It is not generally known that written history extends so far back as to make worthless the present system of chronology. The mighty empires of antiquity must have been a mystery to many a thoughtful mind. As far back as history will carry us we not only behold the world teeming with her millions of people, but also nations rising and empires crumbling. Rollin felt the difficulties of the chronology which hampered him. He says the Assyrian empire was founded by Nimrod eighteen hundred years after the creation of man, or two hundred and twenty-four years after the Deluge, or one hundred and twenty-six years before the death of Noah. Nimrod was succeeded by his son Ninus, who received powerful succor from the Arabians, and extended his conquests from Egypt as far as India and Bactriana. Ninus enlarged his capital to sixty miles in circumference, built the walls to the height of one hundred feet, and so broad that three chariots could go abreast upon them with ease, and fortified and adorned them with one thousand five hundred towers two hundred feet high. After he had finished this prodigious work he led against the Bactrians one million seven hundred thousand foot, two hundred thousand horse, besides four hundred vessels well equipped and provided. After his death, Semiramis, his wife, ascended the throne. She enlarged her dominions by the conquest of a great part of Ethiopia. Then she led her army of three million foot and five hundred thousand horse, besides the camels and chariots of war, into India, where she suffered a severe defeat. After making these statements, Rollin says, "I must own I am somewhat puzzled with a difficulty which may be raised against the extraordinary things related of Ninus and Semiramis, as they do not seem to agree with the times so near the Deluge: I mean, such vast armies, such a numerous cavalry, so many chariots armed with scythes, and such immense treasures of gold and silver; ... and the magnificence of the buildings, ascribed to them."[91] The difficulties presented to the modern historian never would have occurred if discredit had not been thrown on the writings of the ancients.

Egypt.—The only history of Egypt, written in Greek, was that of Manetho, a high-priest of Heliopolis, who lived three hundred years before Christ. Only fragments of this work have been preserved. This history is taken from the ancient Egyptian chronicles, and records a list of thirty dynasties reigning in one city. His "thirty-one lists contain the names of one hundred and thirteen kings, who, according to them, reigned in Egypt during the space of four thousand four hundred and sixty-five years."[92] Dr. Buchner says Manetho "calculates for three hundred and seventy-five Pharaohs a reigning period of six thousand one hundred and seventeen years, which together with the present era, makes about eight thousand three hundred and thirty years."[93] Bayard Taylor makes Manetho assign the first dynasty to about the year 5000 B. C.[94]

Herodotus says the Egyptians "declare that from their first king (Menes) to this last mentioned monarch (Sethos), the priest of Vulcan, was a period of three hundred and forty-one generations; such, at least, they say, was the number both of their kings and of their high-priests, during this interval. Now three hundred generations of men make ten thousand years, three generations filling up the century; and the remaining forty-one generations make thirteen hundred and forty years. Thus the whole number of years is eleven thousand three hundred and forty." The priests "led me into the inner sanctuary, which is a spacious chamber, and showed me a multitude of colossal statues, in wood, which they counted up, and found to amount to the exact number they had said; the custom being for every high-priest during his life-time to set up his statue in the temple. As they showed me the figures and reckoned them up, they assured me that each was the son of the one preceding him; and this they repeated throughout the whole line, beginning with the representation of the priest last deceased, and continuing till they had completed the series."[95] From the time of Sethos, the priest of Vulcan, to the burning of the temple of Delphi, was one hundred and twenty-two years. The temple was burned B. C. 548. The period which, then, has elapsed from Sethos to the present (1875) is two thousand five hundred and forty-five years. Adding this to the time of Menes we have the whole period covering thirteen thousand eight hundred and eighty-five years. But if the generation be reduced to twenty years then the period from Menes to the present is nine thousand three hundred and sixty-five years.

The recent explorations made by Mariette among the archives of Egypt have confirmed the testimony of Manetho. The names of the kings, their order of succession, and the length of their reigns correspond with Manetho's table. These discoveries not only testify to the great antiquity of the empire, but also throw light on the nation, its manners, and customs. There were found stools, cane-bottomed chairs, work-boxes, nets, knives, needles, toilet ornaments, earthenware, seeds, eggs, bread, straw baskets, a child's plaything, paint boxes, with colors and brushes, etc., from three thousand to six thousand years old. There were also found the jewels of Queen Aah-hotep, who lived 1700 B. C., consisting of exquisite chains, diadems, ear-rings, and bracelets, which no modern queen would hesitate to wear.

