224 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[December 1, 1893. 



of the monarchs with the pyramids is not very fully 

 evidenced, as the walls of the chambers were left 

 absolutely bare of inscriptions. But though there are no 

 inscriptions, as ordinarily understood, the name of Khufu 

 is found roughly scrawled on the walls of the so-called 

 King's Chamber in the first pyramid. These, with various 

 other scrawls, are supposed to be masons' marks, and may 

 be accepted as sufficient evidence that the stones were hewn 

 for the king whose name they bear. The third pyramid 

 is connected with Menkaura by the coffin to be more 

 particularly described later. It must also be remembered 

 that the period during which the fourth, fifth, and sixth 

 dynasties ruled was an age of pyramid building. This is 

 amply evidenced by the fact that it was customary to 

 write after the king's name that of his pyramid ; and in 

 this way it is established that Khufu, Khafra, and 

 Menkaura did at least each build a pyramid, whether those 

 ascribed to them by Herodotus or some others. Taking, 

 then, all these facts together, each slight in itself, but the 

 whole pointing to the same conclusion, we can hardly 

 resist the inference that the story of Herodotus is a 

 genuine Egyptian tradition. 



But if we ask the date of the "Pyramid Kings," 

 Herodotus is no longer a safe guide. He places the reigns 

 of these monarchs almost immediately before that of 

 Sabakos. This king, known to the monuments as 

 Shabaka, was the founder of the twenty-fifth or Ethiopian 

 dynasty, and the commencement of his reign may be fixed 

 with a close approximation to the truth at b.c. 700. The 

 whole of the available evidence, however, goes to show 

 that the three chief pyramids were built during the fourth 

 dynasty, the first of which any contemporary monuments 

 exist. The date to be assigned to it has long been a 

 matter of dispute. The chronology of Brugsch, which is 

 accepted among Egyptologists generally as a convenient 

 provisional scheme, fixes the reign of Khufu at b.c. 3733- 

 3700. But there are many circumstances which render it 

 excessively difficult to construct any satisfactory Egyptian 

 chronology for the period prior to the expulsion of the 

 Hyksos. The materials available are of three kinds : 



(1) the fi'agments of the historical work of Manetho ; 



(2) certain lists of the old kings set up under the new 

 empire ; (3) contemporary monuments. A few words 

 under each of these heads will enable the reader to under- 

 stand generally the position of the question. 



1. Manetho, who was a priest of Sebennytus in the 

 Delta, wrote his history under the Ptolemies. It was 

 written in Greek, and presumably for the information of 

 the conquerors. This work, having been written while 

 the hieroglyphics were still mtelligible to educated Egyp- 

 tians, and being doubtless based chiefly on authentic 

 temple records, must have been a most valuable guide to 

 the main current of Egyptian history. Unfortunately for 

 us, the original work has perished ; there remain only 

 distorted and mutilated fragments, a mere skeleton of 

 names and figures from which the flesh has been ruthlessly 

 torn. These bare catalogues of kings were drawn up by 

 Africanus in the second, and by Eusebius in the fourth, 

 century of our era. They also were destined to disappear, 

 their only representatives at the present time being an 

 Armenian version of Eusebius and the " C^hronography " 

 of George the Syncellus (about a.d. 800), which embodies 

 the lists of both Africanus and Eusebius. A solitary 

 quotation in .Josephus, describing the Hyksos invasion, 

 alone survives to tell us that the original Manetho was 

 very dift'erent from that handed down by the epitomists. 

 The lists, moreover, are hopelessly at variance in the 

 lengths of the reigns assigned to the kings, and in several 

 cases the evidence of the monuments shows them to be 



false. To a very large extent, however, Manetho has been 

 vindicated. In particular, the rule of the Hyksos conquerors, 

 once doubted by Egyptologists, has been established by the 

 gradual accumulation of a number of small fragments of 

 evidence, the combined force of which is too great to be 

 resisted. Still, the correctness of the lists is so far doubtful 

 that no satisfactory chronology can be founded upon them. 



2. Under the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties 

 (about B.C. 1700-1200) various lists of kings were set up in 

 the temples and elsewhere. Their object was not historical 

 but devotional ; they belonged to that ancestor worship 

 which was so important a part of the Egyptian religion. 

 Hence it was not considered necessary to mention every 

 king who had reigned, and no dates or lengths of reigns 

 were inserted. The result is that the various lists dift'er 

 greatly among themselves. The longest one, that of Seti 

 I., at Abydos, shows seventy-five kings as having preceded 

 him on the throne of Egypt. Yet even this list omits 

 many whose reigns have been fully established by the 

 monuments. Besides a number of others, it passes over 

 all the kings between the twelfth and eighteenth dynasties, 

 i.e., not only the whole of the Hyksos rulers, who would 

 certainly not be reckoned as ancestors by the race that had 

 driven them from the throne, but at least one dynasty of 

 native kings. So that these lists, useful as they are, can 

 no more than Manetho give us an exact chronology. 



3. Contemporary records are necessarily our most 

 valuable material, and it is fi-om them that modern 

 Egyptologists have chiefly written the history of Ancient 

 Egypt ; but they are not suSicient for the construction 

 of a chronology. They are mainly of two kinds : inscrip- 

 tions made by order of the kings in commemoration of 

 their exploits (these being chiefly found on the walls of 

 temples), and those inscribed in the tombs of private 

 persons. These latter are of special value in indicating 

 the successive monarchs under whom the deceased and 

 sometimes his ancestors served. They also frequently 

 tell us of the great works, whether of peace or of war, in 

 which he was engaged. These two classes of monuments 

 taken together would afford a nearly perfect chronological 

 system, had we a complete series of them. But in early 

 Egyptian history there are several " dark periods," for 

 which no contemporary monuments whatever have been 

 found. Such portions of the history we only know from 

 the Mauethonian and monumental lists. But even if we 

 had a series of contemporary monuments embracing every 

 portion of the history, this would not make our chronology 

 exact. If we find the thirtieth year of a king mentioned, 

 we know that he must have reigned at least twenty-nine 

 years, but we have no means of knowing how much longer 

 he may have reigned. It so happens, however, that for 

 the latest period of Egyptian history we have a series of 

 monuments which not only fix the succession of the kings 

 but the exact lengths of their reigns. These are the well- 

 known Apis tablets. The bull Apis or Hapi was worshipped 

 at Memphis from very early times as an incarnation of the 

 god Ptah, the principal deity of the city. When one of 

 the bulls died he was buried in a most magnificent manner 

 in a specially-constructed vault, and tablets were set up to 

 his memory. These tablets stated the date of his birth, 

 of his enthronement at Memphis, and of his death ; and, 

 as all dates in Egypt were expressed in the regnal years 

 of the monarch, it is plain that we have here a means 

 of determining the lengths of the reigns of the kings 

 mentioned. These tablets extend from the reign of 

 Taharka (of the twenty-fifth dynasty) to the time of the 

 Ptolemies, so that from about b.c. 700 we have a 

 chronology which cannot vary more than four or five years 

 from the truth. 



