Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

626 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
and art, religion and science, and even the administration
of the country. There is hardly a branch of daily life in
which we are not instructed by the monuments.
But not only has the science of Egyptology gained by
the discoveries made in Egypt, but nearly every department
of learning has reaped some material advantage. In order
to give only one or two of the best known examples, the
field of classical archaeology may be cited as having gained
considerably by these discoveries, inasmuch as we now can
fix the date of the earliest Greek, the so-called Mycenean
civilization, by means of the vases found in Naukratis and
other Greek colonies. We have in this way been able to
add to our knowledge of a branch of this most important
art. The numerous Greek portraits which have been discovered
in the later Egvptian tombs have greatly increased
our knowledge in the large sphere of pictorial art, about
which up to the present we have known very little.
None the less important have been the additions to classical
philology which we have derived from Egypt. The
great papvrus finds of the last decade have furnished us
with literary works previously known only by name or at
the best in fragments. Among these may be prominently
mentioned, Aristotle's " Constitution of Athens," the
Poems of Bachylides, the " Mimiambi " of Herondas and
others. Many manuscripts of the known works of classic
literature have come to light in Egypt, the importance of
which cannot be overrated, since by their copious vocabulary
thev have tended either to verify previous readings or to
improve those already in use.
In the same way as the classical so has also the early
Christian literature received extremely valuable additions,
which for the knowledge of the earliest historv of Christianity
and the writers of the first centuries are of the greatest
importance. We would only mention here the numerous
gnostic works in Coptic, the fragments of the Logia 'Iesou