These statements are still further confirmed by the testimony of geology. In the year 1850 borings were commenced in the mud deposit of the Nile. The most important results were obtained from an excavation and boring made near the base of the pedestal of the statue of Rameses at Memphis, the middle of whose reign, according to Lepsius, was 1361 B. C. Assuming with Mr. Horner that the lower part of the platform or foundation was fourteen and three-fourths inches below the surface of the ground, or alluvial flat, at the time it was laid, there had been formed between that period and the year A. D. 1850, or during the space of three thousand two hundred and eleven years, a deposit of nine feet four inches round the pedestal, which gives a mean increase of three and one-half inches in a hundred years. It was further ascertained, by sinking a shaft near the pedestal, and by boring in the same place, that below the level of the old plain the thickness of old Nile mud resting on desert sand amounted to thirty-two feet; and it was therefore inferred by Mr. Horner that the lowest layer (in which a fragment of burned brick was found) was more than thirteen thousand years old, or was deposited thirteen thousand four hundred and ninety-six years before the year 1850."[96] Other excavations were made on a large scale. In the first sixteen or twenty-four feet there were dug up jars, vases, pots, a small human figure in burnt clay, a copper knife, and other articles entire. When the water soaking through from the Nile hindered the progress of the workmen, boring was resorted to, and almost everywhere, and from all depths, even where they sank sixty feet below the surface, pieces of burned brick and pottery were extracted.[97]Troy.—Troy, made immortal by the poem of Homer, has recently been uncovered to the eye of man, and fresh lustre has been thrown over the ancient bard. The descriptions of Troy given by Homer, thought to have been a mere work of imagination, are now shown to be accurate, and also that he must have been there. For the re-discovery and unearthing of Troy the world is indebted to Dr. Schlieman. Four buried cities superimposed one above the other were discovered. The third city, below the surface, is ancient Troy. The house of Priam, the ScÆan gate, the massive walls and pavements, still remained. In the house of Priam Dr. Schlieman found a great mass of human bones, among them two entire skeletons wearing copper helmets, a silver vase, two diadems of golden scales, a golden coronet, fifty-six golden ear-rings, eight thousand seven hundred and fifty gold rings, buttons, etc. Immediately beside the house of Priam, closely packed in a quadrangular space, surrounded with ashes, and near by a copper key, were a large oval shield of copper, a copper pot, a copper tray, a golden flagon, weighing nearly a pound, several silver vases, a silver bowl, fourteen copper lance-heads, fourteen copper battle-axes, two large two-edged daggers, a part of a sword, and some smaller articles. The value, by weight alone, of all the gold and silver found in or near the house of Priam, has been estimated at twenty thousand dollars. During the excavations, over one hundred thousand articles were found. Every mark showed that Troy had been suddenly destroyed. Conflagration, ruin, the implements and the effects of war were visible. Even the brave warriors who fell while defending the palace of their king have not yet wholly crumbled into dust.

The four cities may be thus summed up: The topmost stratum is six and one-half feet in depth and covers the Grecian settlement which was established about the year 700 B. C. Beneath the Greek masonry are found the walls of another city, built of earth and small stones, but the abundance of wood-ashes shows that the city—or the successive cities—was chiefly built of wood.

The ruins of Troy, next in succession, are from twenty-three and one-half to thirty-three and one-half feet from the surface, and form a stratum averaging ten feet in thickness. Troy is supposed to have been founded about 1400 B. C., and its fall and destruction by fire to have occurred about 1100 B. C.

Under Troy there is a fourth stratum of ruins, varying from thirteen to twenty feet in depth. The most remarkable feature of these oldest ruins is the superiority of the terracotta articles. These vases are of a shining black, red, or brown color, with ornamental patterns, first cut into the pottery, and then filled with a white substance. The age of these ruins "is a matter of pure conjecture, since the vicissitudes of the city's history—frequent destruction and rebuilding—would have the same practical effect, or very nearly so, as a long interval of time. We have anywhere from two to five thousand years before Christ as the date of the foundation of the first Troy."[98]

