Of the period of the commencement of civilization in Egypt there is no reliable information, nor are modern scholars at all agreed as to the evidence deducible from Herodotus, as compared with the monuments. There is no certainty about the age of Menes, or about the reign in which the Exodus took place; even the date of the invasion of Judæa by Shishak is not undisputed; and it would require more materials than are yet at our disposal to harmonize all the Biblical with the Monumental records. There can be no doubt, however, that the country was richly cultivated and fully peopled many centuries before the classical nations, or even the Phœnicians, were known as merchants or warriors. As already noticed, there is further reason for believing that the populations depicted on the sculptures were not originally natives of the Valley of the Nile, but immigrants thither from Chaldæa and its neighbourhood. The skulls of Egyptians from the mummy-pits are Caucasian, and have no affinity with those of Africa, and the grammar of their language is not Semitic. Again, the name “Egypt” is not found on any of the early monuments: the country is simply called “_Cheme_,” the “black-land”; the “land of Ham,” the “Caphtorim” (Genesis x. 14). Moreover, the complexion and features of the people prove that the immigrants did not appreciably mingle with the primitive population, the lineaments of many of even the existing inhabitants still showing these marks of Asiatic origin. [Sidenote: Commerce.] Egypt under the Pharaohs was almost entirely an agricultural country; commerce and manufactures (excepting in the case of cloths of various descriptions) were neglected. With a soil of unexampled richness, annually renewed by the Nile floods, the Egyptians acted wisely in devoting their attention chiefly to the development of their own vast natural resources.