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terrace-temple of Menthotp III. recently excavated at Thebes: also foundations of this king and of Sankhkerē at Abydos. In the XIIth Dynasty there is the celebrated red granite obelisk of Heliopolis, one of a pair erected by Senwosri (Senusert) I. in front of his temple which has now vanished. Another large obelisk of red granite, 41 ft. high, remains in the Fayum. The most important pictorial tombs of Beni Hasan belong to this age; the great princes appear to have largely quarried stone for their palaces, and to have cut the quarry in the form of a regular chamber, which served for the tomb chapel. These great rock chambers were covered with paintings, which show a large range of the daily life and civilization. The pyramids and temples of Senwosri II. and III. and Amenemhë III. remain at Illahûn, Dahshur and Hawāra. The latter was the celebrated Labyrinth, which has been entirely quarried away, so that only banks of chips and a few blocks remain. At the first of these sites is the most perfect early town, of which hundreds of houses still remain. Of Senwosri III. there are the forts and temples above the second cataract at Semna and Kumma. Of the Hyksos age there are the scanty remains of a great fortified camp at Tell el-Yehudia.

In the XVIIIth to XXth Dynasties we reach the great period of monuments. Of Amāsis (Aahmes) and Amenophis I. there are but fragments left in later buildings; and of the latter a great quantity of sculpture has been recovered at Karnak. The great temple of Karnak had existed since the XIth Dynasty or earlier, but the existing structure was begun under Tethmosis (Tahutmes) I., and two of the great pylons and one obelisk of his remain in place. He also built the simple and dignified temple of Medinet Habu at Thebes, which was afterward overshadowed by the grandiose work of Rameses III. The next generation-Tethmōsis II. and Hatshepsut-added to their father's work; they also built another pylon and some of the existing chambers at Karnak, set up the great obelisks there and carved some colossi. The obelisks are exquisitely cut in red granite, each sign being sawn in shape by copper tools fed with emery, and the whole finished with a perfection of proportion and delicacy not seen on other granite work. One obelisk being overthrown and broken we can examine the minute treatment of the upper part, which was nearly a hundred feet from the ground. The principal monument of this period is the temple of Deir el Bahri, the funeral temple of Hatshepsut, on which she recorded the principal event of her reign, the expedition to Punt. The erasures of her name by Tethmosis III., and reinsertions of names under later kings, the military scenes, and the religious groups showing the sacred kine of Hathor, all add to the interest of the remarkable temple. It stands on three successive terraces, rising to the base of the high limestone cliffs behind it. The rock-cut shrine at Speos Artemidos, and the temple of Serabit in Sinai are the only other large monuments of this queen yet remaining. Tethmosis III. was one of the great builders of Egypt, and much remains of his work, at about forty different sites. The great temple of Karnak was largely built by him; most of the remaining chambers are his, including the beautiful botanical walls showing foreign plants. Of his work at Heliopolis there remain the obelisks of London and New York; and from Elephantine is the obelisk at Sion House. On the Nubian sites his work may still be seen at Amada, Ellesia, Ibrim, Semna and in Sinai at Serabit el Khādem. Of Amenophis II. and Tethmosis IV. there are no large monuments, they being mainly known by additions at Karnak. The well known stele of the sphinx was cut by the latter king, to commemorate his dream there and his clearing of the sphinx from sand. Amenophis III. has left several large buildings of his magnificent reign. At Karnak the temple had a new front added as a great pylon, which was later used as the| back of the hall of columns by Seti I. But three new temples at Karnak, that of Month (Mentu), of Mut and a smaller one, all are due to this reign, as well as the long avenue of sphinxes before the temple of Khons; these indicate that the present Ramesside temple of Khons has superseded an earlier one of this king. The great temple of Luxor was built to record the

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divine origin of the king as son of Ammon; and on the western side of Thebes the funerary temple of Amenophis was an immense pile, of which the two colossi of the Theban plain still stand before the front of the site, where yet lies a vast tablet of sandstone 30 ft. high. The other principal buildings are the temples of Sedenga and of Sōlib in Nubia. Akhenaton has been so consistently eclipsed by the later kings who destroyed his work, that the painted pavement and the rock tablets of Tell el Amarna are the only monuments of his still in position, beside a few small inscriptions. Harmahib (Horemheb) resumed the work at Karnak, erecting two great pylons and a long avenue of sphinxes. The rock temple at Silsila and a shrine at Jebel Adda are also his.

