New Light on Ancient Egypt

Abstract

“IT is impossible to understand the Present unless one knows the Past.” This aphorism, trite enough, is in danger of being forgotten nowadays. Yet there are. some who realise that we cannot properly understand nature's highest work, man, as he exists to-day, without knowing something of his history; and by that is not meant a catalogue of kings' names, battles, and dates (the “history” that is taught in most of our schools), but the story of the development, the evolution of human civilisation. It is only of late years that the history of Greece and Rome, of the civilisation which is still our own, has begun to be treated from this point of view; and the impetus to the new way of looking at things has undoubtedly been given largely by the scientific study of the results of archaeological exploration in Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and Italy. The application to these discoveries of the methods of study that are, as a matter of course, used in dealing with natural science has had the consequence of revolutionising our views of ancient story; and as most of the spadework has been done in Egypt, it is Egypt that has told us most of our new knowledge.