486 COSMOS. 



account of the most recent investigations of Lepe.us,* whos 

 expedition has resulted in throwing much important light or 

 the whole of antiquity. " The dynasty of Manetho began more 

 than thirty-four centuries before our Christian era, and twenty- 

 three centuries before the Doric immigration of the Hcraclidaa 

 into the Peloponnesus. f The great stone pyramids of Daschur, 

 somewhat to the south of Giseh and Sakara, are considered by 

 Lepsius to be the work of the third dynasty. Sculptural in- 

 scriptions have been discovered on the blocks of which they 

 are composed, but as yet no names of kings. The last dynasty 

 of the ancient kingdom, which terminated at the invasion of 

 the Hyksos, and probably 1200 years before Homer, was the 

 twelfth of Manetho, and the one to which belonged Ame- 

 nemha III., the prince who caused the original labyrinth 

 to be constructed, and who formed Lake Mreris artificially 

 by means of excavations and large dykes of earth running 

 north and west. After the expulsion of the Hyksos, the 

 new kingdom began under the eighteenth dynasty (1600 

 years B.C.) Ramses Miamoun the Great (Ramses II.), was 

 the second ruler of the nineteenth dynasty. The sculptured 

 delineations which perpetuate his victories were explained 

 to Germanicus by the priests of Thebes. f He is noticed 

 by Herodotus under the name of Sesostris, which is probably 

 owing to a confusion with the almost equally victorious 

 and powerful conqueror Seti (Setos), who was the father of 

 Ramses II." 



I have deemed it necessary to mention these few points of 

 chronology, in order that where we meet with solid historical 

 ground, we may pause to determine the relative ages of great 

 events in Egypt, PhoDnicia, and Greece. As I have already 

 brieflv described the geographical relations of the Mediterra- 



* All that relates to Egyptian chronology and history, and which is dis- 

 tinguished in the text by marks of quotation, is based on manuscript 

 communications which I received from my friend Professor Lepsius, in 

 March, 1846. 



t I place the Doric immigration into the Peloponnesus, 328 years 

 before the first Olympiad, agreeing in this respect with Otfried Muller, 

 (Dorier, abth. ii. s. 436). 



% Tac., AnnaL, ii. 59. In the Papyrus of Sallier (Campapnes de 

 Sesostris), Champollion found the names of the Javani or louni and 

 that of the Luki (lonians and Lycians?). See Buns- n JEgypten, buch. i. 

 8. 60. 



