1.6. THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN EGYPTOLOGY, AND
ASSYRIOLOGY.
THE SACRED CHRONOLOGY.
IN the great ranges of investigation which bear most directly
upon the origin of man, there are two in which Science within
the last few years has gained final victories. The significance
of these in changing, and ultimately in reversing, one of the
greatest currents of theological thought, can hardly be
overestimated; not even the tide set in motion by Cusa,
Copernicus, and Galileo was more powerful to bring in a new
epoch of belief.
The first of these conquests relates to the antiquity of man
on the earth.
The fathers of the early Christian Church, receiving all parts
of our sacred books as equally inspired, laid little, if any,
less stress on the myths, legends, genealogies, and tribal,
family, and personal traditions contained in the Old and the New
Testaments, than upon the most powerful appeals, the most
instructive apologues, and the most lofty poems of prophets,
psalmists, and apostles. As to the age of our planet and the
life of man upon it, they found in the Bible a carefully
recorded series of periods, extending from Adam to the building
of the Temple at Jerusalem, the length of each period being
explicitly given.
Thus they had a biblical chronology—full, consecutive, and
definite—extending from the first man created to an event of
known date well within ascertained profane history; as a result,
the early Christian commentators arrived at conclusions varying
somewhat, but in the main agreeing. Some, like Origen, Eusebius,
Lactantius, Clement of Alexandria, and the great fathers
generally of the first three centuries, dwelling especially upon
the Septuagint version of the Scriptures, thought that man's
creation took place about six thousand years before the
Christian era. Strong confirmation of this view was found in a
simple piece of purely theological reasoning: for, just as the
seven candlesticks of the Apocalypse were long held to prove the
existence of seven heavenly bodies revolving about the earth, so
it was felt that the six days of creation prefigured six
thousand years during which the earth in its first form was to
endure; and that, as the first Adam came on the sixth day,
Christ, the second Adam, had come at the sixth millennial
period. Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, in the second century
clinched this argument with the text, "One day is with the Lord
as a thousand years."
On the other hand, Eusebius and St. Jerome, dwelling more
especially upon the Hebrew text, which we are brought up to
revere, thought that man's origin took place at a somewhat
shorter period before the Christian era; and St. Jerome's
overwhelming authority made this the dominant view throughout
western Europe during fifteen centuries.
The simplicity of these great fathers as regards chronology is
especially reflected from the tables of Eusebius. In these,
Moses, Joshua, and Bacchus,—Deborah, Orpheus, and the
Amazons,—Abimelech, the Sphinx, and OEdipus, appear together as
personages equally real, and their positions in chronology
equally ascertained.
At times great bitterness was aroused between those holding the
longer and those holding the shorter chronology, but after all
the difference between them, as we now see, was trivial; and it
may be broadly stated that in the early Church, "always,
everywhere, and by all," it was held as certain, upon the
absolute warrant of Scripture, that man was created from four to
six thousand years before the Christian era.
To doubt this, and even much less than this, was to risk
damnation. St. Augustine insisted that belief in the antipodes
and in the longer duration of the earth than six thousand years
were deadly heresies, equally hostile to Scripture. Philastrius,
the friend of St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, whose fearful
catalogue of heresies served as a guide to intolerance
throughout the Middle Ages, condemned with the same holy horror
those who expressed doubt as to the orthodox number of years
since the beginning of the world, and those who doubted an
earthquake to be the literal voice of an angry God, or who
questioned the plurality of the heavens, or who gainsaid the
statement that God brings out the stars from his treasures and
hangs them up in the solid firmament above the earth every night.
About the beginning of the seventh century Isidore of Seville,
the great theologian of his time, took up the subject. He
accepted the dominant view not only of Hebrew but of all other
chronologies, without anything like real criticism. The
childlike faith of his system may be imagined from his summaries
which follow. He tells us:
"Joseph lived one hundred and five years. Greece began to
cultivate grain."
"The Jews were in slavery in Egypt one hundred and forty-four
years. Atlas discovered astrology."
"Joshua ruled for twenty-seven years. Ericthonius yoked horses together."
"Othniel, forty years. Cadmus introduced letters into Greece."
"Deborah, forty years. Apollo discovered the art of medicine and
invented the cithara."
"Gideon, forty years. Mercury invented the lyre and gave it to Orpheus."
Reasoning in this general way, Isidore kept well under the
longer date; and, the great theological authority of southern
Europe having thus spoken, the question was virtually at rest
throughout Christendom for nearly a hundred years.
