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and imperfections, from which no compilation of so much difficulty and research can be exempt, are brought together in a far more accessible, digested, and useful form, than any in which they have before appeared.

The Egyptian department is, under present circumstances, the most attractive. The dynasties of Manetho, of which we now possess many in the texts of the original contemporary sculptures, appear in all the forms in which they are found scattered in ancient writers, disposed in parallel columns; so that the opening of an octavo page stands in the place of the folios of Josephus, Eusebius, Syncellus, and Scaliger, which are inaccessible to all but the slaves of literature at home, and altogether so to travellers abroad. To these are added the collateral statements of Sanchoniatho, Herodotus, Diodorus, Eratosthenes, and the old Egyptian chronicle, Chæremon, Artapanus, and Apion of Alexandria; together with the historical and scientific fragments relating to Egypt, which are to be found in other Greek and Roman authorities.

By a fortunate coincidence of circumstances, the labours of Mr Cory were directed to this collection soon after those of the hieroglyphic decipherers originated, and were brought to partial maturity nearly in time to meet the historical wants of the latter; for, previously to the appearance of the first edition in 1828, although the general principles of the hieroglyphic records of succession had been ascertained by Champollion, the method of applying these principles was still in its infancy, nor had the collateral and connecting records of Karnak, Benihassan, and Medinet Abon, brought to light through the zeal of our antiquarians resident in Egypt, been at that period discovered.

An authentic copy of the dynasties according to Africanus, was by this useful volume placed in the hands of enquirers and travellers; and this was accompanied by the fragments of Manetho from Josephus, the remains of the Theban chronicle of Eratosthenes, of the old Egyptian chronicle, and of the correlative Phoenician record of Sanchoniatho. The mutilated and corrupted transcripts of chronologers were thus far replaced by genuine data, and the labours of enquirers into

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hieroglyphic history, both at home and abroad, promoted by easy access to the originals, unembarassed by speculation.

In 1832 appeared the enlarged second edition of the collection; and, although a lustrum has now passed over our heads since this work has been in the hands of the learned world, and been silently and effectively promoting the labours of the historical student, we are not aware that it has hitherto been made known to the general reader as such a work deserves; but it is never too late to do justice to a treatise of the first literary necessity.

The present edition came out after the sun of the two original hieroglyphic discoverers had set for ever, but at the height of the Egyptian race; and it has contributed more than any other work of the times to render that a useful race for the purposes of history, by presenting the written versions of the recovered hieroglyphic records in all the forms in which history has transmitted them. The first edition has been augmented fourfold, and the versions and authorities which we have already mentioned, together with many others relating to Egyptian and contemporary history, have been added to its contents. Nor ought we to omit noticing the scientific fragments from Ptolemy, Censorinus, Theon, Berossus, and other writers, all bearing on the same historical system.

But a few observations on Egyptian history in general, its claims, nature, and principles, and the results to which these will conduct us, may best illustrate our subject and serve the cause of enquiry, besides practically demonstrating the value and utility of the work before us, and eliciting data for a probable restoration of the original text of Manetho's history, from the various mutilated and conflicting versions extant in Mr Cory's compilation: an object which the hieroglyphic verifieations of Manetho have rendered of extreme importance to history.

Egyptian history, as set forth in the remains of Manetho, the only writer who has left a complete outline of the subject, is distributed into thirty-one dynasties, concluding with the Macedonian conquest. It clearly distinguishes itself into two portions, each of which possess equal, although very

differently grounded claims to credibility, derived from wholly distinct criteria and evidences.

The first of these portions, of which we have already in some measure treated, is the most obscure and unmanageable. From its remoteness in time, from its want of connexion with known synchronous history, and inasmuch as it can be tested only by the contemporary monumental tablets, it is the most obnoxious to hypothesis and theory. It is not, however, the less authentic, and is the most important part of the annals of Egypt, being the great age of the arts and empire of the Pharaohs, and that which, consequently, has received the most illustration and proof from hieroglyphic discovery. Hieroglyphic discovery has thus replaced the contemporary witnesses which the records of other nations supply to authenticate the second portion of the history, to which, in a more particular manner, we shall presently advert.

