View of Ancient and Modern Egypt Author:Michael Russell Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. Civil History of Ancient Egypt. Obscurity of Egyptian Annals—Variety of Hypotheses—Reign of Menes determined ; His Actions—Account of Osymandi... more »as; His Palace and Tomb—Chronological Tables—Invasion of the Shepherds—Quotation from Manetho—Mistake as to the Israelites—Indian Tradition in regard to the Conquest of Egypt by Pastoral Chiefs—The Origin of the Pyramids—Hatred of Shepherds entertained by the Egyptians in Time of Joseph— The Reign of Mreris—Accession of Sesostris ; His Exploits ; Proofs of his warlike Expedition; The Magnificence of his Buildings; His Epitaph—Invasion by Sabaco the Ethiopian or Abyssinian—By Sennacherib— By Nebuchadnezzar—By Cyrus—And complete Subjugation by Cambyses—The Persian Government—Conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great—Ancient Dynasties—The Ptolemies—The Romans—The Saracens. It is our intention in this chapter to give an out. line of Egyptian history from the earliest times down to the accession of the Saracenic princes,—an epoch at which the power and splendour of the more ancient governments were oppressed by a weight of barbarism which has not yet been removed. In regard to this interesting subject, we may confidently assert that there is no portion of the remoter annals of the human race more obscure from the want of authentic records, or more perplexed bygroundless conjecture and bold speculation. He who begins his inquiries with the establishment of the Egyptian monarchy, and proposes to sail down the stream of time accompanied and'guided by the old historians, soon discovers the numerous obstacles which must impede his course. The ancient authors from whom he seeks information, require of him to carry back his imagination to an era many thousand years prior to the existence of all written deeds ; and they then grave...« less