Rev. Epwarp Hincxs on the Age of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Manetho. 9 
these cartouches were intended to mark the place of any other phenomenon, 
suppose the winter solstice; and that I might thus bring down the date about 
365 years from that fixed by M. Biot, so as to agree with the other evidence. 
Arguments of this kind are, however, of no value; and I should have considered 
this as unworthy of any attention, if it were not for the great name of M. Biot, 
and the weight which his opinion on any subject of a strictly astronomical cha- 
racter must necessarily have. This makes it important that I should point out 
the nature of the arguments which he uses, shewing that they are not founded on 
astronomical data. 
The theories of M. Biot and Mr. Cullimore are, however, not the only ones 
respecting the date of these sculptures. The Bishop of Gibraltar has argued, in 
a very plausible manner, for the intermediate date of 1323 B.C. His lordship 
quotes a passage in one of the columns of hieroglyphics at the side of the ceiling, 
in which mention is made of “the manifestation of Sothis on the third of the 
celestial days.” From this he infers, that at the time when the sculptures were 
executed, the heliacal rising of Sirius, or Sothis, was on the third of the Epa- 
gomene ; and, as it took place on the Ist of Thoth, at the epoch of the canicular 
cycle in 1323 B.C., the date of the ceiling could not have much differed from 
that. To this, however, it was replied by Mr. Cullimore (to whom, by the way, 
I am also indebted for the observation respecting the scarabei of Thothmos IIL, 
alluding to the canicular cycle), that this passage did not refer to the rising of 
Sirius, but to the birth of the goddess Isis, or Sothis; which took place on the 
third of the Epagomena, according to a legend recorded by Plutarch, and to 
which allusion is made in at least one other existing hieroglyphical monument. 
This is certainly a possible way of explaining the passage referred to by the 
Bishop ; and consequently that passage cannot be relied on, in opposition to such 
plain indications of a more recent date, for the reign of Rameses the Great, as I 
have adduced in this paper. 
I will only add, that from a comparison of various passages on obelisks, and 
in particular on the great obelisks at Karnac, combined with the statements of 
Manetho, I have been led to fix the death of Thothmos II. in 1355 B.C., or 
within a year or so of it. From this epoch the years of the joint sovereigns, 
queen Amuneth and king Thothmos IIL. are reckoned. The former died about 
the middle of their twenty-ninth year ; and from her death, the twelve years and 
VOL. XXI. B 
