Rev. Edward Hincks on the Egyptian Stele, or Tablet. 69 



like that of Abydos, was that the names of the three kings in question occurred 

 among the names at Karnac ; and that they might be read with a little manage- 

 ment in the order, in which the Benihassan inscription was supposed to indicate 

 that the kings reigned. It is quite impossible, however, that the names at 

 Karnac can be read with any management in the true order of succession, as indi- 

 cated above ;* and therefore I conclude that the names at Karnac must have been 

 set down without order, the inscription there having never been designed to 

 be historical. Nor do I think that it at all follows, that these were names of 

 Egyptian sovereigns exclusively. If Thothmos reigned over the country about 

 Meroe, as 1 believe he did, his predecessors in that region might very well be 

 represented as receiving homage from him, as well as his predecessors In Egypt. 

 I will now state the grounds on which I pronounce the received order of 

 succession of these three kings to be erroneous. In one of Mr. Harris's ta- 

 blets figured by Mr. Sharpe (Eg. Insc. 73), which Is dated in the third year of 

 Amenerahe II., the deceased person is made to say, that he was born in the reign 

 of Amenemhe I., and was appointed to certain offices by Osortasen I. When 

 first I saw this, I was lost in astonishment, having never doubted, after the con- 

 fident statements of Mr. CuUimore, Sir J. G. Wilkinson, and Rosellini, that 

 there was a clear indication at Benihassan of an order of succession inconsistent 

 with this. To settle the question, however, I referred to the Benihassan inscrip- 

 tion itself, which I found copied by Mr. Burton (Exc. Hier. 33). I certainly 

 found the three royal names occurring there in an order, which might not unnatu- 



• This remark has led to a friendly correspondence with Mr. CuUimore, the result of which I 

 have been requested to communicate in a note. Mr. CuUimore and I are agreed, that there is a way 

 of reconciling the facts above stated, which he does not dispute, with the authority of the Karnac 

 tablet, namely, by supposing that Amenemhe I. usurped the government in the hfe-time of Osor- 

 tasen I., but that he died before him, and the latter then resumed his authority ; so that he was, in 

 fact, the predecessor both of Amenemhe II., as is testified by contemporary monuments, and of 

 Amenemhe I., in accordance with the Karnac tablet. But Mr. CuUimore and I differ as to the 

 claims of this tablet to be received as an historic document. He considers it to carry with it its own 

 evidence that it is such, and to be sufficiently corroborated by other monuments. I, on the contrary, 

 conceive it to be totally destitute of internal claims to be received as an authentic catalogue of 

 kings ; I consider the evidence on which Mr. CuUimore relies, as corroborating it, to be inconclusive ; 

 and I think that other parts of it, as well as the Osortasen succession, are inconsistent with contem- 

 porary monuments. Mr. CuUimore's services to the cause of literature have been great ; and while 

 I am compeUed to differ from him on this point, I readily acknowledge them. 



