then the direct documentary proof fails, but even then we think that indirect proof enough remains to show that Mr. Poole's general system cannot be very far wrong.

The prefixed synopsis will show what Mr. Poole's method of arrangement is. It comprises all those dynasties on which there has been any dispute, namely, the first seventeen. After this, all agree that they proceed consecutively. It is within the limits of these seventeen dynasties that authors have differed hundreds and even thousands of years in their results.

While then we still linger wistfully at the date B.C. 2005, and are waiting for some assistance to keep this system up there to its one support, we are completely brought over by Mr. Poole to the substantial internal accuracy of the system itself.

We now proceed to mention very many distinct proofs of the very important point of its correctness. The arguments divide themselves of course into two divisions, viz., the testimony of authors, and the testimony of irrefragable stone monuments. First then for the authors. It remarkably illustrates the lists of Eratosthenes. The Chevalier Bunsen informs us that Eratosthenes was, next to Aristotle, the most illustrious among Greek men of learning, and far superior to him in the extent of his knowledge. He was for many years director of the Alexandrian Library, and made Egyptian Chronology his particular study. We possess his list of 38'so called Theban Kings,' beginning from Menes, and with the signification of every King's name translated by him into Greek. One great value of this list lies in the fact, that while it is clearly not a copy from Manetho, it is as clearly derived from similar authentic sources with his more full enumeration. Let, then, the reader look at our synopsis, and he will find that while Manetho names all these seventeen dynasties in a way which prevents us knowing whether he considered them contemporaneous or consecutive, Eratosthenes, on the contrary, dismisses two of our columns altogether, in such a way as to show that they must have been contemporary with those he did name. He begins, as all did, with Menes the Thinite, but instead of following down the petty chieftains of a city which afterwards was as nothing in Egypt, he goes straight down our second column, taking the third, fourth, sixth, seventh, and eighth Memphite dynasties in order, and giving the dates of the successive kings therein, as if they closely followed one upon the other. Our argument is that, since he then skips the Elephantinites altogether, as also the ninth and tenth Heracleopolites, to proceed in orderly course down the eleventh and twelfth Theban line: and, since he actually does date the reign of every one of his kings, from Menes downward, as if they followed one after another in chronological succession, it seems to us clear that he must have arranged these omitted

dynasties in some such lateral columns as those by which we have represented them; though, doubtless, he must have considered, contrary to our clearer views, that the eleventh followed chronologically after the eighth.

Secondly, it is a fact, though most likely a mere chance, that from Menes to Suphis he makes exactly one panegyrical year, as Mr. Poole does.

Thirdly, it is a fact that from Menes to somewhere rather early in the thirteenth dynasty, he makes 1076 years, as Mr. Poole does. So much for Eratosthenes. We do not make much of this, and Mr. Poole has not thought it worth while to name either of the above three arguments. From Manetho, however, he has deigned occasionally to draw such sort of support.

Fourthly, then, in Manetho, if we take the fourth dynasty after Suphis, and then follow down the sixth, and the first two kings of the twelfth, to Sesostris, we get also about another panegyrical year, as Mr. Poole does.

Fifthly, Porphyry says that the rising of Sothis was the beginning of the genesis of the world, and Solinus says that the priests indicated that time as the birthday of the world. Now by the genesis of the world, the priests no doubt meant the beginning of Egyptian organised royalty under Menes; and by the epiphany, or rising or manifestation of Sothis, was meant a particular event which happened every year, but which only once in 1460 years happened on the morning of the 1st of Thoth. Now, this event took place on the 1st of Thoth in B.c. 1322, and also in B.C. 2782. At Mr. Poole's date for Menes therefore, B.C. 2717, it happened on the 16th Thoth. This, however, is at the latitude of Memphis, and every degree of southing made a day's difference, and the horde of Menes came with him from far south, and the straits of Babel Mandeb are more than sixteen degrees south of Memphis, not to mention that, according to Mr. Poole, the rising of Sothis was conventionally kept on the first of the month all through the period when it fell anywhere in that month.

