Human Origins

etry reached in Egypt at earliest Dates-Great Pyramid-Piazzi Smyth and Pyramid-Religion-Pyramids f

., 3800 b.c.-Eclipses and Phases of Venus-Measures of Time from Old Chald?an-Moon and Sun-Found among so many distant Races-Implies Commerce and Intercourse-Art and Industry-Embankment of Menes-Sphynx-Industrial Arts-Fine Arts-Sculpture and Painting-The Oldest Art the best-Chald?an Art-De Sarzec's Find at Sirg

vations and a certain amount of mathematical calculation. The construction of great works of hydraulic engineering, and of such buildings as temples and pyramids, also proves an advanced state of scientific knowledge. Such a building, for instance, as the Great Pyramid must have required a considerable acquaintanc

case of the exact sciences, such as arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, this is no longer possible, and their progress can be traced step by step by the development of human reason. Thus there are savage races, like the Australians at the present day

er 12 has no natural basis of support like 10, and can only have been adopted because it was exactly divisible into whole numbers by 2, 3, 4, 6. The mere fact therefore of the existence of a duodecimal system shows that the nation which adopts it must have progressed a long way from the primitive "one, two, a great many," and acquired ideas both as to the relation of numbers, and a multitude of other things, such as the division of the circle, of days, months, and years, of weights and measures, and other matters, in which ready division into whole parts without fr

e at the time of its erection. If we were to believe Professor Piazzi Smyth, and the little knot of his followers who have founded what may be called a Pyramid-religion, this remarkable structure contains a revelation in stone for future ages, of almost all the material scientific facts which have been discovered since by 6000 years of painful research by the unaided human intellect. Its designers must have known and recorded, with an accuracy surpassing that of modern observation, such facts as the dimensions of the earth, the distance of the sun, the ratio of the area of a circle to its diameter, the precise d

h in point of fact were not taught, for the monument on which they were recorded was sealed up by a casing of polished stone almost directly after it was built, and its contents were only discovered by accident, long after the facts and figures which it is supposed to teac

l monument, but one of a series of some seventy pyramid-tombs of kings, beginning with earlier and continued by later dynasties of the Old Empire. The reason of their construction is obvious. It originates from the peculiar ideas, which have been already pointed out, of the existence of a Ka or shadowy double, and a still more ethereal soul or spirit, whose immortality depended on the preservation of a material basis in the form of a mummy or likeness of the deceased person, preferably no doubt by the preservation of the mummy. This led to the enormous outlay, not by kings only, but by private persons, on costly tombs, which, as Herodotus says, were considered to be their permanent h

lies an acquaintance with the sciences of geometry and astronomy, and which, in the case of the Great Pyramid, is carried to an extent which shows a very advanced knowledge of those sciences, and goes far to prove that it must have been used, during part of the period of its construction, as a national observatory. The full details of this pl

fore the invention of the telescope it must have required great nicety of observation to obtain such extremely accurate results in all the sides and successive layers of such an enormous building. There are only two ways in which it could be attempted-one by observing the shadow cast by a vertical gnomon when the sun was on the meridian, the other by keeping a standard line

he apparent above the true place of celestial bodies, or had formed an insufficient estimate of its amount. The centre of the base is 2328 yards south of the real thirtieth parallel of latitude, which is 944 yards north of the position which would have been deduced from the pole-star method, and 3459 yards south of that from the shadow method, by astrono

ight star at the true pole, its position is ascertained by taking the point half-way between the highest and lowest positions of the conspicuous star nearest to it, and which therefore revolves in the smallest circle about it.

on the southern meridian line by an observer in the grand gallery, while another very conspicuous star in the southern hemisphere, Alpha Centauri, would at that period shine directly down it. The passages therefore would have the double effect, 1st, of enabling the builders to orient the base and lower layers of the pyramid up to the king's chamber in a perfectly true no

says, "The sun's annual course round the celestial sphere could be determined much more exactly than by any gnomon by observations made from the great gallery. The moon's monthly path and its changes could have been de

e taken in order to provide not only a secure tomb but an accurate horoscope for the reigning monarch. Astrology and astronomy were in fact closely identified in the ancient world, and relics of the superstition still linger in the form of Zadkiel almanacs. When the sun, moon, and five planets had been identified as the celestial bodies possessing motion, and therefore, as it was inferred, life, and had been converted into gods, nothing was more natural than to suppose that they exercised an influence on human affairs, and that their configuration affected the destinies both of individuals and of nations. A superstitious people who saw auguries in the flight of birds, the movements of animals, the rustling of leaves, and in almost every natural occur

em in the earliest mythology of Chald?a and Egypt, in the labours of Hercules, in the traditions of a deluge associated with the sign of Aquarius, and even, though in a somewhat altered form, in such distant countries as China and Mexico. Probably they originated in Chald?a, where the oldest records and universal tradition show the prim

