brought with it a knowledge of the arts of war and peace,
developed or adopted in its old home. The introduction of these arts
served to bridge somewhat suddenly, so far as Egypt is concerned, that
gap between the prehistoric and the historic stage of culture to which
we have all along referred. The essential structure of that bridge,
let it now be clearly understood, consisted of a single element. That
element is the capacity to make written records: a knowledge of the art
of writing. Clearly understood, it is this element of knowledge that
forms the line bounding the historical period. Numberless mementos are
in existence that tell of the intellectual activities of prehistoric
man; such mementos as flint implements, pieces of pottery, and fragments
of bone, inscribed with pictures that may fairly be spoken of as works
of art; but so long as no written word accompanies these records, so
long as no name of king or scribe comes down to us, we feel that these
records belong to the domain of archaeology rather than to that of
history. Yet it must be understood all along that these two domains
shade one into the other and, it has already been urged, that the
distinction between them is one that pertains rather to modern
scholarship than to the development of civilization itself. Bearing this
distinction still in mind, and recalling that the historical period,
which is to be the field of our observation throughout the rest of our
studies, extends for Egypt well back into the fifth millennium B.C., let
us briefly review the practical phases of that civilization to which the
Egyptian had attained before the beginning of the dynastic period. Since
theoretical science is everywhere linked with the mechanical arts, this
survey will give us a clear comprehension of the field that lies open
for the progress of science in the long stages of historical time upon
which we are just entering.

We may pass over such rudimentary advances in the direction of
civilization as are implied in the use of articulate language, the
application of fire to the uses of man, and the systematic making of
dwellings of one sort or another, since all of these are stages of
progress that were reached very early in the prehistoric period.
What more directly concerns us is to note that a really high stage of
mechanical development had been reached before the dawnings of Egyptian
history proper. All manner of household utensils were employed; the
potter's wh