Chaldea.—Berosus, a Chaldean priest of Belus, nearly three hundred years before Christ, wrote in Greek a regular history of Chaldea, in nine books. The materials for this work were supplied by the archives then existing in the Temple of Belus at Babylon. The work was particularly devoted to a history of the kingdom prior to the beginning of the Assyrian empire. Fragments of this work have been preserved by Josephus and Eusebius. After describing the cyclical ages of ten fabulous kings, he then comes to what he considers true history, and enumerates one hundred and sixty-three kings of Chaldea, who reigned successively from the time when the list begins to the rise of the Assyrian empire, about the year 1237 B. C. Berosus begins with a dynasty of eighty-six kings, and gives their names, which are now lost. He had no chronology of their time, but subjected it to a cyclical calculation. His list, which has so far escaped the lapse of time and the change of hands, is thus preserved:

First, eighty-six Chaldean kings; history and time mythical.

Second, eight Median kings; during two hundred and twenty-four years.

Third, eleven kings.

Fourth, forty-nine Chaldean kings.

Fifth, nine Arabian kings; during two hundred and forty-five years.

The rulers of the Assyrian empire were next added, as a sixth dynasty. The blank spaces in the list are doubtless the result of careless copying, or caused by imperfections in the manuscripts. In order to make the old kingdom of Chaldea begin about the year 2234 B. C. the first eighty-six kings of Berosus have been struck out as fabulous, and the Median dynasty regarded as spurious, and this without any show of reason, save that it does not agree with the chronology which the mutilators of history accept.

Investigations which have been made among the ruined cities of Chaldea have given great weight to the authority of Berosus, and are tending to the confirmation of his history. In Susiana there was found a Cushite inscription, mentioned by Rawlinson, in which there is a date that goes back nearly to the year 3200 B. C. The testimony of the records disentombed from the ruins, as well as Berosus, contradicts the prevalent hypothesis that the Magian or Aryan race occupied the country before the Cushites. These ruins also "confirm Berosus by showing that Chaldea was a cultivated and flourishing nation, governed by kings, long previous to the time when the city known to us as Babylon rose to eminence and became the seat of empire. During that long time there were several great political epochs in the history of the country, representing important dynastic changes, and several transfers of the seat of government from one city to another. Such epochs in Chaldean history are indicated by the list of Berosus."[99]

By this people, the science of astronomy was well understood. "Callisthenes, who accompanied Alexander to Babylon, sent to Aristotle from that capital a series of astronomical observations which he had found preserved there, extending back to a period of one thousand nine hundred and three years from Alexander's conquest of the city.... These observations were recorded in tablets of baked clay.... They must have extended, according to Simplicius, as far back as 2234 B. C., and would seem to have been commenced and carried on for many centuries by the primitive Chaldean people." A lens of considerable power, used for either magnifying or condensing the rays of the sun, was found at Babylon, in a chamber of the ruin called Nimroud.[100]

China.—Litse, an eminent Chinese historian, relates that there were long periods of time when the Chinese kingdom flourished, the chronology of which is not preserved, although there is recorded some knowledge of the rulers. One of these rulers promoted the study of astronomy. Next come the historical epochs. During the first, astronomy, religion, and the art of writing were cultivated. This was a great epoch, and ruled by fifteen successive kings. In the second epoch, agriculture and medical science were promoted. In the third, the magnetic needle was discovered, the written characters improved, civilized life advanced, and a great revolt suppressed. In the fourth and fifth epochs, the descendants of the previous ruler reigned. Next came the period of Yao and Shin. After this the period of the "Imperial Dynasties," which began with the Emperor Yu, who lived two thousand two hundred years B. C. The historical work of Sse-ma-thi-an narrates events chronologically from the year 2637 B. C. to 122 B. C.[101]

Mexico.—It is known that books or manuscripts were abundant among the ancient Mexicans. There were persons duly appointed to keep a chronicle of the passing events. Las Casas, who saw the books, says they gave the origin of the kingdom as well as the founders of the different cities, and every different thing which transpired that was worthy of note: such as the history of kings, their modes of election and succession; their labors, actions, wars, memorable deeds, good or bad; the heroes of other days, their triumphs and defeats. These chroniclers calculated the days, months, and years. Nearly all these books were destroyed at the instigation of the monks, and by the more ignorant and fanatical Spanish priests. A vast collection of these old writings were burned in one conflagration by order of Bishop Zumarraga. A few of the works, however, escaped, but none of the great books of annals described by Las Casas.[102] Thus Mexico must be left to the archÆologist unassisted by written history.