In the XIXth Dynasty the great age of building continued, and the remains are less destroyed than the earlier temples, because there were subsequently fewer unscrupulous rulers to quarry them away. Seti I. greatly extended the national temple of Karnak by his immense hall of columns added in front of the pylon of Amenophis III. His funerary temple at Kurna is also in a fairly complete condition. The temple of Abydos is celebrated owing to its completeness, and the perfect condition of its sculptures, which render it one of the most interesting buildings as an artistic monument; and the variety of religious subjects adds to its importance. The very long reign and vanity of Rameses II. have combined to leave his name at over sixty sites, more widely spread than that of any other king. Yet very few great monuments were originated by him; even the Ramesseum, his funerary temple, was begun by his father. Additions, appropriations of earlier works and scattered inscriptions are what mark this reign. The principal remaining buildings are part of a court at Memphis, the second temple at Abydos, and the six Nubian temples of Bēt el-Wali, Jerf Husein, Wadi es-Sebua, Derr, and the grandest of all-the rock-cut temple of Abu Simbel, with its neighbouring temple of Hathor. Mineptah has left few original works; the Osireum at Abydos is the only one of which much remains, his funerary temple having been destroyed as completely as he destroyed that of Amenophis III. The celebrated Israel stele from this temple in his principal inscription. The rock shrines at Silsila are of small importance. There is no noticeable monument of the dozen troubled years of the end of the dynasty.

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The XXth Dynasty opened with the great builder Rameses III. Probably he did not really exceed other kings in his activity; but as being the last of the building kings at the western side of Thebes, his temple has never been devastated for stone by the claims of later work. The whole building of Medinet Habu is about 500 ft. long and 160 wide, entirely the work of one reign. The sculptures of it are mainly occupied with the campaigns of the king against the Libyans, the Syrians and the negroes, and are of the greatest importance for the history of Egypt and of the Mediterranean lands. Another large work was the clearance and rebuilding of much of the city of Tell el Yehudia, the palace hall of which contained the celebrated coloured tiles with figures of captives. At Karnak three temples, to Ammon, Khonsu and Mut, all belong to this reign. The blighted reigns of the later Ramessides and the priest-kings did not leave a single great monument, and they are only known by usurpations of the work of others. The Tanite kings of the XXIst Dynasty rebuilt the temple of their capital, but did little else. The XXIInd Dynasty returned to monumental work. Sheshonk I. added a large wall at Karnak, covered with the record of his Judaean war. Osorkon (Uasarkon) I. built largely at Bubastis, and Osorkon II. added the great granite pylon there, covered with scenes of his festival; but at Thebes these kings only inscribed previous monuments. The Ethiopian (XXVth) dynasty built mainly in their capital under Mount Barkal, and Shabako and Tirhaka (Tahrak) also left chapels and a pylon at Thebes; and the latter added a great colonnade leading up to the temple of Karnak, of which one column is still standing.

Of the Saite kings there are very few large monuments. Their work was mainly of limestone and built in the Delta, and

hence it has been entirely swept away. The square fort of brick- | biographical. (5) Papyri concerning daily affairs which throw work at Daphnae (q.v.) was built by Psammetichus I. Of Apries (Haa-ab-ra, Hophra) an obelisk and two monolith shrines are the principal remains. Of Amasis (Aahmes) II. five great shrines are known; but the other kings of this age have only left minor works. The Persians kept up Egyptian monuments. Darius I. quarried largely, and left a series of great granite decrees along his Suez canal; he also built the great temple in the oasis of Kharga.

