O EDOUAED NAVILLE. 



also over the Delta, certainly over the eastern part. Before 

 our excavations their names had never been found north of 

 Memphis; it appears now that at this remote epoch their 

 kingdom had already reached what I should call the natural 

 limits of Egypt. 



The Fourth dynasty, the dynasty of Cheops and Chefreu, 

 was one of the most powerful of the Old Empire, and it 

 seems that under the succeeding one the kingdom was rather 

 weakened; but there is a marked revival under one of the 

 first kings of the Sixth dynasty, Pepi Merira. As I said 

 before, his cartouche has been found twice at Bubastis, in 

 a different form from what it is at Tanis. There he gives 

 himself only as the son of Hathor, the goddess of Ant 

 (Denderah). At Bubastis, on the contrary, he is anxious to 

 affirm that he is son of Turn, the god of On (Heliopolis), and 

 of Hathor, the goddess of Ant. The geographical names must 

 not be taken in a literal sense, as meaning only two cities ; 

 they must be interpreted in their mythological sense, as 

 meaning the two parts of Egypt. Pepi indicates in this way 

 that he is lord of the whole country. 



Under the Old Empire there was a temple at Bubastis, but 

 although we found traces of it in the two first halls, it is not 

 possible even to conjecture what were its forms and dimen- 

 sions. It lasted very late down to the Twelfth dynasty ; ono 

 of its kings, Usertesen I., wrote on one of the stones a 

 small inscription, not very deeply cut, such as the kings often 

 did to record that they had gone through a city and presented 

 offerings to the gods, but not that they had made any great 

 building. The venerable sanctuary of Cheops and Pepi was 

 still standing at his time. 



Here arises a question which I am obliged to answer in a 

 different way from what I have recently seen printed in several 

 papers. Among the numerous statues discovered at Bubastis 

 Is there one which may be considered as a work of the Old 

 Empire ? The opinion that this is the case has been expressed 

 at a meeting of the Egypt Exploration Fund. It has been said 

 that we have a portrait of Cheops in one of the statues 

 now in the British Museum. Among the monuments brought 

 from Bubastis you will notice the colossal torso, in red 

 granite, of a standing king who holds in his left hand a 

 standard. The statue has no head-dress; it has very thick 

 and crisp hair, not unlike what we see on sculptures or 

 statues of the Old Empire. The figure was destined to 

 support something, for the top of the head is quite flat, 

 showing that some piece of architecture rested upon it. It is 

 not the only one of its kind. We found four absolutely 



