Message #11597

[Bianca]

EGYPT                                                                                                 continued



"At the epoch of Menes," says Winchell, "the Egyptians were already
a civilized and numerous people.  Manetho tells us that Athotis, the
son of this first king, Menes, built the palace at Memphis; that he
was a physician, and left anatomical books.  All these statements
imply that even at this early period the Egyptians were in a high
state of civilization."  (Winchell's PREADAMITES, p.120.)  "In the time
of Menes the Egyptians had long been architects, sculptors, painters,
mythologists, and theologians."  Professor Richard Owen says:
"Egypt is recorded to have been a civilized and governed community
BEFORE the time of Menes.  The pastoral community of a group of
nomad families, as portrayed in the Pentateuch, may be admitted as
an early step in civilization.  But how far in advance of this stage is a
nation administered by a kingly government, consisting of grades of
society, with divisions of labor, of which one kind, assigned to the
priesthood, was to record or chronicle the names and dynasties of
the kings, the duration and chief events of their reigns!"  Ernest
Renan points out that "Egypt at the beginning appears mature, old,
and entirely without mythical and heroic ages, as if the country had
never known youth.  Its civilization has no infancy, and its art no
archaic period.  The civilization of the Old Monarchy did not appear
with infancy.  It was already mature."