The XXXth Dynasty renewed the period of great temples. Nekhtharheb built the temple of Behbēt, now a ruinous heap of immense blocks of granite. Beside other temples, now destroyed, he set up the great west pylon of Karnak, and the pylon at Kharga. Nekhtnebf built the Hathor temple and great pylon at Philae, and the east pylon of Karnak, beside temples elsewhere, now vanished. Religious building was continued under the Ptolemies and Romans; and though the royal impulse may not have been strong, yet the wealth of the land under good government supplied means for many places to rebuild their old shrines magnificently. In the Fayum the capital was dedicated to Queen Arsinoe, and doubtless Ptolemy rebuilt the temple, now destroyed. At Sharona are remains of a temple of Ptolemy I. Dendera is one of the most complete temples, giving a noble idea of the appearance of such work anciently. The body of the temple is of Ptolemy XIII., and was carved as late as the XVIth (Caesarion), and the great portico was in-building from Augustus to Nero. At Coptos was a screen of the temple of Ptolemy I. (now at Oxford), and a chapel still remains of Ptolemy XIII. Karnak was largely decorated; a granite cella was built under Philip Arrhidaeus, covered with elaborate carving; a great pylon was added to the temple of Khonsu by Ptolemy III.; the inner pylon of the Ammon-temple was carved by Ptolemy VI. and IX.; and granite doorways were added to the temples of Month and Müt by Ptolemy II. At Luxor the entire cella was rebuilt by Alexander. At Medinet Habū the temple of Tethmosis III. had a doorway built by Ptolemy X., and a forecourt by Antoninus. The smaller temple was built under Ptolemy X. and the emperors. South of Medinet Habū a small temple was built by Hadrian and Antoninus. At Esna the great temple was rebuilt and inscribed during a couple of centuries from Titus to Decius. At El Kab the temple dates from Ptolemy IX. and X. The great temple of Edfu, which has its enclosure walls and pylon complete, and is the most perfect example remaining, was gradually built during a century and a half from Ptolemy III. to XI. The monuments of Philae begin with the wall of Nekhtnebf. Ptolemy II. began the great temple, and the temple of Arhesnofer (Arsenuphis) is due to Ptolemy IV., that of Asclepius to Ptolemy V., that of Hathor to Ptolemy VI., and the great colonnades belong to Ptolemy XIII. and Augustus. The beautiful little riverside temple, called the "kiosk," was built by Augustus and inscribed by Trajan; and the latest building was the arch of Diocletian.

Farther south, in Nubia, the temples of Dabōd and Dakka were built by the Ethiopian Ergamenes, contemporary of Ptolemy IV.; and the temple of Dendur is of Augustus. The latest building of the temple style is the White Monastery near Suhag. The external form is that of a great temple, with windows added along the top; while internally it was a Christian church. The modern dwellings in it have now been cleared out, and the interior admirably preserved and cleaned by a native Syrian architect.

Beside the great monuments, which we have now noticed, the historical material is found on several other classes of remains. These are: (1) The royal tombs, which in the Vth, VIth, XVIIIth, XIXth and XXth Dynasties are fully inscribed; but as the texts are always religious and not historical, they are less important than many other remains. (2) The royal coffins and wrappings, which give information by the added graffiti recording their removals; (3) Royal tablets, which are of the highest value for history, as they often describe or imply historical events; (4) Private tombs and tablets, which are in many cases

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light on history; or which give historic detail, as the great papyrus of Rameses III., and the trials under Rameses X. (6) The added inscriptions on buildings by later restorers, and alterations of names for misappropriation. (7) The statues which give the royal portraits, and sometimes historical facts. (8) The ostraca, or rough notes of work accounts, and plans drawn on pieces of limestone or pottery. (9) The scarabs bearing kings' names, which under the Hyksos and in some other dark periods, are our main source of information. (10) The miscellaneous small remains of toilet objects, ornaments, weapons, &c., many of which bear royal names.

Every object and monument with a royal name will be found catalogued under each reign in Petrie's History of Egypt, 3 vols., the last editions of each being the fullest. (W. M. F. P.)

F. Chronology.-1. Technical.-The standard year of the Ancient Egyptians consisted of twelve months of thirty days1 each, with five epagomenal days, in all 365 days. It was thus an effective compromise between the solar year and the lunar month, and contrasts very favourably with the intricate and clumsy years of other ancient systems. The leap-year of the Julian and Gregorian calendars confers the immense benefit of a fixed correspondence to the seasons which the Egyptian year did not possess, but the uniform length of the Egyptian months is enviable even now. The months were grouped under three seasons of four months each, and were known respectively as the first, second, third and fourth month

