160

CHRONOLOGICAL REMARKS.

[Part II. commencement of the Eighteenth Dynasty, separated by a period of four or five hundred years, is very strongly marked. During the Eighteenth Dynasty, as well as the Nineteenth and Twentieth, we can often distinguish the sculptures of the time of one King from those of the time of another a century later, by the style. When the arts in Egypt had attained their highest degree of excellence, their decline commenced, and continued until the time of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, when there was a remarkable revival; but the decline of the arts continued after this uninterruptedly until the time of the latest monuments: and throughout this long period, we can generally distinguish the relative ages of monuments by the style of their sculptures and paintings when separated by an interval equal to that which I find to have divided the Sûphises from the Twelfth Dynasty. Thus the chronology of the Egyptian monuments, confirmed by the style of their sculptures and inscriptions, shows the length of the interval from the Sûphises to Amenemha II.; while Manetho, according to Africanus, properly understood, agrees as to the duration of the period in question. This, it should be remarked, is the most disputed part of Egyptian Chronology; there being but little dispute concerning the interval from Mênês to the Sûphises. I must beg the reader to remember, in this place, the authorities upon which the ascertaining of the length of the interval from the Sûphises to Amenemha II. is based. They are inscriptions on the Egyptian monuments, copied by me, so that I have not to rely upon others, and can myself put them forth with confidence: and the calculations by which these inscriptions have been elucidated, originally made by

me, have been again made at the Royal Observatory, and the calculations there made have been verified by Mr. Airy himself, the Astronomer Royal.

Sesertesen II. became the colleague of Amenemha

II. in the thirty-third year of the reign of the latter King. Sesertesen III., Manetho's Sesôstris, who was

afterwards worshipped, apparently as a great lawgiver, was probably for some time a co-regent of Sesertesen II., succeeding Amenemha II. In the reign of Sesertesen III., occurs that most important date, the commencement of the Third Great Panegyrical Year, and the First Phoenix Cycle, called the appearance of the Phoenix of Sesôstris, in the year B.C. 1986. I have already had occasion, in the first Part of this work, to give my reasons for concluding that Sesertesen III. was Manetho's Sesôstris. In the lists we find a short account of the conquests of Sesôstris, which can scarcely be doubted to be more applicable to Sesertesen I. than to Sesertesen III., and still more so to Rameses II.

The successor of Sesôstris is called, in the lists, "Lacharês," "Lamaris," or "Lampares"; and we are

M

162

CONTEMPORARY KINGS.

[Part II. told that he built the Labyrinth in the Arsinoïte nome, as a tomb for himself. The successor of Manetho's Sesôstris in the Tablet of Abydos is Amenemha III.,

whose prenomen reads "Ma-en-ra." He may be the Moris of the Greeks.

Among the hieroglyphic inscriptions of Wádee Maghárah, we find one (a copy of which was given by Lord Prudhoe, now the Duke of Northumberland, and Colonel Felix, to Mr. Burton, for his "Excerpta Hieroglyphica "), which throws much light upon the history of this period. This tablet * is divided into three compartments. The first of these is dated in the third year of Amenemha III., and does not seem to contain any important information. The second compartment commences with the date of the forty-first year of the same King, and gives the following name (which reads

100

Seser-hotp-ret) and the titles of a King, who is probably of the Ninth Dynasty, but, perhaps, of the Fourteenth. The third compartment contains the name and titles of a foreign King, Snufre, whose name

Excerpta Hieroglyphica, Pl. XII.

is differently written from the synonymous prenomen of Bêôn. This part is dated in the fortysecond year of the reign of Amenemha III., about which time it is probable that the Twelfth Dynasty concluded. Snufre is called the ruler of several foreign lands. I cannot doubt that this Snufre was a King of the Sixteenth Dynasty. This important tablet, therefore, plainly points out the contemporaneousness, in part, of three Dynasties, the Twelfth, the Sixteenth, and another Dynasty, which is either the Ninth or the Fourteenth.

I have already mentioned my opinion that the King whose prenomen reads " Ma-tu-ra"1 and Ra-sebak-nufre

were probably co-regents of Amenemha III. I now return to the consideration of the history of the Shepherds in Egypt.

The whole duration of the Shepherd-Dynasties cannot easily be determined, and the variations between Africanus and Eusebius and Josephus make it impossible to decide what Manetho wrote on this subject. This will appear from the following table, which contains what Africanus and Eusebius and Josephus say respecting the length of the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and

164

CHRONOLOGY OF

[Part II.

Seventeenth Dynasties, and the number of Kings of which they consisted. I have made two transpositions in this table; putting the Seventeenth Dynasty in Eusebius's list opposite the Fifteenth in Africanus's; and the Fifteenth in the former list opposite the

Seventeenth in the latter. This I have done because the Fifteenth Dynasty in Africanus's list evidently corresponds to the Seventeenth in Eusebius's.

Before noticing the difficulties occasioned by the extraordinary disagreements between the copyists, I shall make some remarks on the chronology of the period.

The date of the commencement of the First Tropical Cycle, in the time of Amenemha II., shows that the Twelfth Dynasty commenced in one of the years B.C. 2084 to 2047, inclusive; and the Fifteenth Dynasty must have commenced about the same time. Josephus tells us, from Manetho, that the Shepherds ruled over Egypt for five hundred and eleven years, until the Kings of the Thebaïd and of the rest of