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HARRISON AND SONS,

PRINTERS IN ORDINARY TO HIS MAJESTY,

ST. MARTIN'S LANE, LONdon.

PREFACE.

THE Collection of Egyptian Antiquities in the British Museum comprises nearly fifty thousand objects, and many of its sections are unrivalled in completeness. It illustrates, in a more or less comprehensive manner, the history and civilization of the Egyptians from the time when their country was passing out of the Predynastic Period under a settled form of government, about B.C. 4500, to the time of the downfall of the power of the Queens Candace at Meroë, in the Egyptian Sûdân, in the second or third century after Christ. The monuments of Christian Egypt also form a very important series, and illustrate Coptic funerary sculpture and art between the sixth and eleventh centuries A.D.

The present Guide has been prepared with the view of providing the visitor to the British Museum with information of a more general character than can be conveniently given in the Guides to the several Galleries and Rooms of the Department. An attempt has here been made to present a sketch of the origin, the manners and customs, the language, the writing, the literature, the religion, and the burial rites of the peoples of Egypt, and of their history under the successive dynasties; embodying references to the several objects of the Collection which illustrate the different branches of the subject. The text is supplemented by an abundant selection of cuts and plates of the most important of the antiquities.

E. A. WALLIS BUDGE.

DEPARTMENT OF EGYPTIAN AND ASSYRIAN

ANTIQUITIES, BRITISH MUSEUM,
September 29, 1908.

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