SECTION 5. EGYPT AND ITS EARLIEST INHABITANTS
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SECTION 5. EGYPT AND ITS EARLIEST INHABITANTS
| We are to begin our study of the early
Orient in Egypt. The traveler who visits Egypt at the present
day lands in a very modern-looking harbor at Alexandria (see map,
p. 36). He is presently seated in a comfortable railway car in
which we may accompany him as he is carried rapidly across a low, flat
country stretching far away to the sunlit horizon. The wide expanse is
dotted with little villages of dark mud-brick huts, and here and there
rise groves of graceful date palms. The landscape is carpeted with
stretches of bright and vivid green as far as the eye can see, and wandering
through this verdure is a network of irrigation canals (Fig.
23). Brown-skinned men of slender build, with dark hair, are seen at
intervals along the banks of these canals, swaying up and down as they
rhythmically lift an irrigation bucket attached to a simple [NEXT]
NOTE. The tiara, or diadem, at the top of this page was found resting on the head of an Egyptian princess of the Feudal Age as she lay in her coffin. The diadem had been placed there nearly four thousand years ago. It is in the form of a chaplet, or wreath, of star flowers wrought of gold and set with bright-colored precious stones, and is one of the best examples of the work of the Egyptian gold-smiths and jewelers (Fig. 47 and § 82). It is shown here lying on a cushion. |
46. Egypt of today |