125 



each of which records the dates of the birth and death of 

 the deceased person, and also the length of his life. A dili- 

 gent search should be made for similar tablets, which would 

 evidently be of the greatest value in setihng the chronology 

 of the Egyptian sovereigns. One of these, which is at Flo- 

 rence, records that a person named Psammetich was born m 

 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. From this it appears, that the inter- 

 val between the first year of Necho and the first of Amasis 

 was forty years ; and it follows that the reigns of these kmgs 

 must have commenced in 611 and 571 before our era. The 

 other tablet, which belongs to Mr. Harris of Alexandria, is 

 that of a priest named Psherinphthah, who died, aged forty- 

 nine years, in the eleventh year of Cleopatra, the eleventh 

 month and twentieth day. The chronology of this period 

 being well known from other sources, the dates of the tablet 

 would be of no value, did not that of the birth contain a royal 

 cartouche, which does not occur elsewhere, and an unknown 

 numeral character. The cartouche is shown to be that of 

 Ptolemy Alexander, though it does not contain his usual sur- 

 name ; and the unknown character, a bird's head, is proved 

 to stand for hventy. The tablet of Te-imothph, the wife of 

 this priest, who was also his half-sister, is in the British 

 Museum ; and several circumstances in their family history, 

 taken from the two tablets, are collected together. The 

 birth of their son Imothph, in the sixth year of Cleopatra, 

 and when the father was turned of forty-three, is recorded 



on both of them. 



The most usual form of the inscription on a stele is tran- 

 lated as follows:-" An act of homage to A ; he has (or as 

 the case may be) given B unto C ; who says D." The blank 

 at A is filled up with the names and titles of deities ; that at 

 B with an enumeration of gifts ; that at C with the name and 

 description of the deceased person ; and at D is the speech 



