Rev. Edward Hincks on the Egyptian Stele, or Tablet. 53 



son, who was named Imotlipli. He died, aged forty-nine years, in the eleventh 

 year of Cleopatra and her son Caesar, the eleventh month and twentieth day ; 

 and he was buried in the twelfth year on the thirtieth day of the first month. 

 The usual interval between the death and burial was seventy days, and we see 

 here that the Epagomena3 were not counted, being strictly dies non. His death 

 took place, as appears from Ptolemy's canon, at the close of the 707th year of 

 Nabonassar ; and as he lived about forty-nine years, and was born at the beginning 

 of a year, the year of his birth must have been the 659th of Nabonassar. This 

 was the 25th year of Alexander, and certainly before the restoration of Lathyrus ; 

 as there is a papyrus at Berlin (Kosegarten, Plate XH.) dated in the twenty-sixth 

 year of Alexander, the fourth month and nineteenth day ; it is therefore certain 

 that the cartouche above given, belongs to Ptolemy Alexander, though it does 

 not contain his surname ;* and that the bird's head, when used as a numeral, sig- 

 nified twenty. 



It is a curious circumstance, that the tablet of the wife of this person, who 

 was also his half-sister, is in the British Museum. It has been published by Mr. 

 Sharpe in his 4th Plate ; and by combining the information which the two 

 tablets afford, we obtain much insight into the history of this family, which is 

 perhaps not a bad illustration of Egyptian family history in general. It appears, 

 that, after the death of the father of Psherin-phthah, his mother, Ho-onkh, 

 married another priest named Hapi, by whom she had a daughter, Te-imothph, 

 and a son, Imothph, who survived his half-brother and sister, and erected both 

 their tablets. The first husband died when his son was thirteen years old, and 

 therefore in the fifth year of Neo-Dionysus. Five years after, in his tenth year, 

 and in the fourth month, Te-imothph was born ; and in his twenty-third year, 

 and in the eleventh month, she married her half-brother. The birth of their 

 son, Imothph, is recorded as having taken place in the sixth year of Cleopatra, 

 and in the eleventh month, just twelve years after her marriage ; and she died 

 in the tenth year of Cleopatra, the eighteenth day of the fifth month. Her age 

 at her death is not stated on the tablet ; but it must have been twenty-nine 



* Unless indeed the sculptor committed the mistake of using the cartouche of the exiled, but 

 afterwards restored king, de jure, instead of that of the intrusive king de facto. He might easily 

 have done this after an interval of about fifty years. 