Early in the eighth century the Venerable Bede took up the
problem. Dwelling especially upon the received Hebrew text of
the Old Testament, he soon entangled himself in very serious
difficulties; but, in spite of the great fathers of the first
three centuries, he reduced the antiquity of man on the earth by
nearly a thousand years, and, in spite of mutterings against him
as coming dangerously near a limit which made the theological
argument from the six days of creation to the six ages of the
world look doubtful, his authority had great weight, and did
much to fix western Europe in its allegiance to the general
system laid down by Eusebius and Jerome.
In the twelfth century this belief was re-enforced by a tide of
thought from a very different quarter. Rabbi Moses Maimonides
and other Jewish scholars, by careful study of the Hebrew text,
arrived at conclusions diminishing the antiquity of man still
further, and thus gave strength throughout the Middle Ages to
the shorter chronology: it was incorporated into the sacred
science of Christianity; and Vincent of Beauvais, in his great
Speculum Historiale, forming part of that still more enormous
work intended to sum up all the knowledge possessed by the ages
of faith, placed the creation of man at about four thousand
years before our era.
At the Reformation this view was not disturbed. The same manner
of accepting the sacred text which led Luther, Melanchthon, and
the great Protestant leaders generally, to oppose the Copernican
theory, fixed them firmly in this biblical chronology; the
keynote was sounded for them by Luther when he said, "We know,
on the authority of Moses, that longer ago than six thousand
years the world did not exist." Melanchthon, more exact, fixed
the creation of man at 3963 B. C.
But the great Christian scholars continued the old endeavour to
make the time of man's origin more precise: there seems to have
been a sort of fascination in the subject which developed a long
array of chronologists, all weighing the minutest indications in
our sacred books, until the Protestant divine De Vignolles, who
had given forty years to the study of biblical chronology,
declared in 1738 that he had gathered no less than two hundred
computations based upon Scripture, and no two alike.
As to the Roman Church, about 1580 there was published, by
authority of Pope Gregory XIII, the Roman Martyrology, and this,
both as originally published and as revised in 1640 under Pope
Urban VIII, declared that the creation of man took place 5199
years before Christ.
But of all who gave themselves up to these chronological
studies, the man who exerted the most powerful influence upon
the dominant nations of Christendom was Archbishop Usher. In
1650 he published his Annals of the Ancient and New Testaments,
and it at once became the greatest authority for all
English-speaking peoples. Usher was a man of deep and wide
theological learning, powerful in controversy; and his careful
conclusion, after years of the most profound study of the Hebrew
Scriptures, was that man was created 4004 years before the
Christian era. His verdict was widely received as final; his
dates were inserted in the margins of the authorized version of
the English Bible, and were soon practically regarded as
equally inspired with the sacred text itself: to question them
seriously was to risk preferment in the Church and reputation in
the world at large.
The same adhesion to the Hebrew Scriptures which had influenced
Usher brought leading men of the older Church to the same view:
men who would have burned each other at the stake for their
differences on other points, agreed on this: Melanchthon and
Tostatus, Lightfoot and Jansen, Salmeron and Scaliger, Petavius
and Kepler, inquisitors and reformers, Jesuits and Jansenists,
priests and rabbis, stood together in the belief that the
creation of man was proved by Scripture to have taken place
between 3900 and 4004 years before Christ.
In spite of the severe pressure of this line of authorities,
extending from St. Jerome and Eusebius to Usher and Petavius, in
favour of this scriptural chronology, even devoted Christian
scholars had sometimes felt obliged to revolt. The first great
source of difficulty was increased knowledge regarding the
Egyptian monuments. As far back as the last years of the
sixteenth century Joseph Scaliger had done what he could to lay
the foundations of a more scientific treatment of chronology,
insisting especially that the historical indications in Persia,
in Babylon, and above all in Egypt, should be brought to bear on
the question. More than that, he had the boldness to urge that
the chronological indications of the Hebrew Scriptures should be
fully and critically discussed in the light of Egyptian and
other records, without any undue bias from theological
considerations. His idea may well be called inspired; yet it had
little effect as regards a true view of the antiquity of man,
even upon himself, for the theological bias prevailed above all
his reasonings, even in his own mind. Well does a brilliant
modern writer declare that, "among the multitude of strong men
in modern times abdicating their reason at the command of their
prejudices, Joseph Scaliger is perhaps the most striking example."
