Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1894-09-20
ORIGIN OF THE EGYPTIANS.
Derived From the Same Stock Whence th .
PhOenicians Came

OerN0o From tho Same Stock Whence the
Phoenicians Came.
Psychologists have so long been oc-
cupied with the pyramids and other
monuments of the best periods of
Egyptian art that Prof. Flinders Petrie
may be said to have broken new
ground in a double sense by his excava-
tions on the Nile. He threw flood of
light on the earlier stages of Egyptian
civilization by his researches at Medium
and elsewhere, showing that the
bronze age was preceded by copper
age, and these again by a stone age,
old and new, that is to say, period
lasting it may be for thousands of
years in which blades of Clipped or
polished flint and greensboro, similar
to those of prehistoric Europe, were
in use.
His discoveries at Koptos during
three months of last winter, which are
now in view at University college, in
clude large number of stone imple-
ments, namely, paleolithic celts of
Clipped flint and polished ones of
greensboro as well as cutting blades of
flint. 1t is curious to observe that
some of these latter have serrated
edges, and were fitted into a carved
frame to form sickle for reaping
corn, and that this curved frame is of
similar shape TO the jawbone of a COW
with the teeth in it, which probably
was the primitive sickle.
Prof Petrie remarks that perhaps
the ''jawbone of an ass" with which
Samson slew tho Philistines, was re-,
ally an implement of some sort which,
had derived its name of ''jawbone"i
from more primitive implement, the
an imitation. We have an example of
this kind in our English word ''chisel,''
which is the Anglo-Saxon for flint,
e. g., ''chisil''D the stone tool having,
given its name to the metal one that
succeeded it.
| It has been inferred by Egyptolo-
gists that the founders Of the historic
dynasties of Egypt came from the low
er end of the Red Sea, and as the ruin.
or,rather, the mound of Koptos, or Kuft,
stands on the east side of the Nile,
about thirty miles above the site of
Thebes, and at the termination of the
ancient road to the Red Sea by which
the immigrants must have come. Prof.
Petrie was delighted to seize the occa-
sion offered him of excavating Koptos,
because there, if anywhere, he might
expect to find a confirmation of the in
ference.
The result of three months work
last winter have justified the hypothe-
| o4e ~
/, of the sword fish and shark on the
sculptures indicate the advent of q
maritime people. Prof. Petrie sup
poses them to have been Phenicians,
who had settled on the coast of the Red
Sea- the land of Plum, >or Punt, as they
settled on the shores of the Mediter-
ranean at Carthage, giving rise to the
Punic war. They were probably less
civilized than the Egyptians, as were
the northern barbarians who took adj
vantage of the confusion caused by the
breaking up of the Roman Empire to
establish themselves in the south Of
Europe. They were for centuries in
Egypt before they built Memphis, and
Prof. Petrie conjectures the date Of
! their invasion as somewhere about
5000 B. C.
The Mesopotamians are another
racial element in the ancient Egyptian
people, and the part they played is
awaiting further research. Prof. Pc
trie thinks that the early Egyptians
were cross between the black races
of the south and that white race of
Northern Africa which is thought to
have come from Europe There were
other racial elements in the country,
but these have not been well identi-
! 6ed.-London Globe.