376 



PHYSICAL HISTORY OF MAN. 



The terms in which the Exodus is narrated, convey a date by the 

 Egyptian Cycle. But the time of the completion of the cycle then 

 pending, is an undetermined point in Chronology. Some remarks on 

 the subject, may therefore be deemed not out of place. 



Syncellus, makes the following statement; the substance of which, is 

 supposed to have been derived from Manetho : Tovtu tw e stei tou xe (3aai- 



XsutfavTos Koj/p^apEw; t^^s AI^vhtov hVi Trjs ig"' SwaariMi tou KuvixoC Xej-ofJLs'vou xuxXou irapa tw 

 MaveSJ), ot'Trci toC ■Trpdirou fdadiXsuS xa< oixitfTou MstfTpa'/fx Tr,s AlyiivToxi, 'TrXiipcC/vTai sttj 



^atfiXEwvxs: "In the fifth year of Concharis, the twenty-fifth king of 

 Egypt during the sixteenth dynasty, of the cycle called cynic by 

 Manetho, from the first king and colonist of Egypt, Mestraim, were 

 completed seven hundred years, twenty-five reigns." Turning now 

 to the fragments of Manetho preserved by Josephus; and adding to 

 the "five hundred and eleven years of Shepherd rule" the succeed- 

 ing reigns; seven hundred and eleven years, will bring us to the fifth 

 year of the first Acencheres. Again, a seeming record of the com- 

 pletion of the cycle, occurs (at Thebes) on the vi^alls of the Rames- 

 seum ; and is repeated in the tomb of the builder's father, Menepthah ; 

 a king, who holds the same relative position on the monuments, as the 

 three Acencheres do, in Manetho's list. 



The length of the Egyptian Cycle, is the time in which a measure 

 of three hundred and sixty-five days, will traverse all the Seasons. 

 And on this point, Pliny quotes a statement of Manilius: "That the 

 phoenix, lives six hundred and sixty years, and that the revolutions 

 of the Great Year correspond." — Now, various reasons lead us to 

 suppose, that the Egyptian Cycle is a multiple of seven; and it will 

 be observed, that two phoenixes and a third, make fifteen hundred 

 and forty years; and that these divided by seven, give one-third of a 

 phoenix. The quoted statement, will then, I think, be found to agree 

 with modern estimates of the length of the year; after making allow- 

 ance in these estimates, for the velocity of light. — In Egypt, however, 

 the years of the cycle, had been actually counted ; and, as pointed 

 out to me by Mr. Gliddon, the Egyptians have a palpable mark of the 

 true length of the year, in the singular constancy of the initial day 

 of the inundation of the Nile: coincident, moreover, now as in the 

 time of Herodotus,* with the Summer Solstice. 



Most of the animals and plants above enumerated as figured on the 

 Egyptian monuments, are mentioned in the earlier portions of the 

 Scriptures ; together with the following in addition : 



* See Herodotus, Euterpe, 19. 



