OCR Text |
Show 4118 TTIF. J\fONOGENJS1'S AND 4000 years ago, was 7 m8tres, 30 cent. (or about 24 English feet) higher than it is at the present day." * * * "It explains a fact that had previously snrprisocl me, viz: that in all tho valley of Nubia, tho level of tho soil upon both Rhores, although it consists entirely of alluvium deposit d by tho Nile, is much more elevated than at the highest level of the river in tho best year of mod om inundation."20t I have a di. tinct rocoll tion of localitic:K in Lower Nubia,- explored with Mt·. A. C. Harris during our sltooting excursions as far as w~weo Jialfa (2d cataract), in 1839-40-whero the alluvium deposited by tlto .Nile anciently, upon tho ?'oclc, was at groat distanc~ from, and at a lngh r level tlmn, inundations at this day: hut tho phenomenon. mCJ~cl~ excited surprise; nor, until Chev. Lopsius discovered the 1n Rcnpt10ns at Samnoh, was an unaccountable circnm~ tance, now of groat value in geology as well as cbronoloo-y either 1mportant ~l' explicable. Eighteen years later, it helps bt; mark degrees of tnne on Nature's calendar; and, conjointly with the hiCI·oglyr hs of Manot.ho's XIIth dynasty, cut at Samneh to :fix a uato ior tho m~te-Noachian existence of civilized humanity ~pon earth. AdJacent to those inscriptions stand the coetaneous fortifications of Sam nob, built with great military skill and on an immense scale by these J)haraohs of tlto XIHh dynasty, as their frontier bulwark of tho south against tho attacks of N uLian hordes. M. de Voo-iie a competent judge, bas ro-oxplored tho localities ;202 confirmino- in bcv~r r·eapect tho anterior discovery of Chov. T1cpsius. 5 y Geological invostigat.~on , of Egypt, theL"of(n·o, begins to furnish ~bundant elbow-room for PI~to's long disregarded assertion, put mto tho Greelc mouth of a native Egyptian priest too!_" And tlJO ~nnals . even do f ou,. r · own city .[ ~..:ais.] have boon preserved 8000 year.s l·lnl otu r· sacre t' wutmf g. I WJ 11 br10:fiy describe tho Jaw d t 1 1 us nous ac 1ons o t 1ose , tatos which have existed c9 00s0 an .m os "200 "A d . ·u b b · yoa1 s. -. n you WI ' y o serving, discover, that what have been pamted and sculptured there [iu EgYI)t] 10 000 . 10 000 ' years ago,- and I say ' yenJ·s, not as a word, but a fact ' -a•r c nei'thel· more b oau- ------------------ 101 LFJl!stus, Iotter to Dr. S. G. Morton, "Puilro, Sept. 15 1844- .-, --~ -- -. - · - Academy of Natttral Sciellces of Plliladclplda Jnn 21 1845. ' ' 1 roccedmgs of the hltor works, in Types of Natllrind p 602. nnd f . " .' hf J.--:- Soc roforoncos to LopsiuH'H 1 ' · • • or •!til ul cop1oS of tho in · r 1 He vos, tho Prussinn Denkmiiler, Abth. iv., Dd 2 DI 187 . SCrip IOns t ICm- 202 "Los fortifications nntiqneA a Snmnoh ~ub,io ,·,_ ' 18 ~• 151 · . Fran9ai~, Paris, Sopt., 1855; pp. 81 _4, Pl. ~. ~ B~l~elll~ A·rcli~ol~gtquc de l'Athmreum connection between thoso works nnd Jo I' . Osbutn s zomnnhc mfcroncc, nbout tho 1 . sop l s seven yonrs of fnmin 1 t na lcl\rned, if volco.nic., Coptologist is n 1 • M o, mm·o y proves thnt 8vo., 1854.; ii. pp. 85, 182-9. o goo ogist ( onumental History of Egypt, Loudon, 100 "The Timooua " p • ' J.ATO e worh, Dnvia trnnal. (Dohn) London, 1849, vi., p. 827. 'rilE POLYGF.N[S'l'S . 4 (if) tiful, nor more ugly, than those turned out of hand at tho present day, but arc worked off according to the same art." 201 In his romance of Atlantis, I lato makes lhe Egyptian priest say to Solon, that the Athenian commonwealth had been created first by Minerva, and "one thousand years later she found d ours; and thif.l government established amongst us dates, according to our sacred books, from ei,qltt thousand years." Rofeni ng to Henri Martin 206 for annihilation of this Platonic myth as an historical document, the pailsage merely serves to display PLATo's cone ption of tho world's antiquity. Farcy 21 '6 follows him up with a ruinous critique of "Atlantis" as applicable to its ridiculous attribution to tho population of' America. Ilumboldt,207 more good-natured, while treating Atlantil' as mythic, seems inclined to hope the story may be true. Still, in no case, do Plato's theories help us to a sound chronoloO'y, His 10,000 years for man in Egypt are but the half ofthe "20,000" now required, -23 centuries after Plato, by Bunsen, for the oxist.enco of mankind upon our planet's supor.ficie::;; and thus, as I have long sustained,206 we have finally got teyond all biblical or any other cltronolo,qy. Indeed, tho most rigorous curtailer of Egyptian annalH, my erudite friend Mr. Samuel Sharpe, states tho case (except that his date for Osirteson seems too contracted) exactly as all hiorologists of tho present day understand Egypt's position in the world's history: "For how many years, or mther thousands of years, this globe had already been tho dwelling-place of man, and the arts of life had been growing under his inventive industry, is uncertain; we can hope to know very little of our race and its other discovOL·ies before the invention of lettet·s. But in the reign of Osirtoson the carved writing, by means of :figures of men, animals, plants, and other natural and artificial objects, was far from now. We arc loft to imagine the number of centuries [anterior to the Pymmids] that must have passed 2M "'l'ho Lnws," Durges trnnsl., op. cit., 1852, v. p. 50. 205 Etudes sur le 1.'irn{e de Platon, Pnris, 1841, "Atlantide :"-T!Jpes of Mankind, pp. 694, 718, i28. 20o Antiquilts J!fexicait~es, before cited, ii. pp. 41-55. 207 "Le roc it de I' laton offri1·nit roo ins de difficult6 ohronologiquo, l'intervnlle do 210 1\llij entre In vieillcsse do Solon et cello de Plnton 6tnnt rompli pnr trois g6n6rntions do 11\ deaccnrlnnce do Dropid6s, si, pl\r uno u.lt6ro.tion snns douto blamr~blo du texte, o'etnit cclui-oi et non Solon qui rncontait a Critins, le gro.nd-pcro de l'interlocutcur, oe qu'il o.vnit nppri~, P•lr Solon, de In cl\tastropho de 1' Atlnntido. * * * Plo.ton, pour donner plus d'importnnco u. son recit, nm·l\it pu introduire tous ccs faits dans un roml\n hi storiquo, et so. p1trcnt6 nvcc Solon r,.vorisnit Ia probn.b.ilit<i de In fiction." (Examm Critique de l'lli$toire de la Gtograpllit, &c., heforo quoted, "0onsid6rntions," i. pp. 107-78. ) ~ Otia JEgptiaca, pp. 41-2; 61-8: nud Type$ of Jlfcmltit~d, 688-9. |