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over the year" being outside these seasons and the year itself, according to the Egyptian expression, and counted either at the beginning or at the end of the year. Ultimately the Egyptians gave names to the months taken from festivals celebrated in them, in order as follows:-Thoth, Paophi, Athyr, Choiak, Tõbi, Mechir, Phamenōth, Pharmüthi, Pachons, Payni, Epiphi, Mesore, the epagomenal days being then called "the short year." In Egypt the agricultural seasons depend more immediately on the Nile than on the solar movements; the first day of the first month of inundation, i.e. nominally the beginning of the rise of the Nile, was the beginning of the year, and as the Nile commences to rise very regularly at about the date of the annual heliacal rising of the conspicuous dog-star Sothis (Sirius) (which itself follows extremely closely the slow retrogression of the Julian year), the primitive astronomers found in the heliacal rising of Sothis as observed at Memphis (on July 19 Julian) a very correct and useful starting-point for the seasonal year. But the year of 365 days lost one day in four years of the Sothic or Julian year, so that in 121 Egyptian years New Year's day fell a whole month too early according to the seasons, and in 1461 years a whole year was lost. This "Sothic period' or era of 1460 years, during which the Egyptian New Year's day travelled all round the Sothic year, is recorded by Greek and Roman writers at least as early as the 1st century B.C. The epagomenal days appear on a monument of the Vth Dynasty and in the very ancient Pyramid texts. They were considered unlucky, and perhaps this accounts for the curious fact that, although they are named in journals and in festival lists, &c., where precise dating was needed, no known monument or legal document is dated in them. It is, however, quite possible that by the side of the year of 365 days a shorter year of 360 was employed for some purposes. Lunar months

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Ten-day periods as subdivisions of the month can be traced as far back as the Middle Kingdom. The day consisted of twentyfour hours, twelve of day (counted from sunrise to sunset) and twelve of night; it began at sunrise.

Arab conquest. The dating by indictions, i.e. Roman taxcensuses, taking place every fifteenth year, probably originated in Egypt, in A.D. 312, the year of the defeat of Maxentius. The indictions began in Payni of the fixed year, when the harvest had been secured.

See F K Ginzel, Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie, Bd. i. (Leipzig, 1906), and the bibliography in the following section.

were observed in the regulation of temples, and lunar years, &c., | (though the persecution was not until 302), and it survived the have been suspected. To find uniformity in any department in Egyptian practice would be exceptional. By the decree of Canopus, Ptolemy III.Euergetes introduced through the assembly of priests an extra day every fourth year, but this reform had no acceptation until it was reimposed by Augustus with the Julian calendar. Whether any earlier attempt was made to adjust the civil to the solar or Sothic year in order to restore the festivals to their proper places in the seasons temporarily or otherwise, is a question of great importance for chronology, but at present it remains unanswered. Probably neither the Sothic nor any other era was employed by the ancient Egyptians, who dated solely by regnal years (see below). An inscription of Rameses II. at Tanis is dated in the 400th year of the reign of the god Seth of Ombos, probably with reference to some religious ordinance during the rule of the Seth-worshipping Hyksos; Rameses II. may well have celebrated its quatercentenary, but it is wrong to argue from this piece of evidence alone that an era of Seth was ever observed.

From the Middle Kingdom onward to the Roman period, the dates upon Egyptian documents are given in regnal years. On the oldest monuments the years in a reign were not numbered consecutively but were named after events; thus in the Ist Dynasty we find "the year of smiting the Antiu-people," in the beginning of the IIIrd Dynasty "the year of fighting and smiting the people of Lower Egypt." But under the IInd Dynasty there was a census of property for taxation every two years, and the custom, continuing (with some irregularities) for a long time, offered a uniform mode of marking years, whether current | or past. Thus such dates are met with as "the year of the third time of numbering" of a particular king, the next being designated as "the year after the third time of numbering." Under the Vth Dynasty this method was so much the rule that the words "of numbering" were commonly omitted. It would seem that in the course of the next dynasty the census became annual | instead of biennial, so that the "times " agreed with the actual years of reign; thenceforward their consecutive designation as "first time," "second time," for "first year," "second year," was as simple as it well could be, and lasted unchanged to the fall of paganism. The question arises from what point these❘ regnal dates were calculated. Successive regnal years might begin (1) on the anniversary of the king's accession, or (2) on the calendrical beginning in each year (normally on the first day of the nominal First month of inundation, i.e. 1st Thoth in the later calendar). In the latter case there would be a further consideration: was the portion of a calendar year following the accession of the new king counted to the last year of the outgoing king, or to the first year of the new king? In Dynasties I., IV. V., XVIII. there are instances of the first mode (1), in Dynasties II., VI. (?), XII., XXVI. and onwards they follow the second (2). It may be that the practice was not uniform in all documents even of the same age. In Ptolemaic times not only were Macedonian dates sometimes given in Greek documents, but there were certainly two native modes of dating current; down to the reign of Euergetes there was a "fiscal" dating in papyri, according to which the year began in Paophi, besides a civil dating probably from Thoth; later, all the dates in papyri start from Thoth.

