carhj Ef/yptian History, 185 



of the Nile between Dongola and Meroe, — were inhabited by a 

 people having language, writing, religion, and arts similar to 

 Egypt ; but, in political dominion, independent of that country, 

 and ruled by kings of whom it does not appear that any his- 

 torical record whatsoever has come down to us. 



The dates of the expulsion of the Phoenican shepherds from 

 Egypt, and of the reign of Sesostris, in years of the aera of 

 our computation, have been favourite subjects of discussion 

 with chronologists : Archbishop Usher fixed the former of 

 these events in the year B. C. 1825 ; which would make the 

 commencement of the reign of Sesostris about B. C. 1483. 

 The reign of Sesostris is connected with the early Grecian 

 chronology by the migration of Danaus, brother of Sesostris, 

 who, according to the Parian marbles, arrived in Greece in 

 1485, which is a very few years earlier than the dates of Usher 

 would assign to that event. M. ChampoUion Figeac, brother 

 of the M. ChampoUion to whom the greater part of the disco- 

 veries made by the interpretation of hieroglyphics are owing, 

 himself a distinguished chronologist, has assigned the year B.C. 

 1822 to the expulsion of the Phoenicians, which Usher had 

 placed in 1825 : the date of M. ChampoUion being derived 

 from Manetho's statement, that the Phoenician invasion took 

 place in the 700th year of the Sothiacal period, viz.^ B.C. 2082, 

 and that their dominion in Egypt continued 260 years. His- 

 torical accuracy may make it desirable, that the exact year of 

 the most ancient as well as of more modern events should 

 be determined, if it be possible : but for purposes of general 

 interest, and especially for comparison with the chronology of 

 cotemporary nations, which at that early period is in every case 

 more unsettled than the Egyptian, the period seems sufficiently 

 determined. The date before Christ 1822^ pursued downwards 

 through the dynasties of Manetho, conducts with very close 

 approximation to the known period B.C. 525 of the conquest 

 of Egypt by the Persians ; and intermediately, accords very 

 satisfactorily with the dates, according to the Bible chronology, 

 of the conquest of Jenisalem in the reign of Jeroboam by 

 Shishak, king of Egypt, and of Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia and 

 Egypt, who made war against Sennacherib ; these are the 

 Sesonchis of Manetho, and Sh.sh.n.k of hieroglyphic inscrip- 

 tions on a temple at Bubaste, ajid on one of the courts of the 



