THE FINDS IN EGYPT

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 137, 11 June 1936, Page 26

THE FINDS IN EGYPT

3LAY BEING NEW KNOWLEDGE A TOMB OF 3200 B.C.

Fortunate discoveries are most often the result of long training in the habit of observation, Sydney Smith, keeper of the Department of Egyptian Antiquities in the British Museum, writes in the "Manchester Guardian." Mr. W. B. Emery, to whom the new finds in Egypt are due, was trained at Liverpool University by the late Professor T. E. Peet (himself an excellent excavator), and has already discoveries oC considerable archaeological importance to his credit, especially the now famous cemetery of the sacred bulls at Arment, in the desert no great distance from the Abyssinian frontier, and the massed burials of a barbarian tribe, perhaps the Blemmyes, about the tombs of their chiefs, in Nubia, far distant to the south. Now we learn that while he was examining the superstructure of a tomb discovered empty some three years ago, at Saqqara, south of Cairo, where the Egyptian Department of Antiquities has been conducting excavations and repair work for many years, he lit upon a, series of storechambers. The clearance of these has apparently been entrusted to Professor Selim Hassan, of the Egyptian University, Cairo. Tutankhamen's tomb was found by Lord Carnarvon and Mr. Howard Carter after many years of patient search, inspired by the conviction that it was there to be found. Mr. Emery has the happy characteristic of "lighting upon" finds to which apparently nothing led. the less his discoveries result from an excellent judgment and that most difficult acquirement, the knowledge where to look. The store-chambers thus opened belonged to the burial estate of a high official of a king of the First Dynasty. The objects found are clearly of great interest, but they are not likely to surprise us in the way that the costly splendours of Tutankhamen's tomb did. We are told that there is an assortment of everyday utensils* rows of fine jars, bundles of arrows, sickles Tyith saw edges of flint, and some inlay wor.c of artistic value; but there is no display of gold, no wealth of richlydecorated furniture. Why, then, the excitement? DATE OF TOMB. During the last thirty years the prehistory of Egypt has been intensively studied. Since the war, excavations at Saqqara have proved that during the Third Dynasty architectural monuments, of unsuspected size and beauty were erected. But of the First and Second Dynasties we know little, not more, perhaps, than that during that period the many elements of material civilisation found in the late predynastic period took a form that had already become stereotyped and characteristically Egyptian by the time of the Third Dynasty. We cannot tell the exact date of these early kings. The astronomical evidence adduced by a German historian has proved on examination to be based on misunderstanding and miscalculation. If we reckon by generations, an approximate date for the lifetime of Hemaka, the Viceroy of Northern Egypt whose stores Mr. Emery has found, would be about 3200-3100 8.C., or a little earlier. Hemaka served a king called Den or Udimu, and is. already known to us from documents such as little ivory i labels and seal impressions already in our great museum collections. During: his time the unification of Egypt,; effected probably some seventy odd i years before, was consolidated and made permanent. Writing, not yet an instrument that could express all the turns of human speech, was being increasingly used for official purposes. Still primitive, the civilisation of Egypt was about to change. It will be readily understood that the evidence Hemaka's tomb may supply is likely to be of exceptional interest. But more can be said than this. Nations, like men, learn from each other; seclusion means barbarism or stagnation. The small kingdoms which existed in the Delta in the pre-dynastic period had always been in connection both with Libya and Asia, and with the islands of the Eastern Mediterranean. The unification of Egypt under Menes was probably due to pressure from without. Constant wars were fought during the whole period, as we know from the pictures in stone on objects simulating the form of paint palettes. The enemies were negroids in the south, Libyans in the west, Asiatics in the eastern desert. Wars imply contact, and we can, in fact, prove that Egypt was at this time in close connection with even the distant island of Crete. Stone vases have been found in Crete which proclaim by their shape and the type of stone used an Egyptian origin, and imitations were maae in varieties of stone found in Crete itself, so that it is probable that the craftsmen travelled too. Also about this time a curious type of cylindrical figurine of a very primitive style has been found in excava-j tions of both Cretan and Egyptian sites. | This connection between Egypt and 1 Crete at the time of the First Dynasty is accepted as a historical fact; itis a very surprising fact when the difficulties of the passage for any early type of ship are considered.

ANOTHER QUESTION. Of recent years scholars have been arguing an even more difficult question. It has Jong been evident that the early civilisation in the Nile Valley and in Southern Irak had much in common. Brick walls in both countries were built with peculiar grooves that break up the surface in a way not natural to the material. Both peoples employed a cylinder with designs of similar types, though the Egyptians soon abandoned this form. Some of the themes cut in low relief on stone, of a magical or religious character, are very similar. As always, two views can be taken—the one that the resemblances are fortuitous, the other that civilisation was carried by conquest. The most recent excavations in Irak have led to a censensus of good opinion that the connection was precisely at the end of the pre-dynastic age and prevailed during the time of the First and Second Dynasties. The scanty reports at present available are yet sufficient to show that many of the objects found will prove closely similar to those already known. But there is every reason to hope that the new material will add to our store of knowledge. Side by side with the beautiful chipped flint knives of the period we may expect early copper tools and weapons that will throw some light on the spread of metalworking. And the inscriptions, though they are not likely to be long, are bouftti to increase our information about a period full of interest. Mr. Emery's discovery will help towards the understanding of man's development in a cradle of civilisation.