Early in the following century Sir Walter Raleigh, in his
History of the World (1603-1616), pointed out the danger of
adhering to the old system. He, too, foresaw one of the results
of modern investigation, stating it in these words, which have
the ring of prophetic inspiration: "For in Abraham's time all
the then known parts of the world were developed.... Egypt had
many magnificent cities,... and these not built with sticks, but
of hewn stone,... which magnificence needed a parent of more
antiquity than these other men have supposed." In view of these
considerations Raleigh followed the chronology of the Septuagint
version, which enabled him to give to the human race a few more
years than were usually allowed.
About the middle of the seventeenth century Isaac Vossius, one
of the most eminent scholars of Christendom, attempted to bring
the prevailing belief into closer accordance with ascertained
facts, but, save by a chosen few, his efforts were rejected. In
some parts of Europe a man holding new views on chronology was
by no means safe from bodily harm. As an example of the extreme
pressure exerted by the old theological system at times upon
honest scholars, we may take the case of La Peyrere, who about
the middle of the seventeenth century put forth his book on the
Pre-Adamites—an attempt to reconcile sundry well-known
difficulties in Scripture by claiming that man existed on earth
before the time of Adam. He was taken in hand at once; great
theologians rushed forward to attack him from all parts of
Europe; within fifty years thirty-six different refutations of
his arguments had appeared; the Parliament of Paris burned the
book, and the Grand Vicar of the archdiocese of Mechlin threw
him into prison and kept him there until he was forced, not only
to retract his statements, but to abjure his Protestantism.
In England, opposition to the growing truth was hardly less
earnest. Especially strong was Pearson, afterward Master of
Trinity and Bishop of Chester. In his treatise on the Creed,
published in 1659, which has remained a theologic classic, he
condemned those who held the earth to be more than fifty-six
hundred years old, insisted that the first man was created just
six days later, declared that the Egyptian records were forged,
and called all Christians to turn from them to "the infallible
annals of the Spirit of God."
But, in spite of warnings like these, we see the new idea
cropping out in various parts of Europe. In 1672, Sir John
Marsham published a work in which he showed himself bold and
honest. After describing the heathen sources of Oriental
history, he turns to the Christian writers, and, having used the
history of Egypt to show that the great Church authorities were
not exact, he ends one important argument with the following
words: "Thus the most interesting antiquities of Egypt have
been involved in the deepest obscurity by the very interpreters
of her chronology, who have jumbled everything up (qui omnia
susque deque permiscuerunt), so as to make them match with their
own reckonings of Hebrew chronology. Truly a very bad example,
and quite unworthy of religious writers."
This sturdy protest of Sir John against the dominant system and
against the "jumbling" by which Eusebius had endeavoured to
cut down ancient chronology within safe and sound orthodox
limits, had little effect. Though eminent chronologists of the
eighteenth century, like Jackson, Hales, and Drummond, gave
forth multitudes of ponderous volumes pleading for a period
somewhat longer than that generally allowed, and insisting that
the received Hebrew text was grossly vitiated as regards
chronology, even this poor favour was refused them; the mass of
believers found it more comfortable to hold fast the faith
committed to them by Usher, and it remained settled that man was
created about four thousand years before our era.
To those who wished even greater precision, Dr. John Lightfoot,
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, the great
rabbinical scholar of his time, gave his famous demonstration
from our sacred books that "heaven and earth, centre and
circumference, were created together, in the same instant, and
clouds full of water," and that "this work took place and man
was created by the Trinity on the twenty-third of October, 4004
B. C., at nine o'clock in the morning."
This tide of theological reasoning rolled on through the
eighteenth century, swollen by the biblical researches of
leading commentators, Catholic and Protestant, until it came in
much majesty and force into our own nineteenth century. At the
very beginning of the century it gained new strength from
various great men in the Church, among whom may be especially
named Dr. Adam Clarke, who declared that, "to preclude the
possibility of a mistake, the unerring Spirit of God directed Moses
in the selection of his facts and the ascertaining of his dates."
All opposition to the received view seemed broken down, and as
late as 1835—indeed, as late as 1850—came an announcement in
the work of one of the most eminent Egyptologists, Sir J. G.
Wilkinson, to the effect that he had modified the results he had
obtained from Egyptian monuments, in order that his chronology
might not interfere with the received date of the Deluge of
Noah.
THE NEW CHRONOLOGY.
