Social life in ancient Egypt / by W.M. Flinders Petrie.

  • Flinders Petrie
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Social life in ancient Egypt / by W.M. Flinders Petrie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    mating season. Even plants do the same, spreading broad leaves far out to keep any intruder from growing too near. Some races, as the Eskimo and the Arab, avoid this competi¬ tion by adapting themselves to live in regions which defy intrusion. Similarly, the primrose and snowdrop have adapted themselves to cold, so as to get clear light and air before trees shade them. This exclusive use of land for food gathering needs a united tribe to defend it from intruders, and therefore a chief to hold it together. The last relic of this order of things has survived in game preserves, and one still meets with men in the true palaeolithic frame of mind, solely occu¬ pied with the means of killing animals. So soon as the rainfall ceased in North Africa and the Nile partly dried up, there were mud flats for cultivation, and there was less game on the hills. A race pushed in from the west, bringing agriculture and abolishing cannibalism, changes linked with the Osiris group of gods. This regular production of food, artificially sown, provided larger supplies, which could be stored in greater amounts than were needed by the cul¬ tivators. This provided capital, and thus the means of extending power and control, which made a city-state possible. It has been noticed before how remarkably similar the distances are between S.L.E. B
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