Most Ancient Aryan Society

Author(s): Ram Chandra Jain
Publisher: Institute of Bharatalogical Research Sriganganagar Rajasthan

Page 88

( 61 ) and reached the shores of Egypt in the middle of the fourth milennium B.C. Their supreine leader was Menes, remembered by later scribes as the first king of Egypt. He fonded the city of Memphis. He drained the river flowing near it and diverted its course.' He raised the dam to protect the city. The city of Memphis was built on the drained-land. He excavated a lake on the north and west sides of the city. Menes and his engineers successfully altered the course of so big and troublous a river as Nile, ; draining off the drenched land and building of a great city clearly prove that they were great experts in advance science of engineering.
As noted earlier; five periods of the Old Republic (five dynasties of the old kingdom) were marked for peace and progress. There were big works of construction, flourishing international trade and great spread of spiritual doctrines. These cannot be possible in times of troubles. Historians agree that all these periods were the periods of great peace, prosperity and progress in Egyptian history but they affirm that Menes occupied Egypt by force. He was the first king of the United Lower and Upper Egypt and this unity was brought by military conquest. No Egyptian record speaks of any military conquest, nor there is any legend to that effect. This conjecture is based on the interpretation of an important monument, the slate palette of Narmer. The plate if interpreted in the light of the Egyptian culture and civilization of those times gives a different reading. Menes had to eject many agriculturists from the land inundated and cultivated by the the Nile waters where the city of Memphis had to be found. The scene on the obverse shows him holding the hair of the leader of the people who opposed the master-plan of Menes. Menes is not in an act of killing him as he does not have any weapon of killing, The followers of the opposing leader run away. The birth