But all investigators were not so docile as Wilkinson, and there
soon came a new train of scientific thought which rapidly
undermined all this theological chronology. Not to speak of
other noted men, we have early in the present century Young,
Champollion, and Rosellini, beginning a new epoch in the study
of the Egyptian monuments. Nothing could be more cautious than
their procedure, but the evidence was soon overwhelming in
favour of a vastly longer existence of man in the Nile Valley
than could be made to agree with even the longest duration then
allowed by theologians.
For, in spite of all the suppleness of men like Wilkinson, it
became evident that, whatever system of scriptural chronology
was adopted, Egypt was the seat of a flourishing civilization at
a period before the "Flood of Noah," and that no such flood had
ever interrupted it. This was bad, but worse remained behind: it
was soon clear that the civilization of Egypt began earlier than
the time assigned for the creation of man, even according to the
most liberal of the sacred chronologists.
As time went on, this became more and more evident. The long
duration assigned to human civilization in the fragments of
Manetho, the Egyptian scribe at Thebes in the third century B. C.,
was discovered to be more accordant with truth than the
chronologies of the great theologians; and, as the present
century has gone on, scientific results have been reached
absolutely fatal to the chronological view based by the
universal Church upon Scripture for nearly two thousand years.
As is well known, the first of the Egyptian kings of whom
mention is made upon the monuments of the Nile Valley is Mena,
or Menes. Manetho had given a statement, according to which Mena
must have lived nearly six thousand years before the Christian
era. This was looked upon for a long time as utterly
inadmissible, as it was so clearly at variance with the
chronology of our own sacred books; but, as time went on, large
fragments of the original work of Manetho were more carefully
studied and distinguished from corrupt transcriptions, the lists
of kings at Karnak, Sacquarah, and the two temples at Abydos
were brought to light, and the lists of court architects were
discovered. Among all these monuments the scholar who visits
Egypt is most impressed by the sculptured tablets giving the
lists of kings. Each shows the monarch of the period doing
homage to the long line of his ancestors. Each of these
sculptured monarchs has near him a tablet bearing his name. That
great care was always taken to keep these imposing records
correct is certain; the loyalty of subjects, the devotion of
priests, and the family pride of kings were all combined in
this; and how effective this care was, is seen in the fact that
kings now known to be usurpers are carefully omitted. The lists
of court architects, extending over the period from Seti to
Darius, throw a flood of light over the other records.
Comparing, then, all these sources, and applying an average from
the lengths of the long series of well-known reigns to the
reigns preceding, the most careful and cautious scholars have
satisfied themselves that the original fragments of Manetho
represent the work of a man honest and well informed, and, after
making all allowances for discrepancies and the overlapping of
reigns, it has become clear that the period known as the reign
of Mena must be fixed at more than three thousand years B. C. In
this the great Egyptologists of our time concur. Mariette, the
eminent French authority, puts the date at 5004 B. C.; Brugsch,
the leading German authority, puts it at about 4500 B. C.; and
Meyer, the latest and most cautious of the historians of
antiquity, declares 3180 B. C. the latest possible date that can
be assigned it. With these dates the foremost English
authorities, Sayce and Flinders Petrie, substantially agree.
This view is also confirmed on astronomical grounds by Mr.
Lockyer, the Astronomer Royal. We have it, then, as the result
of a century of work by the most acute and trained
Egyptologists, and with the inscriptions upon the temples and
papyri before them, both of which are now read with as much
facility as many medieval manuscripts, that the reign of Mena
must be placed more than five thousand years ago.
But the significance of this conclusion can not be fully
understood until we bring into connection with it some other
facts revealed by the Egyptian monuments.
The first of these is that which struck Sir Walter Raleigh,
that, even in the time of the first dynasties in the Nile
Valley, a high civilization had already been developed. Take,
first, man himself: we find sculptured upon the early monuments
types of the various races—Egyptians, Israelites, negroes, and
Libyans—as clearly distinguishable in these paintings and
sculptures of from four to six thousand years ago as the same
types are at the present day. No one can look at these
sculptures upon the Egyptian monuments, or even the drawings of
them, as given by Lepsius or Prisse d' Avennes, without being
convinced that they indicate, even at that remote period, a
difference of races so marked that long previous ages must have
been required to produce it.
The social condition of Egypt revealed in these early monuments
of art forces us to the same conclusion. Those earliest
monuments show that a very complex society had even then been
developed. We not only have a separation between the priestly
and military orders, but agriculturists, manufacturers, and
traders, with a whole series of subdivisions in each of these
classes. The early tombs show us sculptured and painted
representations of a daily life which even then had been developed
into a vast wealth and variety of grades, forms, and usages.
