Royal Lists and their Verification by the Monuments.

The first kind of monuments which I have described is useful as furnishing the highest ascertainable monumental year of a reign; the second kind enables us besides to determine the order of succession of reigns. Both these kinds of monuments are contemporaneous with the persons and events mentioned upon them. But besides these, there are monuments giving long lists of sovereigns, all of whom cannot have been contemporaneous. Such are the famous tablets of Abydos, that of Saqara,1 the chamber of Karnak, and some others. The royal hieratic canon of Turin (which is unfortunately in so mutilated a condition as practically to be of little use, and which enumerates many kings and gives the lengths of their reigns) is a document of the same historical character, at least from the point of view from which I am now looking at the matter.2 In the chamber of Karnak, Tehutimes III. is represented as making an offering to sixty-one of his royal prede

1 Mariette, “La table de Saqqarah," in the Revue Archéologique, 1864, II. 169.

ment.

2 It differs from the rest in being a professedly historical docuThe others may rather be compared to lists of saints in Catholic litanies. That royal names should occur in this the prayers of private persons, as in the tablet of Saqāra, is not way in wonderful, when we learn from the Book of the Dead (ch. 136, b. 14) that the pious dead are in the company of the kings of the North and of the South.

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cessors, whose names are given. At Abydos, Seti I., together with his son Rameses, then heir-apparent, offers incense to no less than seventy-six kings.'

Royal List of Abydos.

You will at once understand the importance of such a monument, if it can be relied upon, when I remind you that the Israelites in bondage are said to have been employed in building the treasure cities (as the Hebrew meschenoth is commonly translated), or rather sanctuaries, of Pithom and Rameses. It may be considered absolutely certain that no place in Egypt ever had the name of Rameses till the appearance of the celebrated hero of the name, who is actually represented on this monument as the son and heir-apparent of Seti I. The name of the place is as significant as the names of Alexandria, Antioch, Ptolemais, Seleucia, Washington or Napoleonville. The name of Rameses is a very peculiar one, the latter part of it consisting of the reduplicated form of the verb mes, not of the simple form, like the names Rames, Aahmes, Tehutimes, Chonsumes, and I do not believe any instance

1 Dümichen, "Die Sethostafel von Abydos (mit Abbildung)," in the Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Alterthumskunde, 1864, p. 81. Dévéria, "La nouvelle table d'Abydos, comparée aux autres listes royales de l'ancienne Egypte, redigée sous les Ramessides ou antérieurement," in the Rev. Archéologique, 1865, I. 50, and Mariette, "La nouvelle table d'Abydos," Rev. Arch. 1866, I. 73.

of it will ever be found more ancient than that of Rameses I., the grandfather of the great conqueror. Now if this tablet of Abydos is correct, seventy-six kings, that is, very many more kings than can be counted in English history, must have reigned over Egypt before the first books of the Bible were written. But if we go back in English history to Ethelred II. in 976, we shall find that not more than forty-four sovereigns have reigned during a thousand years, and the average length of an Egyptian king's reign cannot be shown to be shorter than that of an English sovereign.

Evidence of the Reality of Sovereigns named.

But are the names on the tablet of Abydos names of real personages, or are they (or at least some of them) as imaginary as the kings of Britain, beginning with Brutus, as reported by Geoffrey of Monmouth, or the kings of Scotland, beginning with Fergus I., whose portraits adorn the walls of Holyrood? There is but one way of settling the question, and that is by looking out for evidence which will confirm or contradict that given by these royal lists. As far as the test of verification has been applied to these lists, there is no reason whatever for distrusting them. Instead of admitting sovereigns who have never lived, they have for certain reasons omitted many, the existence of whom

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is quite certain. The intention of the tablets was not historical or chronological, but simply devotional, and the selection and arrangement of names consequently vary, though the most considerable names are the same in all.

1

M. de Rougé has carefully studied all the monuments which belong to the first six dynasties. The earliest monuments that can be found belong to king Seneferu, the 20th on the list of Abydos; and from this king till the 38th on the list, the evidence is complete, and the order of succession thoroughly established by independent inscriptions contemporaneous with the sovereigns of whom they speak. There is, for instance, the tomb at Gizeh of a queen who graced the courts of king Seneferu and the two kings who followed him. Two officers have left inscriptions which say that they had served the kings Unas and Teta. The great inscription of Una2 begins by saying that this officer served Teta, and ends with his services under Merenrā. This king was succeeded by his brother Neferkara (No. 38 of the list). The tomb of the mother of these royal brothers still exists. She was the wife of Pepi-Merira (No. 36), several monuments of whom are known; one of them, in Wadi Magharah in the peninsula of Mount Sinai, is dated in the eighteenth year of his reign.

1 "Recherches sur les monuments qu'on peut attribuer aux six premières dynasties de Manethon :" Paris, 1866.

2 "Records of the Past," Vol. II. p.

1.

No period in any history that can be named is better authenticated by contemporary monuments.

The same truth may be asserted of the twelfth dynasty, which in the tablet of Abydos is represented by Nos. 59 to 65. The number of monuments accurately dated belonging to this period is very considerable. They are all perfectly consistent with one another, and leave no doubt as to the length of each reign and of the whole dynasty. It is to this dynasty that the splendid tomb of Nahre-se-Chnumhotep at Benihassan belongs. His inscription mentions the first four sovereigns as having honoured three successive generations of his family.

Omissions of this List.

Let me now speak of the omissions of this tablet, which I have selected in preference to others in consequence of its being the longest and the most intelligible as to its arrangement.

The most beautiful monuments of the eighteenth dynasty were raised by the powerful queen Hatasu,1 daughter of Tehutimes I., who associated her with him. She reigned for some years either alone or in conjunction with her brothers Tehutimes II. and Tehutimes III.

1 Of late very generally called Hashop, in simple forgetfulness of the most undisputed rules of hieroglyphic decipherment. When an error of this kind is once admitted, it is almost impossible to eradicate it.