DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9804#0097
THE GREAT GAP IN EGYPTIAN HISTORY 71
the events that happened during these Dynasties that
it can be a matter of discussion as to whether 208 years
or 1666 is the proper time to allow for them ? It is of
course true that in prehistoric times, and in the absence
of written records, such ignorance might be expected.
In Egypt, however, the period could not fairly be called
prehistoric, and we possess written records. Not only
have we numerous monuments, but also the so-called
Turin Papyrus, a Book of Kings written in the XVIIIth
Dynasty, whose fragments, wherever we can rely with
safety on their order and meaning, offer us valuable
evidence. The strange thing about this great gap in
Egyptian history is that not only is a great deal known
about the period that comes after it, but a great deal also
about the period that precedes it. It is not merely that
the fragments of the Turin Papyrus happen to be better
preserved for the Xllth Dynasty than for those that
come after it, but that the monuments tell us volumes
about the Xllth Dynasty, and little or nothing about all
that comes between it and the XVIIIth. It is significant
that Petrie agrees with Meyer, not only in the date at
which he begins the XVIIIth Dynasty, but in the 160
and 213 years that he assigns to the Xlth and Xllth.1
When we discover, therefore, that hardly anything is
known about the gap, that it has practically no " content,"
our first impression is that it cannot be a long one. None
the less it would be at once granted by any candid friend
of the Berlin dating that the 208 years it assigns to
it are a surprisingly small number, and form a minimum
lower than that which any a priori theory would have
dared to suggest. We have to fit into it the whole
period of foreign domination, the dark days of the " Shep-
herd " or " Hyksos " kings, that were to the imagina-
tion of later Egypt what the Babylonian Captivity
1 Petrie, Hist. vol. i. 1903, pp. 124, 147, 251 ; Sinai, 1906,
p. 175 : Meyer, A.P.A. 1904, p. 68, etc.; Breasted, Hist. 1906,
p. 599-
the events that happened during these Dynasties that
it can be a matter of discussion as to whether 208 years
or 1666 is the proper time to allow for them ? It is of
course true that in prehistoric times, and in the absence
of written records, such ignorance might be expected.
In Egypt, however, the period could not fairly be called
prehistoric, and we possess written records. Not only
have we numerous monuments, but also the so-called
Turin Papyrus, a Book of Kings written in the XVIIIth
Dynasty, whose fragments, wherever we can rely with
safety on their order and meaning, offer us valuable
evidence. The strange thing about this great gap in
Egyptian history is that not only is a great deal known
about the period that comes after it, but a great deal also
about the period that precedes it. It is not merely that
the fragments of the Turin Papyrus happen to be better
preserved for the Xllth Dynasty than for those that
come after it, but that the monuments tell us volumes
about the Xllth Dynasty, and little or nothing about all
that comes between it and the XVIIIth. It is significant
that Petrie agrees with Meyer, not only in the date at
which he begins the XVIIIth Dynasty, but in the 160
and 213 years that he assigns to the Xlth and Xllth.1
When we discover, therefore, that hardly anything is
known about the gap, that it has practically no " content,"
our first impression is that it cannot be a long one. None
the less it would be at once granted by any candid friend
of the Berlin dating that the 208 years it assigns to
it are a surprisingly small number, and form a minimum
lower than that which any a priori theory would have
dared to suggest. We have to fit into it the whole
period of foreign domination, the dark days of the " Shep-
herd " or " Hyksos " kings, that were to the imagina-
tion of later Egypt what the Babylonian Captivity
1 Petrie, Hist. vol. i. 1903, pp. 124, 147, 251 ; Sinai, 1906,
p. 175 : Meyer, A.P.A. 1904, p. 68, etc.; Breasted, Hist. 1906,
p. 599-