Sixthly, a similar reasonable explanation can be given of Herodotus's famous narrative of what the priests told him, viz. that from Menes to Sethos, 'the sun had risen four times out of its usual places: where it now sets it had twice risen; and where it now rises it had twice set.' Until Mr. Bosanquet is methodically answered, we date with him the middle of Sethos' reign at B.C. 690. We have then to ascend the stream of time until the 'solar rising' of some star would twice have been conventionally noted at a date six months distant from its then date, and this would have happened somewhere between B.C. 2770 and B.C. 2630, according to the star we take. This then agrees too with Mr. Poole's era of Menes.

But we hasten to a much more certain sort of testimony than that which can be derived from any manuscript of any author whatever. The stone records themselves may have spoken falsely or not at the time of, their erection, but at any rate, what they spoke then they most undoubtedly speak now, and the large mass of evidence which Mr. Poole's ingenuity has extracted from them appears to us perfectly decisive as to his scheme of the contemporaneousness of the dynasties as shown in our synopsis.

Seventhly, then, the famous tablet of Abydos represents Rameses, a Theban king of the nineteenth dynasty, making offerings to fifty-one of his royal ancestors. It had been recognised that the two in front of him were of his own nineteenth dynasty, and that the ten next were of the preceding Theban eighteenth; also that the Theban thirteenth was then, for reasons best known to himself, omitted, and that the next five were of the twelfth. The two next names are illegible, and may well be supposed to make up the number seventeen, of which the twelfth dynasty, according to Manetho, consisted. Further than this Mr. Poole appears to imply that nothing was known. Thirty-two names then remain, of which only eleven are quite legible, three partially so, and eighteen are totally destroyed. How then, with so few names, can we fill up the whole of eleven dynasties, if, as is natural to suppose, the king would trace his line as far back as possible, namely, to Menes? Now, the tablet, we must remember, was found at Abydos, which is close to the Thinite abode of Menes, and if we cast our eyes upon the synopsis, we may see that the whole of the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh dynasties might be omitted from it, and that the Thinite line might then be carried straight up to Menes, and yet that consecutive chronology would not be interfered with.

With this important clue before him, Mr. Poole of course soon observed that while the sixteenth name here is Nufrekara (not spelt the same as a Nufrarkara of the fifth dynasty), Manetho also gives as his fifteenth Thinite king a Nephercheres; also that, immediately preceding him there is a Men-kara, called Chaires by Manetho. Kaenra is twenty-second on the tablet, while a Cheneres appears next but one to Nephercheres in Manetho. These resemblances are quite as close as is usual between those parts of Manetho and the monuments which are universally allowed to correspond to each other; and, accordingly, these names in the tablet of Abydos, from the sixteenth to the twenty-second, would appear to be some of those which Manetho has described as Thinites. But if so, then the four following also, viz. from the twenty-second to the twentysixth must be, it is highly probable, of the same dynasty, from the great similarity of the names. There remain then only six more

to account for out of the thirty-two, and all of them are illegible; and as there are too few of them for the eleventh Theban, they are probably all of them the remaining kings of the Thinites. It only remains to inquire whether this curious documentary suggestion, that there were truly just thirty-two kings successively, neither more nor less, from Menes to the twelfth dynasty, can be corroborated by giving them average lengths of reigns, and then seeing how far the sum total will bring us to an agreement with other sources of information.

