Page 23 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

The Uities >
kings that preceded the Union, of how the Falcon Kings of his
own upper valley conquered the Reed Kings of the lower valley

and united thereby the whole of upper Egypt into the White
Kingdom under the white crown. Mena had worn the white
crown before he had added the delta, the land of the Bee Kings,
to his realm and assumed thereby in addition the red crown of

lower Egypt. Since then for fourteen hundred years the wearers
of the double crown had ruled the land, first from Memphis
(near present-day Cairo), on the former frontier between the
White Kingdom and the Red, and later from Thebes, three hun­

dred fifty miles farther south along the valley and not far from
the village where our farm laborer stands.
He knows but little of the history of the Memphis kings,
and cares less—knows and cares at least as little as a man of

our day knows and cares about the history of the corresponding
length of our past, from the Anglo-Saxon invasions to the War of
Independence. But just as he has listened all his life to legends

of Mena, the great uniter of the lands, so he has heard tales of
the mighty pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty, who eight hundred
years ago built the great pyramids near their capital. Pyramids,
of course, he is accustomed to; every pharaoh builds one, starting

to plan it as soon as he comes to the throne, or even before. The
pyramid, the emblem of the sun-god Ra, is the recognized form
for the burial monument of the king, who is son of Ra and Ra’s

earthly incarnation. But the great pyramids of the Fourth Dy­
nasty, the pyramids of Khufu and Khefre and Menkure, were
something different and worth traveling days to see. It is possible
that our farmer has been to see them, as millions of tourists must

already have done in the eight hundred years since they were
built, and had stood awestruck before their colossal dimensions,
ranging up to Khufu’s four hundred eighty feet in height, and
dazzled by their smooth white limestone facings. He would gaze

on them from about the same distance in time as we look on
Windsor Castle.
The people of the south, of the old White Kingdom in the
main valley of the Nile, stand not a little in awe of Memphis as

a whole. Though it ceased to be the capital of the country, even
in name, over two hundred years ago, it is still a fabulous city,