DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14563#0301
CHAPTER
XXXIII.
antiquity of art and science-true antiquity
of egypt.
We read of the golden age of art. When was it ? The
Augustan age ? The age of Pericles ?
There was a golden age of letters too. When ? Was it
when art and letters and science reached a high develop-
ment, if not perfection, and were under the patronage of all
the wealthy and the great ? — when the rich planned how
best to adorn their palaces, and monarchs put in requisition
all human skill for their temples and their tombs ? Then
had art and science a golden age long before Augustus or
Pericles — before Rome or Greece was born.
In proof of this, I would adduce the tombs at Bcni-Has-
san, on the Lower Nile. These have been famous, from the
conjecture that one of them was the temporary tomb of
Joseph, and that a scene upon its walls represented the
arrival in Egypt of Jacob and his sons. This picture, which
is about eight feet long by two feet in width, represents a
family of emigrants, who come with presents, having with
them women, children, baggage, asses — the very prototype
of the present race of donkeys — also weapons and instru-
ments of music. Champollion mistook them for Greeks,
and some have supposed them to be the brethren of Joseph.
But this has been disproved, by the discovery from the hiero-
glyphics, that the tomb is much older than the time of
XXXIII.
antiquity of art and science-true antiquity
of egypt.
We read of the golden age of art. When was it ? The
Augustan age ? The age of Pericles ?
There was a golden age of letters too. When ? Was it
when art and letters and science reached a high develop-
ment, if not perfection, and were under the patronage of all
the wealthy and the great ? — when the rich planned how
best to adorn their palaces, and monarchs put in requisition
all human skill for their temples and their tombs ? Then
had art and science a golden age long before Augustus or
Pericles — before Rome or Greece was born.
In proof of this, I would adduce the tombs at Bcni-Has-
san, on the Lower Nile. These have been famous, from the
conjecture that one of them was the temporary tomb of
Joseph, and that a scene upon its walls represented the
arrival in Egypt of Jacob and his sons. This picture, which
is about eight feet long by two feet in width, represents a
family of emigrants, who come with presents, having with
them women, children, baggage, asses — the very prototype
of the present race of donkeys — also weapons and instru-
ments of music. Champollion mistook them for Greeks,
and some have supposed them to be the brethren of Joseph.
But this has been disproved, by the discovery from the hiero-
glyphics, that the tomb is much older than the time of