Take, next, the political and military condition. One fact out
of many reveals a policy which must have been the result of long
experience. Just as now, at the end of the nineteenth century,
the British Government, having found that they can not rely upon
the native Egyptians for the protection of the country, are
drilling the negroes from the interior of Africa as soldiers, so
the celebrated inscription of Prince Una, as far back as the
sixth dynasty, speaks of the Maksi or negroes levied and drilled
by tens of thousands for the Egyptian army.
Take, next, engineering. Here we find very early operations in
the way of canals, dikes, and great public edifices, so bold in
conception and thorough in execution as to fill our greatest
engineers of these days with astonishment. The quarrying,
conveyance, cutting, jointing, and polishing of the enormous
blocks in the interior of the Great Pyramid alone are the marvel
of the foremost stone-workers of our century.
As regards architecture, we find not only the pyramids, which
date from the very earliest period of Egyptian history, and
which are to this hour the wonder of the world for size, for
boldness, for exactness, and for skilful contrivance, but also
the temples, with long ranges of colossal columns wrought in
polished granite, with wonderful beauty of ornamentation, with
architraves and roofs vast in size and exquisite in adjustment,
which by their proportions tax the imagination, and lead the
beholder to ask whether all this can be real.
As to sculpture, we have not only the great Sphinx of Gizeh, so
marvellous in its boldness and dignity, dating from the very
first period of Egyptian history, but we have ranges of sphinxes,
heroic statues, and bas-reliefs, showing that even in the early
ages this branch of art had reached an amazing development.
As regards the perfection of these, Lubke, the most eminent
German authority on plastic art, referring to the early works in
the tombs about Memphis, declares that, "as monuments of the
period of the fourth dynasty, they are an evidence of the high
perfection to which the sculpture of the Egyptians had
attained." Brugsch declares that "every artistic production of
those early days, whether picture, writing, or sculpture, bears
the stamp of the highest perfection in art." Maspero, the most
eminent French authority in this field, while expressing his
belief that the Sphinx was sculptured even before the time of
Mena, declares that "the art which conceived and carved this
prodigious statue was a finished art—an art which had attained
self-mastery and was sure of its effects"; while, among the
more eminent English authorities, Sayce tells us that "art is at
its best in the age of the pyramid-builders," and Sir James
Fergusson declares, "We are startled to find Egyptian art
nearly as perfect in the oldest periods as in any of the later."
The evidence as to the high development of Egyptian sculpture in
the earlier dynasties becomes every day more overwhelming. What
exquisite genius the early Egyptian sculptors showed in their
lesser statues is known to all who have seen those most precious
specimens in the museum at Cairo, which were wrought before the
conventional type was adopted in obedience to religious considerations.
In decorative and especially in ceramic art, as early as the
fourth and fifth dynasties, we have vases, cups, and other
vessels showing exquisite beauty of outline and a general sense
of form almost if not quite equal to Etruscan and Grecian work
of the best periods.
Take, next, astronomy. Going back to the very earliest period of
Egyptian civilization, we find that the four sides of the Great
Pyramid are adjusted to the cardinal points with the utmost
precision. "The day of the equinox can be taken by observing
the sun set across the face of the pyramid, and the neighbouring
Arabs adjust their astronomical dates by its shadow." Yet this
is but one out of many facts which prove that the Egyptians, at
the earliest period of which their monuments exist, had arrived
at knowledge and skill only acquired by long ages of observation
and thought. Mr. Lockyer, Astronomer Royal of Great Britain, has
recently convinced himself, after careful examination of various
ruined temples at Thebes and elsewhere, that they were placed
with reference to observations of stars. To state his conclusion
in his own words: "There seems a very high probability that
three thousand, and possibly four thousand, years before Christ
the Egyptians had among them men with some knowledge of
astronomy, and that six thousand years ago the course of the sun
through the year was practically very well known, and methods
had been invented by means of which in time it might be better
known; and that, not very long after that, they not only
considered questions relating to the sun, but began to take up
other questions relating to the position and movement of the stars."
The same view of the antiquity of man in the Nile valley is
confirmed by philologists. To use the words of Max Duncker: "The
oldest monuments of Egypt—and they are the oldest monuments in
the world—exhibit the Egyptian in possession of the art of
writing." It is found also, by the inscriptions of the early
dynasties, that the Egyptian language had even at that early
time been developed in all essential particulars to the highest
point it ever attained. What long periods it must have required
for such a development every scholar in philology can imagine.
