Rev. Edward Hincks on the Egyptian Stele, or Tablet. 51 



by which the chronology of the Egyptian kings can be settled with accuracy, 

 renders it highly desirable that they should be sought after. 



In order to show the utility of tablets of this description, I will enter into 

 some details respecting the two that are known ; and I am the more disposed to 

 do this, because a false inference has been drawn from one of them, and 1 believe 

 the other has not been noticed by any one conversant with hieroglyphics. 



One of these tablets, which is in the museum at Florence, records, that a per- 

 son named Psammitich, was born in the third year of Necho, the tenth month, 

 and first day ; that he died in the thirty-fifth year of Amasis, the second month and 

 sixth day ; and that he lived seventy-one years four months and six days. When 

 this tjiblet was first noticed, it was carelessly stated, that it counted seventy-one 

 years from the third of Necho, to the thirty-fifth of Amasis ; and from this it 

 was inferred that there were thirty-nine years between the first of Necho and 

 the first of Amasis. If, however, we take into account the months and days, we 

 shall see that the true interval was forty years. This interval comprehends the 

 reigns of three kings, the joint length of whose reigns is stated by Herodotus to 

 be forty-seven years ; by Africanus, from Manetho, to be thirty-one ; and by 

 Eusebius, who professes also to follow Manetho, to be forty-eight. We may 

 judge of the degree of credit due to the Greek authorities by the gross blunders 

 which they have, all of them, been detected in making, in this instance, where 

 the truth is known from a cotemporary monument. We may likewise test their 

 accuracy by the length of reign which they assign to Cambyses in Egypt. 

 Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, and Eusebius, are all agreed that he conquered 

 that country in the fifth year of his reign ; and of course that he reigned over it 

 only three or four years. Africanus alone gives him a reign of six years ;* but 

 in this he is corroborated by the express testimony of a cotemporary monument, 



* Ka5ft|Si/cr>){ IT» t T?5 iavTov ^owiXEia; Xlef(ra» iPeu/iKivait, Alyuirvov eri) r'- So the text of Africanus 

 exists in all MSS. and editions ; but for i I would read 9' ; correcting a mistake, into which a trans- 

 criber might easily fall, and rendering the statement perfectlj' consistent with truth. I would also 

 correct the text of Africanus, by substituting ir for j-', as the length of reign of Necho II. This 

 mtdces him agree as to the length of that reign with Herodotus ; and as to the sum of the three 

 reigns with the Florence tablet ; for, where reigns are reckoned by complete years, months 

 and days being neglected, the sum of sixteen, six, and nineteen years may be very well reduced to 

 forty. 



c2 



