126 



attributed to him, in wliich he sometimes records the leading 

 events of his Hfe. Sometimes the tablet is without a speech, 

 the inscription closing at the end of C ; and sometimes it 

 begins with C, containing only the name and description of 

 the deceased person and his speech. In a few tablets the 

 prefatory matter is somewhat diflferent from the above ; but 

 the form given above is much the most usual. 



No record of facts is to be expected in a tablet till we 

 come to C ; the preceding part of the inscription is only va- 

 luable, as it may aid us in the study of the language, and as 

 it may lead us to know the age of the tablet, supposing it to 

 be without a regular date. For this last purpose, a number 

 of criteria of antiquity are proposed, the result of a careful 

 examination of a great many tablets of known ages. The 

 most remarkable of these is, that in the most ancient tablets 

 the sculptured figures are exclusively those of the deceased 

 person and his relatives ; never these of deities, as in the ta- 

 blets of the eighteenth dynasty and subsequent ages. 



At the close of the paper some remarks are made on the 

 chronology of the early Egyptian kings, who are mentioned 

 in the course of it. It is demonstrated that the predecessor 

 of Amenemhe II., the first king in the series of Abydos, was 

 Osortasen I. ; the latter being the successor of Amenemhe I., 

 and not his predecessor, as he has been stated to be by Major 

 Felix and others, on the supposed authority of an inscription 

 at Beni-Hassan. This completely overturns the hypothesis 

 of Mr. CuUimore, respecting the connexion of a pretended 

 royal series at Karnac with the series of Abydos. 



The phonetic hieroglyphics are represented in this paper 

 hy Hebrew characters, in preference to Roman. This has 

 been done on account of the author's peculiar views respect- 

 ing the extended arm, the crux ansata, and some other cha- 

 racters, which he considers to be equivalent to the Hebrew 

 Ayin, and by no means " vague vowels," as Champollion 

 supposed. He regards these characters as essentially dis- 



