When we compare, for instance, the brilliant workmanship of the priceless pectoral of the daughter of Usertesen (or Usertsen) with the crude and amateurish workmanship of the jewelry of the later queen Abhotep, it is evident that the centuries brought retrogression. The reign of Usertesen may be correlated with the early period of the patriarchal age, which fact has an important bearing upon our study. The hopeful critics of the Book of Genesis have postulated for the age of Abraham a barbaric lack of culture comparable to the nomadic tribes of Arabia in the Middle Ages. We now see, however, that the entire age of the patriarchs was a period of exquisite culture and high learning. To refer again to Usertsen, he seems to have been a capable strategist, and his system of working out his plan of battle was something like the game of chess. His artists had made for him models of the various kinds of soldiers that made up his variegated corps. The bowmen were armed with exquisite miniature weapons that had, to our delight and wonder, been preserved against all the passing centuries. The black troops that he used, of whatever origin, were carved from a wood like our ebony, and the tiny features were negroid in faithful representation of the difference between the races of men employed in his army. These model soldiers could be moved about a board which depicted the terrain of battle, and his strategy thus wrought out. Our present point, however, is the artistic perfection of the models of the soldiers that he used. The art of his age was as nearly perfect as one could wish. Then there came another cycle of retrogression and decay which climaxed in a period of cultural darkness that reigned too long over that ancient people. It is highly significant, for instance, that the best glass of Egypt is dug from the more ancient sites. There came a time when the art of making glass was forgotten by the people of Egypt and had later to be rediscovered by other races.