A Self-verifying Chronological History of Ancient Egypt A Book of Startling Discoveries

Abstract

THE portly volume before us professes to deal with the “chronological history” of Egypt, and to treat the subject in such a lucid manner that every part of it explains itself and “proves” itself. The author is candid, and advertises his work in the freest possible manner, and he appears to be thoroughly convinced of the supreme value of his labours. According to him, the field of Egyptian history was hastily explored, “usually at odd times”—whatever that may mean—but armed with his “key,” which a “fortuitous discovery” had placed in his hands, he “entered a lost world, all recollection of which had died out, and there made a series of discoveries, and gathered together a great mass of new historical facts, the startling and far-reaching importance of which it would be almost impossible to estimate.” He admits that he once held many of the opinions common to modern Egyptologists in general, but his “native common sense recoiled from” the errors and superstitions regarding the Egyptians which were current among so-called “scientists”; though of certain errors and superstitions he once found it impossible to free his mind, and apparently this is still the case. He wrote his book whilst “the researches were being made,” and his “point of view was constantly changing,” and his “horizon was constantly widening.” Among Egyptologists, the author thinks “superficial skepticism” has taken the place of “scientific criticism,” and this had led many of them “to belittle and misrepresent the civilisation of Egypt prior to the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty,” and they tell us “flat footed” (whatever this word may mean here) “that the first three dynasties of Manetho were mythical.” Mr. Schmidt thinks that the names of Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth are Egyptian and not Hebrew words, and he says that “scientists” will have to account for the remarkable coincidence between the date of the Hyksos expulsion and that of Jacob's birth.

A Self-verifying Chronological History of Ancient Egypt. A Book of Startling Discoveries.

By Orlando P. Schmidt. Pp. 569. (Cincinnati: O. G. C. Shaw, 1900.)