and not by any haphazard process of adding a layer each year according to the number of years the monarch happened to reign. How could he foresee the exact number of years of an unusually long life and reign, or what security could he have that, if he died early, his successor would complete

d Egypt some 2000 years later, with that of these pyramid-builders; but this is confuted by the monuments, which show them as pious builders or restorers of temples of the national gods in other localities, as for instance at Bubastis, where t

ed state of this science at this remote period. Nor is this all, for the dimensions of the Great Pyramid, when stripped of the fanciful coincidences and mystical theories of Piazzi Sm

quare of the vertical height. This was mentioned by Herodotus, and ther

urately an arc of the meridian or length of the line on the earth's surface which just raised or lowered the pole of the heavens by 1°; and inferred from it that the earth was a spherical body of given dimensions. Those dimensions would not be quite accurate, for they must have been ignorant of the compression of the earth at its poles and protuberance at the equator, but the measurement of such an arc at or near 30° of north latitude would give a close approximation to the mean value of the earth's diameter. Procter thinks that from the scientific knowledge which must have been possessed by the builders of the pyramid, it is quite possible that they may have measured an arc of the meridian with considerable accuracy, and calculated from it the length of the earth's diameter, assuming it to be a perfect sphere. And if so they may have intended to

e earth, taken at 91,840,000 miles, which is very nearly correct, is just 5819 thousand millions of such inches. It has been thought, therefore, that this height was intended to symbolize the sun's distance. But independently of the fact that this distance could not have been known with any appro

also must be accidental, for the number of inches in the diagonals follows as a matter of course from the sides being taken at 365-1/4 cubits, corresponding to the length of the year; and there can b

ugh remains to justify the conclusion that between 5000 and 6000 years ago there were astronomers, mathematicians, and architects in Eg

rnt, have crumbled into shapeless mounds of rubbish, but a fair idea of their size and construction may be obtained from the descriptions and pictures of them preserved in contemporary tablets and slabs, especially from those of the great ziggurat of the seven spheres or planets at Borsippa, a suburb of Babylon, which was rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar about 500 b.c., on the site of a much more ancient ruined construction. This, which was the largest and most famous of the ziggurats, became identified in after times with the tower of Babel and the legend of the confusion of tongues, but it was in fact an astronomical building in seven stag

Perrot and Chipiez)

ch care as the pyramids, which is of itself a proof that they were used as observatories, but with this difference, that their angles instead of their faces were directed towards the true north and south. To this rule there are only two exceptions, probably of late date after Egyptian influences had been introduced, but the original and national ziggurats invariably observe the rule of pointing angles and not sides to the four cardinal points. This is a remarkable fact as showing that the astronomies of Egypt and Chald?a were not borrowed one from

s sacred mountain of the gods. The early astronomers must have known that this mountain could be nowhere but in the true north, as the daily revolutions of the heavenly bodies took place round the Nort

rs must have already attained an advanced knowledge of science, and kept an accurate record of long-continued observations. This is fully confirmed by the astronomical and astrological treatise compile

e easily discerned and measured than those of the sun in its annual revolution. The beginning and end of a solar year, and the solstices and equinoxes are not marked by any decided natural phenomena, and it is only by long-continued observations of the sun's path among the fixed stars that any tolerably accurate number of days can be assigned to the duration of the year and seasons. But the recurrence of new and full moon, and more especia

death in winter and resurrection in spring, and other myths connected with its passage through the signs of the solar zodiac, assume a preponderating part in ancient religions. Traces, however, of the older period of lunar science and lunar mythology still survived, especially in the week of seven days, and the mysterious importance attached to the number 7. This was doubtless aided by the discovery which could not fail to be made with the earliest accurate observations of the heavens, that there were seven moving bodies, the sun, moon, and five planets, which revolved in settled courses, while all the other stars remained fixed. Scientific astrology, as distinguished from a mere superstitio

many different nations? For whether we say Thor's-day or Jove's-day, and call it " Thursday" or "Jeudi," the same god is meant, who is identified with the same planet, and so for the others. It is quite clear that the names of the seven days of the week were originally t

