112 Rey. Epwarp Hincks on the Defacement of Egyptian Monuments. 
to the god Seth, otherwise called Nahas or Noubti, which arose in the minds of 
the Egyptian priests at some time, and from some cause, which are yet unknown. 
This led to the defacement of all those monuments of the kings of the eighteenth 
dynasty, in which he was represented as a beneticent god, and to the defacement 
of his name when an element in that of a king, as it was in the names of Me- 
nephthah I. and Menephthah III., whose true names are Sethei or Nahasei, 
implying devotion to this god. The most remarkable instances of this deface- 
ment are in the statues of Menephthah III. at London and Turin; in the name of 
Menephthah I. on the Flaminian obelisk, where the figure of the god has been 
altered to that of the sun in some places, while in others it has been left un- 
touched ; and in both names at Karnac. 
In the ritual, Seth is always spoken of as the evil principle; and this appears 
to me as one strong argument among many for assigning the composition of this 
work to a later age than the eighteenth dynasty. Detached chapters may, no 
doubt, be traced to the early part of that dynasty; but I am not aware that any 
manuscript exists, to which so great an antiquity can be assigned with any plau- 
sibility. 
It remains to point out the dates of the three first of these defacements. The 
first is about 1325 B.C., according to the depressed chronology which I have 
advocated in my last paper. It would be 1740 B. C., according to Rossellini. 
The second defacement was about eighty years later than this, and the third not 
many years subsequent to the second. ‘The earliest limit of the last of the four 
defacements is 1100 B. C., according to the depressed chronology, or about 1500, 
B.C., according to Rossellini. 
I cannot conclude without requesting that those who have an opportunity of 
examining Egyptian monuments will pay particular attention to the traces of 
defacement which they may exhibit. The subject is far from being exhausted. 
I have mentioned, I believe, the only four instances of any importance which 
occur in early Egyptian history. Other instances, however, occur at a later 
date; after the Ethiopian usurpation, under the Ptolemies, and under the 
Cesars. One of the latest names sculptured on the monuments, that of Geta, 
has suffered defacement. But even if all the occasions of defacement were known, 
it would be interesting to collect fresh instances of each; and, not to speak of 
travelling in Egypt, a person can scarcely enter a large Egyptian museum in 
a Coa 
