wing Dynasties[63] never surpassed. It had an especially
complicated administration, the result of many years. The Egyptians
had civil grades and religious grades, bishops as well as prefects.
Registration of land surveys existed. The pharaoh had his organized
court, and a large number of functionaries, powerfully and wisely
arranged, gravitated around him. Literature was honored and books were
composed on morals, some of which have reached our day. This was under
the Ancient Empire during which existed the builders of the
Pyramids."[64] The deities of literature and of libraries already
existed, they were Thoth, the Greek Hermes; Atmu, of Thebes; _Ma_ or
_Maat_, goddess of the harmony of the entire universe, or its law of
existence, and of righteousness; Pacht, the mistress of thoughts;
Safekh, goddess of books, who presided over the foundations of
monuments and who was venerated at Memphis as early as the IVth
Dynasty; Selk, who was also the goddess of libraries.

"In one of the tombs at Gizeh, a great functionary of the first period
of the VIth Dynasty (_circa_ 3300 B.C.,) takes the title of: 'Governor
of the House of Books.' This simple mention incidentally occurring
between two titles, more exalted, would suffice, in the absence of
others, to show us the extraordinary development which had been
reached in the civilization of Egypt at that time. Not only had that
people a literature, but that literature was sufficiently large to
fill libraries; and its importance was so great, that one of the
functionaries of the court was especially attached to the care and
preservation of the royal library. He had, without doubt, in his
keeping with the contemporaneous works, the books written under the
first Dynasties, books of the time of Mena and perhaps of kings
anterior to Mena. The works in the library would be composed of
religious works; chapters of the Book of the Dead, copied after
authentic texts preserved in the Temples; scientific treatises on
geometry, medicine and astronomy; historic books in which were
preserved the sayings and doings of the ancient kings, together with
the number of the years of their lives and the exact duration of their
reigns; manuals of philosophy and practical morals and perhaps some
romances," etc.[65]

The learned of that ancient people followed special lines of study and
thought. There was a division of them known as the _Herseshta_, or
Teachers of Mysteries. These were subdivided, among