170 THEORY OF THE EARTH. 



quered Asia and Thrace *. Marsham also asserts, 

 that this twelfth dynasty and the eighteenth make 

 but one f . Manetho could not himself, therefore, 

 have understood the lists which he copied. Lastly, 

 if we admit in their full degree, both the histo- 

 rical truth of this bas-relief of Abydos, and its 

 accordance, whether with the part of M anetho's 

 lists that seems to correspond to it, or with the 

 other hieroglyphic inscriptions, this consequence 

 would result, that the pretended eighteenth dy- 

 nasty, the first regarding which the ancient chro- 

 nologists begin to manifest some agreement, is 

 also the first which has left traces of its existence 

 upon monuments. Manetho may have consulted 

 this document and others of a like nature ; but it 

 is not the less obvious, that a mere list, a series of 

 names or of portraits, as he has throughout, is far 

 from being a history. 



Ought not this, then, which is proved and de- 

 monstrated with respect to the Indians, and 

 which I have rendered so probable with respect 

 to the inhabitants of the valley of the Nile, be 

 presumed also to be the case with those of the 

 valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris ? Establish- 

 ed, like the Indians j and Egyptians, upon a much 



* Syncell, p- 59. t Canon, p, 355. 



J The whole ancient mythology of the Brahmins has 



