chapter 4.

See, also, MANETHO, LIST OF.

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EGYPT: Origin of the ancient people.

"The Egyptians, together with some other nations, form, as it would seem, a third branch of that [the Caucasian] race, namely, the family called Cushite, which is distinguished by special characters from the Pelasgian and the Semitic families. Whatever relations may be found always to exist between these great races of mankind, thus much may be regarded as certain, that the cradle of the Egyptian people must be sought in the interior of the Asiatic quarter of the world. In the earliest ages of humanity, far beyond all historical remembrance, the Egyptians, for reasons unknown to us, left the soil of their primeval home, took their way towards the setting sun, and finally crossed that bridge of nations, the Isthmus of Suez, to find a new fatherland on the favoured banks of the holy Nile. Comparative philology, in its turn, gives powerful support to this hypothesis. The Egyptian language ... shows in no way any trace of a derivation and descent from the African families of speech. On the contrary, the primitive roots and the essential elements of the Egyptian grammar point to such an intimate connection with the Indo-Germanic and Semitic languages that it is almost impossible to mistake the close relations which formerly prevailed between the Egyptians and the races called Indo-Germanic and Semitic."

_H. Brugsch-Bey, History of Egypt under the Pharaohs,