Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/26

i 4 EARLY PEOPLES AND EMPIRES any rate we can safely say that the Pyramid-builders can be definitely identified and an approximate date given for them — not before 4000 or after 3000 B.C. — and that there were kings before them who left records of their conquests. It is clear again that our Pyramid-builders were possessed of advanced mathematical knowledge, implying high intellectual Before the cultivation ; also that they had control over a vast Pyramids. amount of labour involved in the hewing, carting, and building up of the great blocks of stone of which the Pyramids were made. Also they worked with metal tools. But the tombs of the first kings show that in their time, though metal was in use, stone implements were not altogether out of date, stone tools of an admirable workmanship having been preserved. They were already, long before 4000 B.C., very far removed from being savages. Moreover the records make it clear that hitherto there had been two dominions or states on the Nile, one occupy- ing the Delta, or district where the great river splits up into several streams, like a fan, while the other occupied the Nile valley southward. The first two dynasties were kings of the south, who were much occupied in bringing the north or Delta into subjection, making the single kingdom of Egypt ; extending their dominion westwards into what is called Libya, and east- wards into the peninsula of Sinai. From the Pyramid-builders to the twelfth dynasty, there is much obscurity ; but during the twelfth dynasty, Semites appear. The Egyptian paintings leave no room for doubt ; The Hyksos. ? J r r ° , ,. _ , the artists were accurate delineators of race-types, and the Semite is unmistakable. Somewhere about 1800 B.C., though some authorities prefer an earlier date, the Hyksos invasion took place ; though it is not easy to connect the epoch with any other Semitic movement. Probably the rule of the dynasties between the twelfth and the eighteenth was contemporary with that of the foreigners, meaning that there were generally districts over which the Hyksos did not consistently maintain their sway. Finally, one of these native princes named Aahmes succeeded in The New expelling the Hyksos about the year 1580 b.c. The Empire. new empire begins, and the records become much fuller. The new empire, born of insurrection against foreign