256 



EGYPTOLOGICAL AND ASSYRIOLOGICAL RESEARCH. 



years before the present time, takes us back 

 4,952 years, or about 5,000 years ago. 



The materials for these investigations con- 

 sist of the inscriptions on monuments, in tem- 

 ples and tombs, and the writings on papyrus. 

 The immense collection of these inscriptions or 

 texts which has been made is only a fragment 

 of those which exist. To copy those alone in 

 the temple of Denderah, of which every square 

 foot of the walls is covered with pictures or 

 texts, would be the work of years. The in- 

 scriptions of a single tomb are often as com- 

 paratively abundant as those at Denderah. 

 Nevertheless, the work of destruction has been 

 going on for ages. Abd-el-Latif, a learned Ara- 

 bian writer of the middle ages, tells, in his de- 

 scription of Egypt, that the ruins of Memphis 

 in his time extended half a day's journey in 

 every direction. But of Memphis there is at 

 present hardly a trace left. And other great 

 cities known to ancient travelers have disap- 

 peared with their monuments. Mummy-cases 

 and coffins, with most interesting inscriptions, 

 have for centuries been used for fuel, and in- 

 numerable manuscripts have suffered the same 

 fate. 



NATURE OF THE MATERIALS. Most of the 

 documents, according to the views of M. Re- 

 nouf,* here presented very fully, which have 

 come down to us, are of a religious character. 

 The principal reason of which is, that all the 

 ancient monuments of Egypt have perished 

 except some which were necessarily of a re- 

 ligious nature the temples and the tombs. 

 The palaces of kings and nobles have utterly 

 disappeared. 



It should be stated that the system of reck- 

 oning periods of the Egyptians was not by cen- 

 turies, or eras and dates, but by reigns and dy- 

 nasties ; thus the Exodus described in the Pen- 

 tateuch took place in the fourth reign of the 

 nineteenth dynasty, which was about fifteen 

 hundred years before the Christian era; and 

 in going back from the Roman conquest of 

 Egypt to the first years of the seventh century 

 before the Christian era, which is the advent 

 of the twenty-sixth dynasty, the chronology is 

 exact. But the principal defects in estimating 

 the periods are various. The duration of a 

 reign, or of a dynasty, is sometimes very far 

 from being known ; they may also have been 

 local or simultaneous, and until all these points 

 are cleared up a complete Egyptian chronology 

 is impossible. 



But the nature of the undisputed evidence 

 upon which relative dates are assigned to the 

 various periods of Egyptian civilization, and 

 which imperatively demand that a very early 

 date indeed should be assigned to the origin of 

 that civilization, should be stated. There is not 

 a single monument known which in its bear- 

 ings upon chronology is liable to the charge of 

 numerical exaggeration. They never speak of 



* " The Origin and Growth of Eeligion, as illustrated by 

 the Religion of Ancient Esrypt." By P. Le Page Eenouf. 

 (Hibbert Lectures for 1879.) 



contemporary events. Dates are given by the 

 year of the reigning king. This is never so 

 high as to justify a doubt. The manifest de- 

 fect of such inscriptions for chronological pur- 

 poses is, that the last monumental year, which 

 happens to be preserved to us, of a king, is not 

 necessarily the last of his reign. An error of 

 several years is possible in each reign when 

 there is no direct evidence to the contrary. 

 But the error is not on the side of exagger- 

 ated numbers. Still more important than the 

 monuments which mention the year of a king, 

 are those in which two or more sovereigns of 

 the same period are mentioned, especially if 

 their succession or other precise data are given. 

 Such is the treaty made in the twenty -first 

 year of his reign between Rameses II and the 

 King of the Cheta, wherein Rameses II calls 

 himself the son of Seti I, who in turn is called 

 the son of Rameses I. There is a very large 

 number of inscriptions belonging to personages 

 who have been born in one reign and died in 

 another, or who have served several kings in 

 succession. And the inscriptions of the same 

 period naturally confirm one another, or sup- 

 ply details which are missing. 



SERIES OF INSCRIPTIONS. The most remark- 

 able series of inscriptions which have been 

 utilized for chronological purposes consists of 

 those relating to the Apis bulls, the wonderful 

 tombs of which were discovered by M. Mari- 

 ette. One of these sacred animals was born 

 in the twenty-eighth year of King Sheshonk 

 III, lived twenty years, and died in the second 

 year of Pamai. Another Apis was born in 

 the twenty-sixth year of Taharqa, and died in 

 the twentieth year of Psammitechus I. A hun- 

 dred and sixty-eight tablets in honor of this 

 one Apis have been found, of which fifty-three 

 are dated. Many other like instances could be 

 mentioned. Documents of this kind bring us 

 down past the time of Cambyses, and even 

 into the Ptolemaic period ; that is, into a period 

 of well-ascertained chronology. By means of 

 these inscriptions alone it is possible to go 

 back from Cambyses to the first year of Ta- 

 harqa, about seven hundred years before Christ, 

 the limit of possible error being two or three 

 years at the utmost. With Taharqa the Tir- 

 haka of Scripture, who was the last king of 

 the twenty-fifth dynasty begins the latest 

 period of the history of the Pharaohs. 



The first kind of monuments herein de- 

 scribed is useful, as furnishing the highest at- 

 tainable monumental year of a reign ; the 

 second kind enables us, besides, to determine 

 the order of succession of reigns. Both these 

 kinds of monuments are contemporaneous with 

 the persons and events mentioned upon them. 

 But besides these there are monuments giving 

 long lists of sovereigns, all of whom can not 

 have been contemporaneous. Such are the 

 famous tablets of Abydos, that of Saqara, the 

 chamber of Karnak, and some others. In the 

 chamber of Karnak, Thothmes III is repre- 

 sented as making an offering to sixty-one of 



