the arts, for which their country offered no natural type, to the shores of the Lower Nile.” Wilkinson^[90] represents the hypothesis of the origin of culture in Ethiopia as entirely exploded by modern investigations. The specimens of art which remain in Ethiopia are not merely inferior in conception to those of Egypt, but bear far less the stamp of originality. He thinks it probable, though not demonstrable, that civilization was carried from Thebes to Lower Egypt. He declines, however, the task of defending this hypothesis with those who oppose him. It seems almost as if this asserted probability were founded entirely upon a misconception, namely, upon the circumstance that the monuments of Upper Egypt, in consequence of their situation, are in a far better state of preservation than those of Lower Egypt, where even the traces of them are for the most part obliterated. We are much too readily disposed to consider that a thing, which now appears noble in the ruins, was originally the most noble and ancient.^[91]

^[88] 2. 30.

[89] In the Descript. of the Scholars who accompanied the French Expedition into Egypt, t. 9. p. 163 et seq.

[90] Vol. I. p. 4.

[91]The best account of the Ethiopian monuments is given by Hawkins: from the representations he has given of the principal remains, it cannot be doubted that the civilization of the Thebaid reached a higher degree of perfection than that of Nubia, and that the best of the Nubian edifices were of later construction than the best of the Egyptian.