Now, if we take eighteen years as our average, the thirty-two monarchs would have reigned five hundred and seventy-six years among them. Manetho (in Africanus) actually gives them five hundred and sixty-five. He himself, in our present copies, is obliged to give each king the grossly improbable average reign of thirty-three years, which is the average of men's lives, but not of king's reigns. Thus, his own numbers seem to corroborate Poole's view of this tablet, in suggesting thirty-two Thinite kings instead of the seventeen which his copyists have transmitted. If this explanation of the famous tablet of Abydos is admitted, the great importance of the discovery is obvious, for it gives us a very strong corroboration of the fact, that the second dynasty was immediately succeeded by the twelfth. But we hasten to put into the briefest possible form other distinct arguments, all explanatory of the chronological synopsis we have given. Thus

Eighthly, according to Mr. Poole the use of a separate royal prænomen, in a ring by itself, is unknown before the time he has marked as the beginning of the sixth, ninth, and eleventh dynasties; and, accordingly, in the tablet of Abydos which, he says, begins with earlier and ends with later kings, the transition point is marked; for, most of the kings after Nufrekara have a nomen and a prænomen, but both are in the same ring.

Ninthly, in a tomb near the pyramids of El Geezeh was buried a person named Eimai, an officer of Suphis I., an early king of the fourth dynasty. We find in this tomb two lists of kings, in each of which certain kings of the fifth dynasty are named in conjunction with his master Suphis. How could this be, unless they reigned together? For the fourth dynasty lasted either two hundred and eighty-four or four hundred and forty-eight years, according to our different versions of Manetho.

Tenthly, in another tomb near the same pyramid, the same sort of argument appears more convincing still, for five quite early kings of the second, fourth, and fifth dynasties are placed side by side; namely, Shafra or Sephres of the fifth; Menkaura or Mencheres of the fourth; (Telea) Seskef or Tlas of the second; Useserkef or Usercheres of the fifth; and a much erased name ending with ra, and therefore probably Shura of the fourth.

Eleventhly, this friendly arrangement between the Elephantinite and Memphite early kings throws a very interesting light upon the fact that both Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus call Chefren or Shafra of the fifth dynasty, brother to Shufu or Cheops or Chembes of the fourth, and attribute to each of them the building of a pyramid.

Twelfthly, while Mr. Poole was writing his book, a newly discovered inscription was forwarded to him from a tomb near the great pyramid in which a great pluralist of the name of Snemten-hat, who declares himself to have been chief over the scribes, the priests, the treasury, and the fortifications, subscribes himself also as devoted to Unas, and devoted to Assa, one of these being a king of the fifth, and the other of the fifteenth dynasty; the obvious conclusion from which is, that they were contemporaries.b Thirteenthly, in the Royal Turin papyrus, the fifteenth dynasty immediately follows the sixth; one concluding, and the other commencing in the same fragment.

Our readers will by this time have seen that Mr. Poole is by no means such a mere speculative manipulator as has been represented. There is ample additional argument to be brought forward in his favour. We will only name, but for fear of wearying will not enter into the explanation of, his other great monumental triumph, in explaining the table of the sixty-one kings at Karnac.

In this monument, Thothmes III. of the eighteenth dynasty is seen, in a somewhat similar way to Rameses at Abydos, making offerings to the images of his dead predecessors. These, however, being ranged in eight lines instead of two as at Abydos, there was more difficulty in knowing where to begin and how to proceed chronologically among them. Mr. Poole begins at the lowest line on the left hand side, and at the right end of the line. These are kings of the eleventh dynasty, and proceeding through them we arrive at the twelfth. After this we find ourselves at the ninth, which was hitherto an incomprehensible difficulty in the arrangement; but if any one will look at our analysis, he will see that the ninth dynasty began at the same period with the eleventh, so that having finished a Theban line, Thothmes merely went up now to the Heracleopolites. After the ninth we come to the sixth, but this method too is now shown to be quite natural. After this we

with equal chronological correctness find ourselves beginning the fifteenth, and finally we return to his own immediate predecessors of the Theban thirteenth, with which the whole of the right side of the document is probably occupied. Brading, I. W.

D. I. H.

b This important document, then, like the tablet of Abydos, disposes at once of many centuries of years included in no less than ten dynasties, all of which must have been contemporary with others.