The History of the Ancient Civilizations. Duncker Max

men. Hence the priests of Lower Egypt commenced the reign of the seven great gods with the beginning of a Sothis period. The seven great gods were followed by the twelve gods of the second rank, Thoth, Anubis, Chunsu, &c., in reigns of gradually diminishing length through a certain number of Sothis periods. According to the scheme still preserved, Ptah reigned 9,000 years, and the last of the gods only seventy years, so that on an average each occupies exactly half a Sothis period, or 730 of our years. These nineteen gods were followed by thirty demigods; to each of whom was allotted the twelfth part of a Sothis period for a reign, so that the whole period of the reign of the gods takes up twelve Sothis periods, or 17,520 years. After this, according to some authorities, began the period of human rulers; others allotted four Sothis periods, i.e. 5840 years, to another set of demigods. Then followed, beginning like the rest with the beginning of a Sothis period, the rule of human kings. This Sothis period commenced either in the year 5702 B.C., or, according to the arrangement of Lepsius, with the year 4242 B.C. This year, therefore, was the first of the history of Egypt. To Menes the priests attached the long list of names in one continuous series, without in the least regarding whether the dynasties were contemporaneous or successive, whether they ruled in Upper or Lower Egypt, over the whole land, or in certain districts only. If we calculate the rule of the human kings from the first of the dates given, the first Sothis period of men came to an end, according to the canon of Manetho, in 4242 B.C.; the second in 2782 B.C. The third ended in the time of Menephta I., in whose reign as a fact the Egyptian year did again coincide with the natural year.[291]

The Egyptians were devoted more than other nations to the contemplation of the heavens. The constellations announced to them the approach of the inundation, its height, and its decline. Moreover, their religion was to a great extent a worship of light and the sun, and as they plainly perceived the influence of the stars on the country in the rise and fall of the water, the increase and abatement of the heat, &c., it was natural that they should ascribe to the constellations and the movements of the heavenly bodies similar influences on the life and growth, the happiness and misery, of mankind; and this belief must in turn have contributed to the assiduous and accurate observation of the heavens. "If anywhere," says Diodorus, "it is in Egypt that the most accurate observation of the position and movements of the stars have been made. Of each of these they have records extending over an incredible series of years, the courses and positions of the planets also they have accurately observed, and they can accurately predict the eclipses of the sun and the moon."[292] Astronomical pictures are not uncommon on the monuments belonging to the period after the expulsion of the Hyksos. Fragments of a calendar of festivals from the time of Ramses II. are found on a gateway of the Ramesseum. The outer walls of the temple at Medinet Habu give a complete calendar of the festivals from the time of Ramses III. In the tomb of Sethos I. are pictures and names of the five divinities of the planets known to the Egyptians, Mercury, Venus (the star of the Bennu, p. 69), Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn; the same picture is found on the roof of the astronomical hall in the Ramesseum at Thebes, and on two pictures in the tombs of Ramses V. and IX. The painting in the Ramesseum—though the circle of 369 cubits, which, according to Diodorus, was once on the roof of the Ramesseum (p. 175), is wanting, being removed by Cambyses—presents a complete map of the Egyptian sky. The pictures in the tombs of the two kings give the rising of the stars at intervals of a fortnight. In the tomb of Ramses IV. the thirty-six Decan stars are given together with their deities.[293] The importance placed by the Egyptian priests on the knowledge of the sky is shown not only by the monuments, but also by the four books of the astrologer, and the third and fourth books of the temple scribe; and that their astronomical science was by no means slight is sufficiently proved by their early establishment of a solar year of 360, and then of 365 days, and by the observation and establishment of the Sothis periods. This fact is confirmed by the lists of the rising of the stars already mentioned. Yet the astronomical knowledge of the priests of Egypt cannot be placed beside that of the Babylonians. Representations of the zodiac are not found on the monuments till the time of the Ptolemies,[294] and Ptolemy, himself an Egyptian, has preserved for us observations of the Chaldees, but none made by his own countrymen. The greater part of the attention which the priests of Egypt bestowed upon the heavens was given in the interests of astrology rather than astronomy. As the months in the year belonged to certain gods, the first to Thoth, the third (Athyr) to Hathor, the last to Horus, so the days of the month had their deities. The first day belonged to Thoth, the second to Horus, the third to Osiris, &c.; and lastly, every hour of the day was allotted to a special influence. From the importance thus given to the days and hours the astrologers could foretell the fortune of life; they could ascertain what issue awaited any enterprise—whether the day and hour were favourable or not for this or that occupation or undertaking. For this object they possessed tables worked out in extensive detail. For instance, anyone born on the 14th of Athyr, the day when Typhon was said to have slain Osiris, had to expect a violent death; anyone born on the 23rd of Phaophi was doomed to be killed by a crocodile; and anyone born on the 27th of the same month, by a serpent. On the other hand, a child born on the 9th of Phaophi might look forward to a long life. In the tables of the hours we find for a given day—first hour, Orion is lord of the left elbow; second hour, the Twins have influence on the left ear; fifth hour, the Pleiads(?) are sovereign over both chambers of the heart; tenth hour, the feet of the Swine predominate over the left eye, &c.[295]

In the achievement won by Egyptian art the priests took a leading part. The buildings of the temples and the tombs of the kings could only be erected after their designs; for in these essentially sacred things, sacred measures and numbers, were concerned, and, like architecture, sculpture and painting were primarily employed in the service of religion. As we might expect from the character of the people, the architecture of the Egyptians aimed at the firm and durable. The structures rise up simple in their lines, like the ridges of rock which are the boundaries of Egypt, broad and massive. The pyramids, with great simplicity of form, were found to display a considerable skill in dealing with and uniting large masses of stone. Following this path, the architecture of Egypt has always preserved a severity and simplicity of outline even when employing richer forms and ornaments. Among the Egyptians sculpture and painting never attained independence; it was their vocation to support architecture, and assist her in preserving in the stream of time the picture of the king, his sacrifices, and his achievements, and this or that incident of his reign. The sculpture of the Egyptians exhibits a vigorous attempt to grasp the forms in a naive, but prosaic and merely intellectual manner; it preserves them free from any fanciful use of symbols, and conceives the human form in fixed proportions and characteristic expression of movement, while it is still more happy in the form and character of the animals. Like architecture, sculpture prefers to work in the hardest and most lasting material. But, as in all other departments of life, so here; the type when once fixed, the canon of proportion when once discovered, the mode of treatment and the law of form is rigorously retained. With complete accuracy of execution in the most difficult material, sculpture constantly repeats the same figures, geometrical rather than natural in form. Yet in spite of this typical character, in sculpture and painting, as in architecture, a considerable development took place. The statues of the times of the pyramids, the Amenemha and Sesurtesen, exhibit, comparatively speaking, very correct forms, lively energy in the expression of action, and a strong treatment of the muscles; but the sculptures of the new kingdom are distinguished by greater variety of forms, a larger wealth of lines, and a delicacy of outline; the drawing of the figures is far more slender, and there is considerable grace in the treatment of massive pillars and capitals. The Tuthmosis and Amenophis, the Sethos, and the earliest Ramses, imposed upon Egyptian art an almost oppressive number of tasks, and in performing them she touched her highest point. But the amount of work must of itself have introduced a more and more conventional treatment within the limits of the typical circle in which sculpture moved; and at last this treatment was content with mere precision of outlines. This is the character of the sculpture of the times of Ramses III. down to the days of Psammetichus, in which, by