compiled out of his writings, sanctioned by Rosellini, Champollion Figeac, and revised by Gliddon: The long and fabulous period of the reign of God and demi-gods Egyptian must be first of all discarded, as an idle and vain-glorious legend. Mythology. According to the "old Chronicle," Phtah reigned for a period to which no limit can be assigned; Helios his son occupied the throne for three myriads of years; Kronos, and other twelve divinities, for about four thousand years; while demi-gods and heroes succeeded for many centuries. There may have been some important truths conveyed in such symbols, but their epoch belongs not to history. At best they are the dream of an artificial and secular theology, for even the forms of the Egyptian divinities were moulded and adorned with hieroglyphic symbols, which may have been intended to embody some truths the wreck and remnant of an earlier and purer faith. [Egyptian Gods.] Sources of Lepsius is now labouring on the intricate theme of Egyptian information. chronology, and has already indicated the leaning of his thoughts,' Papyrus of Tablet of which in many points are directly opposed to Bunsen. Our sources of information are, however, numerous, and deeper investigation may lead, in course of time, to securer and more definite results. The royal papyrus of Turin, with its copious catalogues, from Menes down to the nineteenth dynasty, B.C. 1400, when itself was inscribed; the Tablet of Abydos, containing the ancestry of Ramses the Great, and now deposited in the British Museum; that of Karnak, taken from its temple-palace, with its long list of kings of the eighteenth dynasty and backwards; with the "Book of the Dead," and other scrolls of minor importance, will, when thoroughly collated and correctly interpreted, lead to larger and more accurate views of Egypt's olden time, and its royal lords. The papyrus in the royal museum at Turin, consisting of twenty-two fragments, was first examined by Champollion in 1824, and discovered to contain a list of Egyptian dynasties, with the names of more than two hundred kings. Lepsius has lately gone over it anew, and with peculiar care and success, having availed himself of the results of previous examinators, such as Salvolini and Seyffarth. The kings are divided into dynasties, and the reign of the gods and heroes is first described and calculated. The rings in which are found the names of the human sovereigns represent, according to Lepsius, fifty-four kings for the old empire, reaching to the thirteenth dynasty, and sixty-five kings for the middle empire, or down to the eighteenth dynasty. The Tablet of Abydos was found by Mr. Bankes in 1818, and though it is now greatly disfigured, yet we have correct drawings of 1 Die Chronologie der Ægypter. Einleitung. Kritik der Quellen. Berlin, 1849. it by Burton and Wilkinson, with a fac-simile by Lepsius. The tablet is a sculpture in fine limestone, and the royal rings are fiftytwo in number, comprising many sovereigns of a period as remote as the twelfth dynasty. Karnak. The Tablet of Karnák, now in one of the halls of the royal library Tablet of at Paris, was discovered by Burton, in a chamber situated in the south-east angle of the temple-palace of Thebes, and was published by its discoverer in his "Excerpta Hieroglyphica." 99 1 The chamber itself was fully described by Rosellini, in his "Monumenti Storici." The kings are in two rows, overlooked each of them by a large figure of Tuthmosis or Thothmes III., the fifth king of the eighteenth dynasty. In the row to the left of the entrance are thirty-one names, and in that to the right are thirty, all of them predecessors of Tuthmosis. The Theban kings who ruled in Upper Egypt during the usurpation of the Hyksos invaders are also exhibited among the lists. Over the head of each king is his ring, containing his royal titles. Such are some of the monumental auxiliaries we have, in our endeavours to unfold the mysteries of Egyptian chronology. By the investigations already made, we are led to adopt the division of Egyptian history which divides Egyptian history into the old, middle, and new empires; the last, according to some, embracing a period of 1300 years, and the two former, according to Bunsen, after Manetho, comprising a series of 2250 years. Lepsius, too, has discovered an interesting fact, that the length of Discoveries a king's reign may be measured by the height of his pyramid, the of Lepsius. structure having been usually commenced in the first year of his reign. Nor are these monuments few or far between, for on a range of fifty-six miles sixty-nine pyramids have been discovered; the remains or substructures of thirty-nine of which have been brought to light by Lepsius and the recent Prussian expedition. The great pyramid, according to this theory, must represent a king of extraordinary longevity-a fact fully attested by the Turin papyrus, which records his age as ninety-five years, and vouched for by Manetho, who states that his reign lasted through an unwonted period of sixty-three years. Even a minute and discriminating analysis of the progress of mummification may be a help in the settlement of the early chronology. The form of the coffin and shape of its symbolic drawings, the bandages employed, and the materials used for embalming, present different stages in the social progress and refinement of the people. Woollen envelopes are found to have preceded those of