axes, spears, knives, and arrow-heads, were in constant use.
Animals had long been domesticated, in particular the dog, the
cat, and the ox; the horse was introduced later from the East.
The practical arts of agriculture were practised almost as they
are at the present day in Egypt, there being, of course, the same
dependence then as now upon the inundations of the Nile.

As to government, the Egyptian of the first dynasty regarded his
king as a demi-god to be actually deified after his death, and
this point of view was not changed throughout the stages of later
Egyptian history. In point of art, marvellous advances upon the
skill of the prehistoric man had been made, probably in part
under Asiatic influences, and that unique style of stilted yet
expressive drawing had come into vogue, which was to be
remembered in after times as typically Egyptian. More important
than all else, our Egyptian of the earliest historical period was
in possession of the art of writing. He had begun to make those
specific records which were impossible to the man of the Stone
Age, and thus he had entered fully upon the way of historical
progress which, as already pointed out, has its very foundation
in written records. From now on the deeds of individual kings
could find specific record. It began to be possible to fix the
chronology of remote events with some accuracy; and with this
same fixing of chronologies came the advent of true history. The
period which precedes what is usually spoken of as the first
dynasty in Egypt is one into which the present-day searcher is
still able to see but darkly. The evidence seems to suggest than
an invasion of relatively cultured people from the East
overthrew, and in time supplanted, the Neolithic civilization of
the Nile Valley. It is impossible to date this invasion