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



Before the commencement of the eighteenth dynasty, the tablet of Abydos 

 furnishes us with five royal names, to which we may add a sixth, ascertained from 

 other monuments, who appear to have constituted the twelfth dynasty of Manetho, 

 and to have reigned for about 1 60 years. These sovereigns have been commonly 

 classed under the sixteenth and seventeenth dynasties of Manetho ; but that 

 writer's catalogue of the twelfth appears to me to be intended for them, though 

 we must suppose it to be grossly corrupted. The five dynasties intervening be- 

 tween the twelfth and eighteenth, I conceive to have been either contemporaneous 

 with the twelfth, or altogether imaginary. 



The first two monarchs of this twelfth dynasty were Osortasen I.* and 

 Amenemhe II. ; the former of whom appears to have reigned forty-two years, 

 and the latter thirty-two, before they took their respective successors into part- 

 nership with them. A great number of dated tablets are in existence, belonging 

 to these two reigns. The first year of Amenemhe II. corresponded with the 

 forty-third year of Osortasen I. ; and the first of Osortasen II. with the thirty- 

 third of Amenemhe II. ; after whose death he appears to have reigned a very 

 short time. We cannot, then, expect to have many monuments of his. After 

 him comes Osortasen III., and then Amenemhe III. The first Amenemhe 

 preceded Osortasen I., and belonged, according to Manetho, to the eleventh 

 dynasty. 



I have made the preceding statements advisedly, and on what I consider 

 perfectly sure grounds, though they are at variance with the received opinions. 

 Major Felix produced a supposed succession from Benihassan, from which 

 he inferred that Amenemhe the First intervened between Osortasen I. and 

 Amenemhe II. This error, for such it demonstrably is, has been adopted 

 by Sir J. G. Wilkinson, and by Rosellini ; and Mr. Cullimore has grounded 

 upon it a restoration of the obliterated portion of the tablet of Abydos, which has 

 been published, under the title of" Chronologia Hieroglyphica," by the Royal 

 Society of Literature. I have the highest respect for the learning and ingenuity 

 of Mr. Cullimore, but truth obliges me to pronounce this restoration to have 

 been made on erroneous grounds, and to be of no authority whatever. The sole 

 ground for supposing that the royal names at Karnae formed a connected series, 



* Or Gesortasen, if the initial letter corresponding to V be sounded in Greek as a G, as it is in 

 Gaza, Gomorrah, &c. Hence, probably, the grossly corrupted reading of Manetho, Gesongosis. 