The

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Jup

Ven

M

Sat

Mer

ly, this is not the principle on which the days have been named; for, to give a single instance, the nimble Mercury, the smal

nce, not by their size and splendour, but by the magnitude of their orbi

Sat

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ziggurat, or observatory-tower, attached to its temple, from which priests watched the heavens and calculated times and seasons. To some of those ancient priests it occurred that the planets must be gods watching over and influencing human events, and that, as Mars was ruddy, he was probably the god of war; Venus, the lovely evening star, the goddess of love; Jupiter, powerful; Saturn, slow and malignant; and Mercury, quick and nimble. By degrees the idea expanded, and it was thought that each planet exerted its peculiar influence, not only on the days of the week, but on the hours of the day; and the planet which presided over the first hour of the day was thought to preside over the whole of that day. But the day had been already divided into twenty-four hours, because the earliest Chald?ans had adopted the duode

d malignant Saturn, the oldest of the planetary gods, as shown by his wider orbit, but dimmed with age, and morose at having been dethroned by his brilliant son, Jupiter. It was unlucky in the extreme, therefore, to do any work,

his cat

of a mouse

later prophets and the exile, unto that of one universal God, the ruler of the universe and special patron of his chosen people, the compilers of the Old Testament dealt with the Sabbath as they did with the Deluge, the Creation, and other myths borrowed from the Chald?ans. That is to say, they revised them in a monotheistic sense, wrote "God" f

us the day of rest was shifted from Saturday to Sunday, which was made the Christian Sabbath, and the name changed by the Latin races from the day of the sun to the Lord's Day, "Dominica Dies," or "Dimanche." It has remained Saturday, however, with the Jews, and it is quite clear that it was on a Saturday, and not a Sunday, that

as been attended by most beneficial results. The religious sanctions which attached themselves to this institution, first, as the Hebrew Sabbath, and, secondly, as transformed into the Christian Sunday, have been a powerful means of preserving this day of rest through so many social and political revolutions. Let us, therefore, not be too hasty in co

ical and astronomical lore existed at the dawn of Chald?an history, and are found in so m

Accadian Highlanders first settled in and reclaimed the all

land or sea, and by commerce or otherwise, must have been muc

for the monthly changes of the moon come much more frequently, and are more easily measured from day to day, than the annual courses of the sun. But, as observations accumulate and become more accurate, it is found that the sun, and not the moon, regulates the seasons, and that the year repeats on a larger scale the phenomenon presented by the day and night, of a birth, growth, maturity, decay, and death of the sun, followed by a resurrection or new birth, when the same cycle begins anew. Hence the oldest civilized nations have taken from the two phenomena of the day and year the same fundamental ideas and festivals. The ideas are those of a miraculous birth, death, and resurrection, and of an upper and lower world, the one of light and life, the other of darkness and death, through which the sun-god and human souls have to pass to emerge again into life. The festivals are those of the four great divisions of the year: the winter solstice, when the aged su

l remains, by which the old course of the Nile close to the Libyan hills was diverted, and a site obtained for the new capital of Memphis on the west side of the river, placing it between the city and any enemy from the east. At the same time this dyke assisted in regulating the flow of the inundation, and i

ramid, discovered this temple, which had been buried in the sand, and restored it. If a building of such simplicity and solidity of structure required repairs, it must have existed for a long time and been lost sight of. It is almost certain also that if such a colossal and celebrated monument as the Sphynx had been constructed by any of the historical kings, it would have been mentioned by Manetho, as for instance is that

g to that shown by the state of religion, science, and letters. A little later the paintings on the tombs of the Old Empire show that all the industrial arts, such as spinning, weaving, working in wood and

on Egyptology. For my present purpose, if the oldest records of monuments prove the existence of a long a

our de force by which the majestic portrait statue of Chephren, the builder of the Boulak Museum, from Gizeh.-According to the chronological table of Mariette, this statue is over 6000 years old. From a photograph by Brugsch Bey.] second great pyramid, has been chiselled out from a block of diorite, one of the hardest stones known, and hardly assailable by the best modern tools. Nor has portraiture in wood or stone ever surpassed the ease, grace, and life-like expression of such statues as that known as the Village Sheik, from its resemblance to the functionary who f

SHEIK, A WOO

nd those of his family, and pictures of his oxen, geese, and other belongings, but no gods, and few of those quotations from the Todtenbuch which are so universal in later ages. It would seem that at this early period of Egyptian history life was simple and cheerful, and both art and religion less fettered by superstitions and conventions than they were when despoti

apidly crumbled into mounds of rubbish, and nothing was preserved but the baked clay tablets with cuneiform inscriptions. In like manner sculpture and wall-painting never flourished in a country devoid of stone, and the religious ideas of Chald?a never took the Egyptian form of

f the Sun nine statues of Patesi or priest-kings of Accadian race, who had ruled there prior to the consolidation of Sumir and Accad into one empire by Sargon I., somewhere about 3800 b.c. The remarkable thing about these statues is that they are of diorite, similar to that of the statue of Chephren, which is believed to be only found in the peninsula of Sinai, and is so hard that it must have taken excellent tools and great technical skill

ld be so finely wrought. Evidently these tools must have been of the very hardest bronze, and the construction of such works as the dyke of Menes and the Pyramids, shows that the art o