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The portion of which we are now speaking subdivides itself into two parts the first consisting of the first thirteen dynasties, which are excluded from Manetho's chronological canon, by the consent of ancient writers, as well as from the primary succession of the monuments; but which occupy a collateral place in both. cond part comprises the dynasties of Manetho's canon from the fourteenth to the twentieth, including the great Diospolite family. It is, as- already stated, connected with that period of sacred history which separates the ages of Abraham and Solomon, and in the annals of which, the Kings of Egypt are mentioned only under the general title of Pharaoh, as in the days of Abraham, of Jacob and Joseph, of Moses, David, and Solomon.

It comprehends, as above, the early dynasties from the fourteenth down to the close of the nineteenth of Diospolites; and these are, accordingly, the limits which the Jewish annalist* assigns to the time of the Pharaohs properly so called. To this period, and no lower, we have the unbroken tabulated succession of the monu

ments; and here, accordingly, the. connected succession of Manetho, who concludes the second book of his annals with the nineteenth dynasty, breaks off. He, however, acquaints us that the next, or twentieth dynasty, consisted of Diospolites, as well as the eighteenth and nineteenth, and was the last family of that line: and we, accordingly, find the tombs of a number of uncatalogued Ramses, successors of those of the Tablets, in the Necropolis of Thebes, where the last ten of the catalogued kings, the line of Ramses I., are found entombed. The former have no place in the subsequent dynasties of Manetho, of which we possess nearly all the names, and therefore belong to the nameles twentieth dynasty.

Again, as the Diospolites end with this dynasty, the records of the Necropolis of Thebes also finish with the above-mentioned kings, none of those of the dynasties after the twen tieth being buried there.

Thus far we have a wonderfully authenticated portion of history, not only as to the succession, but the years of the reigns, which, so far as dates appear in isolated tablets, critically agree with Manetho. Thus, we find a tablet of the twenty-second of Amos, who reigned twenty-five years, according to that historian; one of the twenty-eighth of Thothmos III., answering to the Thmosis of Manetho, who reigned thirty-nine years; one of the thirty-sixth of Amenoph III. or Rathek, and Rathotis reigned thirtynine years: one of the sixty-second of Ramses II., or Amon me Ramses, the constructor of the tablet of Abydos, and the Rameses Meiamoun of Manetho, whose reign was sixty-six years.† Still, from the want of synchronous history, and from the absence of the proper names of the early Scriptural Pharaohs, the place of this great line in time is far from agreed to: and, whether the Exodus of the Jews be referable to the beginning, middle, or end of the eighteenth dynasty, are questions on which the ingenuity of writers has not yet tired itself, notwithstanding the evidence

Collate Joseph. Antiq. viii. 6, with Lib. contra Apion. i. This important tablet enriches our National Museum. lection of Mr Salt.

VOL, XLIV. NO. CCLXXIII.

It is from the last col

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of Josephus and all the oldest ecclesiastical authorities in favour of the first of these opinions.

We shall for the present pass over the thirteen early contemporary dynasties, and devote the remainder of this article to the second portion of the annals, as of more immediate importance to general history. To it belong the dynasties named from the cities of Lower Egypt, from the twenty-first downwards - Tanites, Bubastites, Saites, Sebennytes, and Mendesians; besides the foreign Ethiopian and Persian dynasties.

Of these, the historical names of nearly all the princes (those of the first of them, the twenty-first dynasty, excepted), have also been identified on their monumental remains, with sufficient difference in style to mark their relative ages compared with the remains of the great Diospolite age; whereas, the monumental records of the general succession of this period are wanting, and we are in a great degree dependent on written history for the order of the reigns, confirmed, however, in a variety of instances by the hieroglyphic genealogical Tablets. The synchronous records of the Hebrew and Greek writers are, however, so complete during the greatest part of this interval, that we are in no want of monuments to verify Egyptian history, although evidence from that source is in many cases most complete.

The sacred writers begin to give the names of the kings of Egypt with Shishak, who was reigning in the last years of Solomon, and took Jerusalem in the fifth year of Rehoboam; and he, accordingly, appears as Sesonchis, the first king of Manetho's twentysecond dynasty of Bubastites, while his monumental counterpart, Sheshonk, is found on the sculptures of the temple of Karnak, with the King of Judah (having the title of Jouda Melek) among his captives. The So and Tirhakah of Scripture appear in the Sevechus and Taracus of the twenty-fifth dynasty, and the Necho and Hophra of the former, in the Neco and Vaphres or Apries of the twenty-sixth dynasty, and of the Greek historians; while all these, and the rest of their respective lines, have left monumental remains.

