The ancient world, from the earliest times to 800 AD . Stone, containing the hieroglyphs first Ermans Life in Ancient Egypt. forgotten language of old Egypt. Soon afterward a like taskwas accomplished for the old Assyrian language (§ 75, note). At first there was little to read; but a new interest hadbeen aroused, and, about 1850, scholars began extensive ex-plorations in the East. Sites of forgotten cites, buried beneath Part of the Above Inscription, on a larger scale. desert sands, were rediscovered. Many of them contained greatlibraries on papyrus,^ or on stone and brick. A
The ancient world, from the earliest times to 800 AD . Stone, containing the hieroglyphs first Ermans Life in Ancient Egypt. forgotten language of old Egypt. Soon afterward a like taskwas accomplished for the old Assyrian language (§ 75, note). At first there was little to read; but a new interest hadbeen aroused, and, about 1850, scholars began extensive ex-plorations in the East. Sites of forgotten cites, buried beneath Part of the Above Inscription, on a larger scale. desert sands, were rediscovered. Many of them contained greatlibraries on papyrus,^ or on stone and brick. A part of thesehave been translated; and since 1880 the results have begunto appear in our books. The explorations are still going on;and very recent years have been the most fruitful of all in dis-coveries. 1 The papyrus was a reed which grew abundantly in the Nile and theEuphrates rivers. From slices of its stem a kind of paper was preparedby laying them together crosswise and pressing them int<^ a smooth sheet,Our word paper comes from §7] THE CENTERS OF CIVILIZATION 13 6. The Two Centers. —The first homes of civilization wereEgypt and Chaldea, — the lower valleys of the Nile and theEuphrates. In the Euphrates valley the wild wheat and bar-ley afforded abundant food, with little effort on the part ofman. The Nile valley had the marvelous date palm and va-rious grains. In each of these lands there grew up a densepopulation, and so part of the people were able to give atten--tion to other matters than getting food from day to day. In a straight line, Egypt and Chaldea were some eight hun-dred miles apart. Practically, the distance was greater. Theonly route fit for travel ran along two sides of a triangle, —north from Egypt, between the mountain ranges of westernSyria, to the upper waters of the Euphrates, and then downthe course of that river. Except upon this Syrian side, Egypt and Chaldea were shutoff from other desirable countries. In Asia, civilization
Size: 1262px × 1979px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjecthistoryancient, booky
