History of Egypt From 330 B.C. To the Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12)Rappoport, A. S. (Angelo Solomon)
History
History of Egypt From 330 B.C. To the Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12)
Rappoport, A. S. (Angelo Solomon)
Egypt -- History
In the spring of 1891, M. Naville started an excavation on the site of
the ancient Heracleopolis Magna at a place now named Hanassieh. He found
here many Roman and Koptic remains, and further discovered the vestibule
of an ancient Egyptian temple. There were six columns, on which Ramses
II. was represented as offering gifts. The name of Menephtah was also
noticed, and the architraves above the columns were seen to be cut with
cartouches of Usirtasen II. of the twelfth dynasty. This temple was
probably one of those to the service of which Ramses II. donated some
slaves, as is described in one of the papyri of the Harris collection.
A stone was discovered by Mr. Wilborn at Luxor, recording a period of
seven years' successive failure of the Nile to overflow, and the efforts
made by a certain sorcerer named Chit Net to remove the calamity.
During the season of 1895, Professor Petrie and Mr. Quibell discovered
homes belonging to paleolithic man on a plateau four thousand feet
above the Nile. Thirty miles south of Thebes, there are many large and
beautifully worked flints. Their great antiquity is proved by the fact
that they are deeply stained, whereas, in the same locality, there are
other flints of an age of five thousand years, which show no traces of
stains.
Close by this site was discovered the abundant remains of a hitherto
unknown race. This race has nothing in common with the true Egyptians,
although their relics are invariably found with those of the Egyptians
of the fourth, twelfth, eighteenth, and nineteenth dynasties. Petrie
declares these men to have been tall and powerful, with strong features,
a hooked nose, a long, pointed beard, and brown, wavy hair. They were
not related to the negroes, but rather to the Amorites or Libyans. The
bodies in these tombs are not mummified, but are contracted, though laid
in an opposite direction from those discovered at Medum. The graves are
open, square pits, roofed over with beams of wood. This ancient race
used forked hunting-lances for chasing the gazelle, and their beautiful
flints were found to be like those belonging to an excellent collection
already existing in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford. They also made
an abundant use of copper for adzes, harpoons for spearing fish, and
needles for sewing garments. They used pottery abundantly, and its
variety is remarkable no less than the quality, which, unlike the
Egyptian, was all hand-made and never fashioned by aid of the wheel.
They entered Egypt about 3,000 B.C., and were probably of the white
Libyan race, and possibly may have been the foreigners who overthrew the
old Egyptian empire.
The discovery of the name of "Israel" in an Egyptian inscription was
in a sense, perhaps, the most remarkable event of the year 1895 in
archaeology. It was first laid before the public by Professor Petrie,*
and was treated by Spiegelberg** in a communication to the Berlin
Academy, and by Steindorff.***
* Contemporary Review, May 1896.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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