We cannot rate the knowledge and science of the Egyptians very low, however absurd and singular much in it appears to be. The early discovery of writing, however unwieldy the form, gave them the means of preserving not only invocations and incidents, but also the results of observation and experience, and of increasing slowly and surely their stock of knowledge. They made an unusually extensive use of writing. The walls of the temples are covered with inscriptions, which often enough only repeat once more what has been repeated already innumerable times. Even in the tombs at Beni Hassan from the time of the Amenemha and Sesurtesen, we find scribes engaged in numbering the flocks and ticketing the sacks of corn. The scribes of the king registered the game obtained in hunting, the number of hands hewn off after a victory, and of prisoners, and calculated the amount of the booty. The temple-scribes are seen in the processions with pen in hand, and on the monuments the gods note down the years of the kings on the leaves of the arbor vitæ. Everything is to be enumerated, registered, and entered. Even ornaments and utensils are covered with inscriptions. As the hieroglyphics on the walls explained the images in the temples, and the hieroglyphics on the sides of the sepulchral chambers recorded the race and achievements of eminent persons and officers, so did the priests write down their wisdom, and private people their documents on a lighter material, the leaves of the papyrus, a tall reed growing in abundance in the swamps of Egypt.