peculiar and malleable sort of stone. But when we come to metals which require great knowledge of mining to detect them in their ores, and to produce them in large quantities; and to alloys, which require a long practice of metallurgy to discover, and to mix in the proper proportions, the case is different, and the stone period must be already far behind. Still more is this the case when tools and weapons of such artificial alloys are found in universal use in countries where Nature has provided no metals, and where their presence can only be accounted for by the existence of an international commerce with distant metal-producing countrie

localities, and in the form of a black oxide which requires a considerable knowledge of metallurgy to detect and to reduce. The only considerable sources of tin now known are those of Cornwall, Malacca, Banca, and Australia. Of these, the last was of course unknown to the ancient world, and it is hardly probable that its supplies were obtained from such remote sources as those of the extreme East. Not that it is at all impossible that it might have been brought from Malacca by prehistoric sea-routes to India, and thence to Egypt by the Red Sea and to Chald?a by the Persian Gulf, and this is the conjecture of one of the latest authorities in a very interesting work just published on the Dawn

he only other considerable supply of tin which is certainly known came from the Etruscans, who worked extensive tin mines in Northern Italy. But the evidence of these does not go back farther than from 1000 to 1500 b.c., and it leaves untouched the question how Egypt and Chald?a had obtained large stocks of bronze, certainly long before 5000 b.c.; and how they kept up these stocks for certainly more than 2000 years before the Ph?nicians appeared on the scene to supply tin by maritime commerce. It is in some other direction that we must look, for it is certain that neither E

ich gave the best result, and the secret must have been communicated to other nations along with the tin which was necessary for the manufacture. Where could the sources have been which supplied this tin and this knowledge how to use it, to the two great civilized nations of Egypt and Chald?a, where we can say with certainty that bronze was in common use prior to 5000 b.c.? If we exclude Britain and the extreme East, there are only two localities in which extensive remains of ancient workings for tin have been discovered; one in Georgia on the slopes of the Caucasus, and the other on the northern slope of the Hindoo-Kush in the neighbourhood of Bamian. And the knowledge both of bronze and of other metals, such as iron and gold,

hed themselves in Italy and exported the products of the Tuscan tin mines by trade routes over the Rh?tian Alps. It is even doubtful whether there was any knowledge of metals in Europe prior to the Ph?nician period, as the Aryan names for gold, silver, copper, tin, and iron are borrowed from foreign sources; and have no common origin in any ancestral language of the Aryan races before they were differentiated into Greek, Latin, Teutonic, Celtic, and Slavic. Copper seems to have been the first metal known, and there are traces of a copper age prior to th

ough is preserved in the Basque urraida, while as rauta it reappears as the name for iron in Finnish, and as ruda for metal generally in Old Slavonic. In Semitic Babylonian, copper is eru, which confirms the induction that the metal was unknown to the primitive Semites, and adopted by them from the previously existing Accadian civilization. We are thus driven back by every line of evid

doo-Kush, the Altai, or other remote regions; and that routes of international commerce must have been established by which the scarce but indispensable tin cou

rse must have been known at a very early period in Chald?a, for the tablet of Sargon I., b.c. 3800, talks of riding in brazen chariots over rugged mountains. This makes it the more singular that the horse should have remained so long unknown in Egypt and Arabia, for it is such an eminently useful animal, both for peace and war, that one would think it must have been introduced almost from the very first moment when trading caravans arrived. And yet tin must have arrived from regions w

e made. And in this case the transport of such heavy blocks for such a distance could only have been effected by sea. There are traces also of the maritime commerce of Eridhu having extended as far as India. Teak wood, which could only have come from the Malabar coast, has been found in the ruins of Ur; and "Sindhu," which is Indian cloth or muslin, was known from the earliest times. It seems not improbable, therefore, that Eridhu and Ur may have played the part whic

istence of the animal seems to have been so long unknown to the great civilized races? It is singular that a similar problem presents itself in America, where the ancestral tree of the horse is most clearly traced through the Eocene and Miocene periods, and where the animal existed in vast numbers both in the Northern and Southern Continent, under conditions eminently favourable for its existence, and yet it became so completely extinct that there was not even a tradition

and conquests under the eighteenth dynasty, and so bringing it into closer contact with other nations, and subjecting it to the vicissitudes of alternate triumphs and disasters, now carrying the Egyptian arms to the Euphrates and Tigris, and now bringing Assyrian and Persian conquerors to Thebes and Memphi

e people also, both in Egypt and Chald?a, seem to have been singularly like the modern Chinese, patient industrious, submissive to authority, unwarlike, practical, and prosaic. Everything, therefore, conspires to prove that an enormous time must have elapsed befor