of the cycle of 1500 years, which ended in the year 276, commenced with it. The beginning of the reign of Zet was the last fixed point, therefore, which the priests could notify to the inquiring Ionian. The Phoenix cycle which began in his reign was still running on when Herodotus was in Egypt, about 460 B. C.

Could this be accidental? Certainly not. It does not however follow that we must therefore push up our chronological tables two years or even more. But if there be an error in this period, it cannot be an error of more than a few years. Manetho, however, may perhaps furnish us with an authority hitherto unnoticed in support of the higher term, the beginning of the previous Sothiac cycle.

D.

THE TESTIMONY OF MANETHO'S HISTORICAL WORK IN FAVOUR OF THE APPLICATION OF THE SOTHIAC CYCLE TO HISTORY, AND OF THE CORRECTNESS OF OUR CHRONOLOGY.

I. MANETHO DIVIDED HIS HISTORICAL WORK ACCORDING TO THE TWO SOTHIAC CYCLES, NOT MYTHICALLY, HOWEVER, BUT

STRICTLY CHRONOLOGICALLY.

It hardly requires to be specially mentioned, that a logical comparative criticism of the Monuments, Lists, and Historians has furnished us with evidence in favour of Manetho which has set at rest for ever all doubts as to the historical nature of the traditions which he has transmitted. Though not satisfied with his mode of procedure in the Old Empire, we at the same time came to two conclusions: first, that the original tradition from Menes downwards is not overlaid with cyclical, that is, fictitious, dates; and, secondly, that Manetho did not tamper with the original historical dates of reigns, to

favour some cyclical purpose or other. So far, indeed, we must maintain that Böckh41, the venerated master of philological research, has altogether failed in proving that Manetho's Lists from Menes to Nectanebo bear the impress of cyclical numbers. Yet we think we are not wrong in supposing that had this sagacious critic, when prosecuting his inquiry, been aware of the real facts contained in the monuments, he would have abandoned such an idea.

But he has, on the other hand, the merit of having supplied us, not only with a great number of lucid remarks and useful investigations, but of having also caused more attention to be paid to the fact of the unquestionable connexion between Manetho's work and the Sothiac cycle than had hitherto been given to it. Lepsius has still further corroborated this fact by his own thorough criticism of the dynasties of the Gods. He, as well as myself, had pursued the same method of critical research as Böckh; but we had the advantage of possessing a knowledge of facts in Egyptian monumental archæology with which he was unacquainted.

We are now arrived at that stage of our inquiry whence we can survey the last results of our criticism, which has been carried out through all the three epochs of the Egyptian empire by the aid of the monuments, and are thus enabled to offer our readers a final judgment upon them.

We will start at once with a question which, oddly enough, none of our predecessors seems to have raised: What was the principle upon which Manetho divided his work into three books? Assuredly not for the sake of external symmetry: in that case it would have been divided into three decades. Neither can it have been

41 Manetho and the Dog-Star Period. Berlin, 1845. Comp. also the laborious and sagacious researches of Plath : Quæstionum Ægypt. Specimen. Göttingen, 1829.

upon historical or patriotic grounds. The first book contains the first eleven dynasties. It might seem as though the object here was to give at least a brilliant opening to the second book, which embraces the disastrous Hyksos period. This was for a long time my own impression. But then how are we to explain the third book opening with the 20th Dynasty, which, with the exception of the earlier years, was inglorious throughout, and some time even tributary to the Assyrians?

Looking at the question from the present point of view of Egyptian research, the answer is not doubtful. We now know that the first Sothiac cycle ended in the middle of the 19th Dynasty, which was the close of his second volume. Can this be accidental? The opening of the history of the House of Ramesses was brilliant; the latter reigns clouded over, and some of them disgraceful. They would have been very far from forming a splendid conclusion.

Looking at his earlier dates, the idea will cross us, whether Manetho had not the same reason for making his first volume close with the 11th Dynasty. In other words, whether the end of the period preceding the first historical Sothiac cycle did not fall in the 11th Dynasty, and whether he did not break off there for the same reasons as induced him to conclude the second with the 19th. A complete critical examination of his dates has now been made; and, if the suggestion be correct, the proof can hardly be wanting, for his 11th Dynasty only lasted forty-three years.

Should the calculation, therefore, tally, there would be a fair probability that the answer to the question is found. Manetho, who computes the ante-historic period by Sothiac cycles, would then, on the one hand, have arranged the historical period dynastically, and in strict accordance with the facts and dates before him; while, on the other, he would have divided it in such a manner

as to make each of the first two volumes to close with that dynasty in which a Sothiac cycle ended. In other words, he took, as the basis of his arrangement, the synchronism of certain reigns with the starting-points of the two periods of 1460 years, which fell within the chronological period.

II. MANETHO PLACED THE ELEVENTH DYNASTY IN THE EPOCHAL YEAR 2782 B.C.

It seems then that Manetho's reason for concluding his first volume with the 11th Dynasty was the same as for concluding the second with the 19th, namely, because a Sothiac period terminated during those two dynasties.

We have only now to show that this really was his calculation.

In the course of our criticism of his dates, after eliminating the blunders and palpable errors of copyists, we have carefully noted the real remaining discrepancies, as being, all of them, at least worthy, if not equally worthy, of notice.

It was only after the chronological inquiry was concluded that we reached the point where the true date (if such exists beneath these data) must so far at least be capable of verification as to exhibit Manetho's genuine computation beyond all doubt. The calculation at present stands thus:

A. The Beginning of the NEW EMPIRE, or the first year of Amos, according to the only dates which we can hold to be admissible, and as to which, down to 1322, the utmost error that can exist is only six years, coincides with 1625 B.C.

B. For the Length of the HYKSOS PERIOD, i.e. the 15th and 16th Shepherd Dynasties, and the 17th Theban, as the only certain measure of time, we

come to the conclusion that there are only two possible dates; one, that of Africanus, 518; the other, that of Josephus, 511 years; which they adopted as Manetho's chronology of the 16th Dynasty.

The numbers then stand thus:

XV. Dyn. acc. Jos. 260; acc. Afric. 284; corr. 260-260

We remarked, in the course of the inquiry, that the notion of Josephus about the 511 years representing the whole period of the Hyksos race (Dyn. XV. and XVI.) is altogether unwarranted. Manetho's date, on which he relies, can only represent the length of the 16th Dynasty, to which Africanus assigns 518 years. But, as the sum total of thirty-two reigns of that dynasty, 511 turned out, from the evidences of a larger number of manuscripts, to be better authenticated than the 518 of Africanus. Our calculation, therefore, stands, in the first place, thus:

According to Manetho, therefore, the first year of the Hyksos period may be either the 2554th, or the 2547th year B.C.

C. The Duration of the THIRTEENTH (Theban) Dy

NASTY, in the Old Empire, down to its fall. All we know from Manetho is that the sixty kings of this family (whose names are not given) reigned 453 years—a number, which we naturally could not