The Macedonian year is found in early Ptolemaic documents. The fixed year of the Canopic decree under Euergetes (with 1st Thoth on Oct. 22) was never adopted. Augustus established an "Alexandrian " era with the fixed Julian year, retaining the Egyptian months, with a sixth epagomenal day every fourth year. The capture of Alexandria having taken place on the 1st of August 30 B.C., the era began nominally in 30 B.C., but it was not actually introduced till some years later, from which time the 1st Thoth corresponded with the 29th of August in the Julian year. The vague "Egyptian" year, however, continued in use in native documents for some centuries along with the Alexandrian "Ionian " year. The era of Diocletian dates from the 29th of August 284, the year of his reforms; later, however, the Christians, called it, the era of the Martyrs.

2. Historical. As to absolute chronology, the assigning of a regnal year to a definite date B.C. is clear enough (except in occasional detail) from the conquest by Alexander onwards. Before that time, in spite of successive efforts to establish a chronology, the problem is very obscure. The materials for reconstructing the absolute chronology are of several kinds: (1) Regnal dates as given on contemporary monuments may indicate the lengths of individual reigns, but not with accuracy, as they seldom reach to the end of a reign and do not allow for co-regencies. Records of the time that has elapsed between two regnal dates in the reigns of different kings are very helpful; thus stelae from the Serapeum recording the ages of the Apis bulls with the dates of their birth and death have fixed the chronology of the XXVIth Dynasty. Traditional evidence for the lengths of reigns exists in the Turin Papyrus of kings and in Manetho's history; unfortunately the papyrus is very fragmentary and preserves few reign-lengths entire, and Manetho's evidence seems very untrustworthy, being known only from late excerpts. (2) The duration of a period may be calculated by generations or the probable average lengths of reigns, but such calculations are of little value, and the succession of generations even when the evidence seems to be full is particularly difficult to ascertain in Egyptian, owing to adoptions and the repetition of the same name even in one family of brothers and sisters. (3) Synchronisms in the histories of other countries furnish reliable dates-Greek, Persian, Babylonian and Biblical dates for the XXVIth Dynasty, Assyrian for the XXVth; less precise are the Biblical date of Rehoboam, contemporary with the invasion of Shishak (Sheshonk) in the XXIInd Dynasty, and the date of the Babylonian and Assyrian kings contemporary with Amenhotp IV. in the XVIIIth Dynasty. The last, about 1400 B.C., is the earliest point to which such coincidences reach. (4) Astronomical data, especially the heliacal risings of Sothis recorded by dates of their celebration in the vague year. These are casily calculated on the assumption first that the observations were correctly made, secondly that the calendrical dates are in the year of 365 days beginning on 1st Thoth, and thirdly that this year subsequently underwent no readjustment or other alteration before the reign of Euergetes. The assumption may be a reasonable one, and if the results agree with probabilities as deduced from the rest of the evidence it is wise to adopt it; if on the other hand the other evidence seems in any serious degree contrary to those results it may be surmised that the assumption is faulty in some particular. The harvest date referred to below helps to show that the first part of the assumption is justified.

The duration of the reigns in several dynasties is fairly well known from the incontrovertible evidence of contemporary monuments. The XXVIth Dynasty, which lasted 139 years, is particularly clear, and synchronisms fix its regnal dates to the years B.C. within an error of one or two years at most. The lengths of several reigns in the XIIth, XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties are known, and the sum total for the XIIth Dynasty is preserved better than any other in the Turin Papyrus, which was written under the XIXth Dynasty. The succession and number of the kings are also ascertained for other dynasties, together with many regnal dates, but very serious gaps exist in the records of the Egyptian monuments, the worst being between the XIIth and the XVIIIth Dynasties, between the XIth and the VIth, and at Dynasties I.-III. For the chronology before the time of the XXVIth Dynasty Herodotus's history 1 For the "* sequence" dating (S.D.) used by archaeologists for the prehistoris period see above (§ Art and Archaeology, ad ini. note).

is quite worthless. Manetho alone of all authorities offers a | began about 1570 B.C., taking what seems to be the utmost complete chronology from the Ist Dynasty to the XXXth. In the case of the six kings of the XXVIth Dynasty, Africanus, the best of his excerptors, gives correct figures for five reigns, but attributes six instead of sixteen years to Necho; the other excerptors have wrong numbers throughout. For the XIXth Meyer 1887 Meyer

Petrie

interval that it permits, 220 years have to contain a crowd of kings of whom nearly 100 are already known by name from monuments and papyri, while fresh names are being added annually to the long list; the shattered fragments of the last columns in the Turin Papyrus show space for 150 or perhaps Breasted Petrie 1906.

