THE PRE-HISTORIC KINGDOM AND THE NOMES.

In giving precedence to the history of ownership in Egypt, it is not intended to prejudge the question of the comparative antiquity of Egyptian and Babylonian monuments or civilization. Both at the most moderate calculation go back some 5,000 years from the present century; but for the first part of that time, say from 3,000 to 1,500 b.c., the materials for inquiry are so much more abundant in Egypt, that on this ground only it would be convenient to consider the records of that country first.

There can have been no considerable settled population in the valley of the Nile before the advent of the Egyptians, since the inundation would make the country uninhabitable for great part of the year, and unattractive for the remainder, except to a race of civilized agriculturalists. The two crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt were probably worn by independent rulers before their union on the brow of Menes or some other precursor of the kings of history. The phrase was in no way figurative, two distinct diadems of different patterns being combined to make the “double crown,” worn by “the lord of the vulture and the uræus.” The two countries had not only separate diadems and symbols of royalty, but also different gods—Horus and Set—and different floral emblems, the lotus for Lower, and the papyrus for Upper Egypt.