As regards medical science, we have the Berlin papyrus, which,
although of a later period, refers with careful specification to
a medical literature of the first dynasty.
As regards archaeology, the earliest known inscriptions point to
still earlier events and buildings, indicating a long sequence
in previous history.
As to all that pertains to the history of civilization, no man
of fair and open mind can go into the museums of Cairo or the
Louvre or the British Museum and look at the monuments of those
earlier dynasties without seeing in them the results of a
development in art, science, laws, customs, and language, which
must have required a vast period before the time of Mena. And
this conclusion is forced upon us all the more invincibly when
we consider the slow growth of ideas in the earlier stages of
civilization as compared with the later—a slowness of growth
which has kept the natives of many parts of the world in that
earliest civilization to this hour. To this we must add the fact
that Egyptian civilization was especially immobile: its
development into castes is but one among many evidences that it
was the very opposite of a civilization developed rapidly.
As to the length of the period before the time of Mena, there
is, of course, nothing exact. Manetho gives lists of great
personages before that first dynasty, and these extend over
twenty-four thousand years. Bunsen, one of the most learned of
Christian scholars, declares that not less than ten thousand
years were necessary for the development of civilization up to
the point where we find it in Mena's time. No one can claim
precision for either of these statements, but they are valuable
as showing the impression of vast antiquity made upon the most
competent judges by the careful study of those remains: no
unbiased judge can doubt that an immensely long period of years
must have been required for the development of civilization up
to the state in which we there find it.
The investigations in the bed of the Nile confirm these views.
That some unwarranted conclusions have at times been announced
is true; but the fact remains that again and again rude pottery
and other evidences of early stages of civilization have been
found in borings at places so distant from each other, and at
depths so great, that for such a range of concurring facts,
considered in connection with the rate of earthy deposit by the
Nile, there is no adequate explanation save the existence of man
in that valley thousands on thousands of years before the
longest time admitted by our sacred chronologists.
Nor have these investigations been of a careless character.
Between the years 1851 and 1854, Mr. Horner, an extremely
cautious English geologist, sank ninety-six shafts in four rows
at intervals of eight English miles, at right angles to the
Nile, in the neighbourhood of Memphis. In these pottery was
brought up from various depths, and beneath the statue of
Rameses II at Memphis from a depth of thirty-nine feet. At the
rate of the Nile deposit a careful estimate has declared this to
indicate a period of over eleven thousand years. So eminent a
German authority, in geography as Peschel characterizes
objections to such deductions as groundless. However this may
be, the general results of these investigations, taken in
connection with the other results of research, are convincing.
And, finally, as if to make assurance doubly sure, a series of
archaeologists of the highest standing, French, German, English,
and American, have within the past twenty years discovered
relics of a savage period, of vastly earlier date than the time
of Mena, prevailing throughout Egypt. These relics have been
discovered in various parts of the country, from Cairo to Luxor,
in great numbers. They are the same sort of prehistoric
implements which prove to us the early existence of man in so
many other parts of the world at a geological period so remote
that the figures given by our sacred chronologists are but
trivial. The last and most convincing of these discoveries, that
of flint implements in the drift, far down below the tombs of
early kings at Thebes, and upon high terraces far above the
present bed of the Nile, will be referred to later.
But it is not in Egypt alone that proofs are found of the utter
inadequacy of the entire chronological system derived from our
sacred books. These results of research in Egypt are strikingly
confirmed by research in Assyria and Babylonia. Prof. Sayce
exhibits various proofs of this. To use his own words regarding
one of these proofs: "On the shelves of the British Museum you
may see huge sun-dried bricks, on which are stamped the names
and titles of kings who erected or repaired the temples where
they have been found.... They must... have reigned before the
time when, according to the margins of our Bibles, the Flood of
Noah was covering the earth and reducing such bricks as these to
their primeval slime."
This conclusion was soon placed beyond a doubt. The lists of
king's and collateral inscriptions recovered from the temples of
the great valley between the Tigris and Euphrates, and the
records of astronomical observations in that region, showed that
there, too, a powerful civilization had grown up at a period far
earlier than could be made consistent with our sacred
chronology. The science of Assyriology was thus combined with
Egyptology to furnish one more convincing proof that, precious
as are the moral and religious truths in our sacred books and
the historical indications which they give us, these truths and
indications are necessarily inclosed in a setting of myth and
legend.