Historical studies

i6 THE LENGTH OK EGYPTIAN HISTORY
the vth and vith dynasties. In the xviiith dynasty
they are unknown.
In the xiith dynasty there are few traces of the
Book of the Dead, and it is not organized as a type.
In the xviiith dynasty it is common and has a
regular structure.
In every usual product, for the living or for the
dead, there is a wide gap between the xiith and
xviiith dynasties ; and in many cases, such as the
stone vases, the glaze, the ink-trays, the coffins, and
the funeral figures of servants, the vth and the xiith
dynasties, across a thousand years, are more alike
than the xiith and the xviiith dynasties. It is there-
fore impossible to claim that any resemblances
between the xiith and xviiith dynasties shew a close
relation in time.
The Descent of Style.
34. The artistic style of a period is justly considered
as of the highest importance. It is the flower of the
abilities and the taste of the period, and it brings us
into closer connexion with the time and people than
anything else. There are but few ages in which
literature can render us so intimate with the feeling of
the past. The sculpture, the painting, the ornament,
all touch innumerable springs of sympathy in us.
The descent of style is one of the main facts
of history. It shews connexions between different
countries, and links the ages together. It carries on
the national taste of a country across all its invasions,
and mixtures of people, and changes of faith. It blends
all countries together in each age. The spirit of each
country and the spirit of each age cross each other
like the warp and weft, to produce the brilliant design
of all history.
The rate of changes of style has scarcely any
relation to time. The alterations may take place
rapidly or slowly. The determining cause is the
amount of external influence, and whether that be of
an equivalent culture, or of one higher or lower.
When equivalent cultures meet they blend and
influence each other, as did those of Syria and Egypt
in the xviiith dynasty, or as those of Japan and
England do now. In high and low cultures crossing,
the lower is driven out, either mainly, as in the case
of Rome and Gaul, or entirely, as in the case of Spain
and Mexico.
The continuance or revival of a style in the same
country may take place across any period of time.
The classical work of Rome was continued in a feeble
state until it revived in the Renascence ; and there is
much more resemblance between the work of the
iind and the xvith centuries in Italy than between
that of the xiith and xviiith dynasties in Egypt-
The Greek work survived likewise in Magna Graccia,
until its decoration took fresh root again at the
Renascence.
In other cases there has been an entire break, the
older style has disappeared from all living work, and
has then been revived again. This may be a con-
scious revival, such as the work of the xxvith dynasty
copying that of the vth dynasty. The copy may, as
in this case, be so good that only an intimate sense
of the older work enables us to see the poverty of
the copy. Another instance is the Nikopol vase, the
motive of which is followed twelve centuries later in
a Byzantine ivory vase (Dalton, Ivory Carvings, x).
A later instance of this conscious copying is in the
recent English revival of earlier architecture, such as
the Early English style of the Law Courts, and count-
less copies in church building.
In other cases there may be an unconscious
revival, the sources of which are so obscure that we
are tempted to attribute it to inherent national taste,
reasserting itself after having been overlaid by foreign
styles. Such is the reappearance of Late Celtic
ornament under Louis XV, or of Etruscan figure work
under the later emperors.
In all these cases it is evident that the length of
time has little effect. A style may continue for a
thousand years ; or it may be greatly changed in
a generation, when a rival force acts on it. It is quite
hopeless to deduce conclusions as to the intervals of
time between two periods by changes in style being
large or small. A large difference between two
periods, especially in many different lines, may
indicate a long time if no new influences have come
in meanwhile. But a close resemblance may be
equally seen whether a few decades or many centuries
have intervened. It is therefore impossible to set
aside written history on the ground of questions of
style.
Lately a defence of shortening the history has
been adduced from the styles seen at Knosso.s, and
the collocation of ruins there. But the evidence of
continued style in an island civilisation is of even
less value than elsewhere. The collocation of ruins is
as meaningless as a modern house in London built
upon the Roman wall, for the ruins at Knossos have
been swept away more than once to level the ground
for new structures. And any evidence from Greece