20 
whicli was uncertain, was found within the coffin, but close to the 
head on the outside was a vase of elegant form, and Eomano- 
British manufacture. The coffin had been placed at the disposal of 
the Society by the Directors of the Eailway. 
Mr. Kenrick also exhibited a facsimile of the bilingual inscrip¬ 
tion, in Grreek and hieroglyphic characters, discovered by Lepsius 
at Tanis in Lower Egjrpt, the Zoan of Scripture. It is a copy of a 
decree of honours to Ptolemy Eiiergetes, by the priests ' assembled 
at Canopus, in the ninth year of his reign (b, c. 238— 7). The 
occasion of its being passed was that Ptolemy, in an expedition 
against Seleucus Callinicus, had recovered and restored to the 
Eg}"ptian temples the images and sacred objects which Cambyses 
had carried offi It is this expedition which is referred to in the 
book of Daniel (v. 6. 9.) In consideration of this and other ser¬ 
vices rendered to the people of Egypt, various honoius are decreed 
to Ptolemy and his Queen Berenice. The most remarkable is the 
appointment of a Fanegyry, or general religious festival in their 
honour, which deserves more particidar notice from its connection 
with Egyptian astronomy and chronology. Herodotus tells us that 
the Egj^^tians made their months consist of 30 days each, adding 
five over and above at the end of the year; and ‘‘so,” he adds, 
“the circle of the seasons comes round to the same point.” He 
had little tincture of science, and did not know that so far from 
this being the case, the year being nearly six horns more than 365 
days, instead of the circle coming round to the same point, a day 
would be lost in four years, a month in 120 years, a whole j^ear in 
1460 years. His statement is a proof that in his time the civil year 
was only 365 days; and other authorities tell us that the priests 
made the king swear at his inauguration that he would keep up the 
old reckoning of 365 days, and not allow the intercalation of the 
quarter day. The consequence of this was that the festivals, many 
of which had special reference to the seasons, trlivelled in course of 
time round the year, and in the words of Geminus, “the summer 
feast fell in autumn, and in winter, and in spring.” It is not 
unreasonable to conjectiue that the Greek conquest of Egj'pt, and 
the introduction of Greek science, may have induced the priesthood 
to relax their ancient policy of keeping up a faidty reckoning. The 
decree enacts that “inasmuch as the star” [Shins, whose heliacal 
rising marked the beginning of the Egyptian year] “travels for¬ 
ward a day every four years, a festival to the gods Euergetse shoidd 