Sethe

Dynasty. (minimum date). 1894, &c. 1904-1908.

1905.

1906.

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Dynasty Manetho's figures are wrong wherever we can check them; the names, too, are seriously faulty. In the XVIIIth Dynasty he has too many names and few are clearly identifiable, while the numbers are incomprehensible. In the XIIth Dynasty the number of the kings is correct and many of the names can be justified, but the reign-lengths are nearly, if not quite, all wrong. The summations of years for the Dynasties XII. and XVIII. are likewise wrong. It seems, therefore, that the known texts of Manetho, serviceable as they have been in the reconstruction of Egyptian history, cannot be employed as a serious guide to the early chronology, since they are faulty wherever we can check them, even in the XXVIth Dynasty whose kings were so celebrated among the Greeks. There remain the astronomical data. Of these, the Sothic date furnished by a calendar in the Ebers Papyrus of the 9th year of Amenophis I. (when interpreted on the assumption stated above), and another at Elephantine of an uncertain year of Tethmosis III., tally well with each other (1550-1546, 1474-1470 B.C.) and with the Babylonian synchronism (not yet accurately determined) under Amenhotp IV. (Akhenaton). Another Sothic date of the 7th year of Senwosri III. on a Berlin papyrus from Kahûn, similarly interpreted (1882-1878 B.C.), gives for the XIIth Dynasty a range from 2000 to 1788 B.C. This (discovered by L. Borchardt in 1899) seems to offer a welcome ray, piercing the obscurity of early Egyptian chronology; guided by it the historian Ed. Meyer, and K. Sethe have framed systems of chronology in close agreement with each other, reaching back to the Ist Dynasty at about 3400 B.C. To Meyer is further due a calculation that the Egyptian calendar was introduced in 4241-4238 B.C. Their results in general have been adopted by the "Berlin school," including Erman, Steindorff (in Baedeker's Egypt) and Breasted in America. Nevertheless many Egyptologists are unwilling to accept the new chronology, the chief obstacle being that it allows so short an interval for the six dynasties between the XIIth and the XVIIIth. If the XIIth Dynasty ended about 1790 B.C. and the XVIIIth

Dynasty.

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180 kings of this period, apparently without reaching the XVIIth Dynasty. An estimate of 160 to 200 kings would therefore not be excessive. The dates that have come down to us are very few; the only ones known from the Hyksos period are of a 12th and a 33rd year. In the Turin Papyrus two reign-lengths of less than a year, seven others of less than five years each, one of ten years and one of thirteen seem attributable to the XIIIth and XIVth Dynasties. Probably most of the reigns were short, as Manetho also decidedly indicates. It is possible that the compiler of the Turin Papyrus, who excluded contemporary reigns in the period between the VIth and the XIIth Dynasties, here admitted such; nor is a correspondingly large number of kings in so short a period without analogies in history. Professor Petrie, however, thinks it best, while accepting the evidence of the Sirius date, to suppose further that a whole Sothic period of 1460 years had passed in the interval, making a total of 1650 years for the six dynasties in place of 220 years. This, however, seems greatly in excess of probability, and several Egyptologists familiar with excavation are willing to accept Meyer's figures on archaeological grounds. To the present writer it seems that Meyer's chronology provides a convenient working theory, but involves such an improbability in regard to the interval between the XIIth and the XVIIIth Dynasties that the interpretation of the Sothic date on which it is founded must be viewed with suspicion until clear facts are found to corroborate it. Corroboration has been sought by Mahler, Sethe and Petrie in the dates of new moons, of warlike and other expeditions, and of high Nile, but their evidence so far is too vague and uncertain to affect the question seriously. It is remarkable that no records of eclipses are known from Egyptian documents. The interesting date of the harvest at El Bersha, quoted by Meyer in Breasted, Records, i. p. 48, confirms the Sothic date for the XIIth Dynasty in some measure, but it belongs to the same age, and therefore its evidence would be equally vitiated with the other by any subsequent alteration in the Egyptian calendar. Before the discovery of the Kahun Sothic date, Professor Petrie

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