flax; and the employment of funereal spices and perfumes marks a period of commercial intercourse with foreign nations. Nay more, the names of reigning sovereigns are borne by vast hosts of their subjects, and we never, says Mr. Birch, find " an Apries in the epoch of the twelfth, or an Osortesen in the twenty 1 It may be seen also in Wilkinson's "Materia Hieroglyphica." Uncertainty of early dates. Dynasties not all consecutive. Epoch of 99 1 sixth dynasty." The Egyptian whose coffin bears a royal name, must have been born in the time of the king whose cognomen he had adopted. We feel, then, that we are not warranted in pronouncing a decided opinion on many of those difficult points in ancient Egyptian chronology. The process of discovery is so rapid, however, that many years cannot elapse without bringing us the materials of a full and determinate judgment. Our safest path lies, in the mean time, between extravagance on the one hand, and bigoted adherence to Usher's calculations on the other. The restricted period contended for by such as Nolan2 cannot, we think, be justified by the facts of the case, for we must allow time for the Mizraimites to grow and gather in strength before the Jewish patriarch visited a country which seems never to have had an infancy. Yet we are not obliged to adopt the notion, that all the dynasties of Manetho were consecutive. There are no grounds for maintaining such a view. Indeed, from the twelfth dynasty downward, there may have been regular succession; but in the old empire, analogy might lead us to believe that some of the dynasties were contemporary. Large empires often appear in their commencement under the form of several small and divided monarchies, which are gradually absorbed into one general government. England had its Heptarchy for many years before one throne governed it; and both Scotland and Ireland were long independent kingdoms, ere they owned the dominion of sovereigns crowned in Westminster. In like manner, the dynasty of Elephantiné probably ruled in Upper Egypt at the same time with that of Memphis in the lower provinces. May not the common title, "lord of Upper and Lower Egypt," imply that all the previous sovereigns did not possess united sway over both portions of the kingdom.3 Dates which do appear extraordinary may be, and in all likelihood must be, on this principle, considerably shortened. One main difficulty is to settle upon a starting point for the commencement of our calculations, as the real epoch of Menes, the first king, is a matter of no little uncertainty. Various points in past time have been fixed on. If the numbers of Manetho, some of which are doubtful, be corrected by Syncellus, Menes, the first sovereign, might be placed 439 from the deluge, supposing the deluge had happened, according to the Septuagint, 3154 B.C. Bunsen places him B.C. 3643; Prichard, B.C. 2214; and Wilkinson, B.C. 2320. With such conflicting views, his epoch is yet enveloped in comparative darkness. 1 Birch in Gliddon's Otia Egyptiaca, p. 78. 2 The Egyptian Chronology Analysed, &c. London, 1848. 3 Some good papers on this and kindred Egyptian topics, written by R. S. Poole, nephew of Mr. Lane, and printed in various numbers of the "Literary Gazette" in 1849. The reader may be pleased to see the results which Gliddon gives Various in the following table: "1st, By the astronomical reduction of Herodotus, according to Professor Renwick, we obtain the accession of Menes, about..... 2d, By Syncellus-Manetho agrees with general (or Septuagint) chronology, if we cut off 656 years before the flood, and 534 afterwards-the true period of Egyptian history, according to him, would place the accession of Menes-Renwick's calculation,.... 3d, By Rosellini's reduction of Syncellus, page 15, vol. 1, Menes would fall about..... .B.C. 2890 2712 2776 4th, By Champollion Figeac, page 267, the epoch of Menes 2782 2412 2683 2715 would be-Freret's calculation,. 5th, By Dr. Hales' calculation, 6th, By my reduction of the Old Chronicle,' 7th, By my reduction of 'Manetho,' I have before stated, that we could not define with precision the epoch of Menes within 500 years—but all differences considered, between the extreme of 2890 B.C. for remoteness, and 2412 B.C. for proximity, which added to Rosellini's and Champollion's estimates of the accession of the sixteenth dynasty,............B.C. 2272 Addition,. 478 2750 B.C. Which I am inclined to adopt, as within a hundred years' approximation of the truth: thus affording abundance of interval, between the flood and Menes on the one hand; and possibly sufficient for the erection of the works now existing at Memphis-the pyramids -between Menes and the accession of the sixteenth dynasty, on the other."1 On all such abstruse points, approximation to the truth is all that can be obtained. We shall now recount in rapid and succinct narrative the various dynasties of ancient Egypt, contenting ourselves with a brief sketch of the more illustrious of its Pharaohs. Dates. Menes. Of the FIRST or THINITE DYNASTY of eight kings, Menes was the First great representative. Menes, a name signifying one who "walks with Dynasty. Amon," and therefore an appellation symbolic of piety, was the first king of Egypt. He belonged to the city of This near Abydos. His name stands sculptured on the walls of the Theban palace, and the same priority is assigned him by all the early annalists, and by the 1 Ancient Egypt, p. 51. |