The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1894-12-16
CROPPING IN THE PAST.

One OF the most important UOokS VI Tue
year is "The Dawn of Civilization" by
CASTOR Maspero, whom the world knows as
the successor of Maretts Bey in the Office
of keeper of the Boulak Museum at Cairo,
and probably the foremost Psychologist
OF the day. MasperO is the man who
brought to light the great temple OF
Luxor, built by AmenhoteD III about
1880 B. G. 1t was hidden by native viii
lage. whose rubbish had accumulated over
the roof of the temple to depth of forty or
fifty feet, and it was work Of great diff
fieulty and expense to buy out the vii
layers SO &c 10 proceed with the enterprise
of excavation. The work, however, amply
rewarded NJ. Maspero. He unearthed the
remains of temple nearly $500 years old,
which contained sculptures of the most
delicate execution and statues and COL
umns which compare fairly with the mon
uments of Karnak.
This discovery was of even less i'm
portance than that of the mummy of
Rameses IL. which was also the work of
III. Maspero. This is the Pharaoh who
figures in the Bible at the time of the
Israelite captivity in Egypt. and has been
supposed on very slight authority to be
the monarch who babe his captives make
brick without straw. Maspero showed
him so little changed after his long inter-
meGt that his face would have been
recognized by any one who had known
him in life; each feature was preserved,
and his countenance revealed the prodig-
ious age which he had reached when his
reign of sixty-seven years came to q close.
NJ. Maspero resigned in 1885, though he
r. q, 81
plorers who are digging out the great
Sphinx from the surrounding sand. 1t is
to his antiquarian knowledge that we owe
our acquaintance with the meaning of the
inscription on that monster monument.
He is now living in Paris, where he was
born, and is devoting his old age to the
publication Of the differences which he has
drawn from his prodigious observations.
Part of these are embodied in the work
which has just now seen the light. They
are calculated to upset many received
opinions.
The more Egyptian antiquities are
studied the less faith can be attached TO
accepted systems of chronology. The
Egypt of the Pharaohs was a country of
extraordinary fertility. inhabited by a
race which was unwarlike. and sur
rounded by nations which want had edu-
Gated to skill in war. In ancient times, as
now, Southern Egypt was inhabited by a
race which usually spent the season be-
tween seedtime and harvest in warning
with their neighbors. This race habitu-
ally swarmed over the northern valley of
the Nile, and, like other savages, destroyed
what they could not take away; and the
same barbarian policy was pursued by in
vaders from Arabia and Persia. Thus the
march of civilization and improvement
was constantly arrested by war, and the
monuments of one age were probably de-
stroyed in the next. Thus gaps occur in
the monumental history of Egypt. and the
dates assigned to the early dynasties may
be far too recent.
1t is in Egypt that archaeology must find
its first firm restiDg-place for an inquiry
into the origin of the human race. 1t
may prove that its civilization was ante
dated by that of India or China, but the
progress which has been made In excavat-
ing Egyptian antiquities has been so much
more extensive than the similar progress
in other countries that it will probably be
pursued on the banks of the Nile until
stopping-place is reached before it is Sc
riuusly begun elsewhere. Between the
a heavy rain, and the temple of Luxor.
with its delicate traceIies, its massive
columns and its palatial halls, period
must have elapsed which has not been &C
curateiy measured. 1t is the work of men
like N. Maspero TO throw light upon the
desert of historical darkness.