to Abydos, which is near the southern boundary of Upper Egypt; and, assuming as before, that the limit of their knowledge was the limit of all possible knowledge, here they supposed was the world's end, where the river and the sun rose from the abyss together. The signification of the name of Abydos
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, proves this to demonstration. It denotes the east ⲉⲓⲉⲃⲧ
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i.e. the place of the sun's rising; the two words are identical in hieroglyphics.
This indirect but plain indication of the eastern origin of the first colonisers of Egypt, is confirmed by the dates of the monuments now in existence. The pyramids of Ghizeh, in the burial place of Memphis, are the most ancient of all the greater remains. Several of the tombs in their immediate vicinity also belong to the same remote period. As we proceed up the valley of the Nile to Beni Hassan and Abydos, the remains are those of the era of Osortasen: while at Thebes, and the regions to the south of it, we scarcely find a trace of any thing that is earlier than the eighteenth dynasty. More satisfactory proof could scarcely be desired that the progress of the first inhabitants of the valley was from Heliopolis upwards, not from Thebes downwards, as has been too hastily assumed by certain modern antiquaries. In this particular, therefore, the monuments of Egypt strongly confirm the scripture account of the first dispersion of mankind from the plains of Shinar.
§ 2. ANCIENT GEOGRAPHY.
The sculptures of Ancient Egypt, whence our knowledge of the geographical notions which prevailed among its inhabitants are to be derived, dates between
