THE PHARAOH
AND THE PRIEST
AN HISTORICAL NOVEL OF
ANCIENT EGYPT
FROM THE
ORIGINAL POLISH OF ALEXANDER GLOVATSKI
BY
JEREMIAH CURTIN
TRANSLATOR OF “WITH FIRE AND SWORD,” “THE DELUGE,”
“QUO VADIS,” ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
BOSTON · LITTLE, BROWN
AND COMPANY · 1902
Copyright, 1902,
By Jeremiah Curtin.
——
All rights reserved.
Published September, 1902.
UNIVERSITY PRESS · JOHN WILSON
AND SON · CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
PREFATORY REMARKS
THE position of Ancient Egypt was unique, not in one,but in every sense. To begin at the very foundationof life in that country, we find that the soil was unlike anyother on earth in its origin. Every acre of fruitful land betweenthe first cataract and the sea had been brought fromInner Africa, and each year additions were made to it. Outof this mud, borne down thousands of miles from the greatfertile uplands of Abyssinia by rivers, grew everything neededto feed and clothe man and nourish animals. Out of it alsowas made the brick from which walls, houses, and buildingsof various uses and kinds were constructed. Though this soilof the country was rich, it could be utilized only by the unceasingco-ordinate efforts of a whole population constrainedand directed. To direct and constrain was the task of thepriests and the pharaohs.
Never have men worked in company so long and successfullyat tilling the earth as the Egyptians, and never has thereturn been so continuous and abundant from land as in theircase.
The Nile valley furnished grain to all markets accessible bywater; hence Rome, Greece, and Judæa ate the bread of Egypt.On this national tillage was founded the greatness of thecountry, for from it came the means to execute other works,and in it began that toil, training, and skill indispensable inrearing the monuments and doing those things which havemade Egypt famous forever, and preserved to us a knowledgeof the language, religion, modes of living, and history of thatwonderful people who held the Nile valley. No civilized personwho has looked on the pyramid of Ghizeh, the temple of[Pg vi]Karnak, and the tombs of the pharaohs in the Theban region,can ever forget them. But in those monuments are preservedthings of far greater import than they themselves are. In thetombs and temples of Egypt we see on stone and papyrushow that immense work of making speech visible was accomplished,that task of presenting language to the eye instead ofthe ear, and preserving the spoken word so as to give it to eyeor ear afterwards. In other terms, we have the history ofwriting from its earliest beginnings to the point at which weconnect it with the system used now by all civilized nationsexcepting the Chinese. In those monuments are preserved thehistory of religion i