DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5538#0179
THE BIRTHPLACE OF GREEK DECORATIVE ART. 159
But the history of Man, and especially of civilized man,
concerns us yet more nearly; and the earliest civilized man
of whom we know anything is the ancient Egyptian.
From the moment when he emerges—a shadow}- figure—
from the mists of the dawn of history, he is seen to have a
philosophical religion, a hierarchy, and a social system. How
many centuries, or tens of centuries, it took him to achieve
that result we know not. Of the time when he was yet a
savage we detect no trace. His faintest, farthest footprint
on the sands of Time bears the impress of a sandal.
To this nation which first translated sounds into signs, and
made use of those signs to transmit the memory of its deeds
to future generations, we naturally turn for the earliest in-
formation of other races; nor do we so turn in vain.
Before they have any writing or any history of their own,
Ave meet with the Ethiopians, the Libyans, the Phoenicians,
the Babylonians, the Assyrians, in the hieroglyphic inscrip-
tions of ancient Egypt. And in these inscriptions, graven
on the storied walls of temples and pylons older by a thou-
sand years than the opening chapters of classical history, Ave
also find the first—the very first—mention of the people of
Greece and Italy.
It avouUI be difficult to find a more interesting subject of
inquiry than the relations of prehistoric Greece to Egypt,
or than to measure, as far as possible, the extent of that debt
which the early Greeks OAved to the teaching and example of
the ancient Egyptians.
The history of Greece and the Greeks, as told by them-
selves, may be said to begin Avith the first recorded Olym-
piad, seven hundred and seATenty-six years before the Chris-
tian era. It is at this point that we begin to draAv the line
between fable and fact. But the first mention of the Greeks
upon the monuments of Egypt goes back some seventeen
centuries earlier, to a rock-cut tablet of the time of San-
khara, a Theban King of the Eleventh Dynasty who reigned
about tAvo thousand five hundred years before Christ. They
appear in this memorable inscription as the "Hanebu"—
But the history of Man, and especially of civilized man,
concerns us yet more nearly; and the earliest civilized man
of whom we know anything is the ancient Egyptian.
From the moment when he emerges—a shadow}- figure—
from the mists of the dawn of history, he is seen to have a
philosophical religion, a hierarchy, and a social system. How
many centuries, or tens of centuries, it took him to achieve
that result we know not. Of the time when he was yet a
savage we detect no trace. His faintest, farthest footprint
on the sands of Time bears the impress of a sandal.
To this nation which first translated sounds into signs, and
made use of those signs to transmit the memory of its deeds
to future generations, we naturally turn for the earliest in-
formation of other races; nor do we so turn in vain.
Before they have any writing or any history of their own,
Ave meet with the Ethiopians, the Libyans, the Phoenicians,
the Babylonians, the Assyrians, in the hieroglyphic inscrip-
tions of ancient Egypt. And in these inscriptions, graven
on the storied walls of temples and pylons older by a thou-
sand years than the opening chapters of classical history, Ave
also find the first—the very first—mention of the people of
Greece and Italy.
It avouUI be difficult to find a more interesting subject of
inquiry than the relations of prehistoric Greece to Egypt,
or than to measure, as far as possible, the extent of that debt
which the early Greeks OAved to the teaching and example of
the ancient Egyptians.
The history of Greece and the Greeks, as told by them-
selves, may be said to begin Avith the first recorded Olym-
piad, seven hundred and seATenty-six years before the Chris-
tian era. It is at this point that we begin to draAv the line
between fable and fact. But the first mention of the Greeks
upon the monuments of Egypt goes back some seventeen
centuries earlier, to a rock-cut tablet of the time of San-
khara, a Theban King of the Eleventh Dynasty who reigned
about tAvo thousand five hundred years before Christ. They
appear in this memorable inscription as the "Hanebu"—