Of the twenty-first dynasty of Tanites we have no synchronous, or

rather connected history; but we have hieroglyphic tablets of Mandouphth, which can only be referred to Mendes, Amendes, or Smendes, its founder; and the chronological place of this family is sufficiently determined by those of the twenty-second and succeeding dynasties, all of Lower Egypt, as well as the twenty-first.

The synchronous history of this period affords us every facility for col lating the various Egyptian statements, and more particularly the copies of Manetho's history, and of hence determining which of the latter affords the original and uncorrupted account, to the exclusion of those which exhibit not merely the errors of transcribers, but the systematic corruptions of theorists, who admitted original evidence only so far as it harmonized with their particular views on ecclesiastical history. And this being ascertained, it may direct us to the true versions and principles of the annals with reference to those portions which are not obnoxious to the test of contemporary history. By this process we shall also arrive at hitherto unnoticed proofs of the high place in which Manetho should be ranked as a historian, independently of the recent monumental verifications, and which ought at all times to have protected him from the doubts and freedoms of past and present criticism.

This portion of history ascends four centuries above the Ethiopian conquest and dynasty, B.C. 732, to the age of Samuel, Judge of Israel, and descends an equal period below the same epoch, to the overthrow of the Persian empire and invasion of Egypt by Alexander. It involves, as above, the scriptural landmarks of the reigns of Shishak, So, Tirhakah, Necho, and Hophra, and the reigns of the Persian monarchs from Cambyses to Alexander, which the researches of the Greek astronomers have fixed with mathematical certainty; so that we have every opportunity of investigating it.

The dynasties of this period may be stated as follows, according to the data which contemporary Jewish and Grecian history supplies for determining the correct Egyptian version from among the copies of Manetho given by Africanus, Eusebius, and Syncellus, and brought together in the work before us :

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Sebennytes,

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341. XXXI. Persians, 332. Macedonian Conquest.

It will be seen from the foregoing table that the oldest copy of this portion of Manetho's history, that of Africanus, furnishes the greatest number of true historical periods, so that it may be viewed as the basis for restoring the original series-replacing the mistakes of Africanus from the other copies, as contemporary Hebrew and Grecian history supply the criteria.

These criteria are, first, the flight of Jeroboam to Shishak or Sesonchis, the founder of the twenty-second dynasty, towards the end of the reign of Solomon, (1 Kings, xi. 40., xii. 2.2 Chron. x. 2), who died B.c. 975. Secondly, the invasion of Judea by Shishak in the fifth year of Rehoboam, King of Judah, (1 Kings, xiv. 25, 26. -2 Chron. xii. 2, 3, 4), B.C. 971. Thirdly, the alliance of Hosea, King of Israel, with So or Sevechus, the second king of the twenty-fifth or Ethiopian dynasty, three or four years before the captivity of the ten tribes, (2 Kings, xvii. 4, 5, 6., xviii. 9. 10), about B.C. 722. The invasion of Judea by Zerah the Ethiopian, in the fifteenth of Asa, King of Judah, (2 Chron. xiv. 9., xv. 10), B.c. 941, preceded this; but the name Zerah being evidently the general title Se-ra, "son of the sun," which is as common

Afric. Eus. Chron. Afric.

to the Ethiopian and Egyptian kings as that of Phra or Pharaoh, "the sun," we have no data for identifying that prince among the immediate suecessors of Shishak or Sesonchis, as has been attempted by several learned men. Fourthly, the war of Tirhakah or Taracus, third king of the Ethiopian dynasty, and the Sethon of Herodotus (II. 141), against Sennacherib, King of Assyria, in the fourteenth or fifteenth year of Hezekiah, King of Judah, (2 Kings, xviii. 13., xix. 9.— Isaiah, xxxvi. 1., xxxvii. 9), about B.C. 710. Fifthly, The invasion of the Babylonian empire by Pharaoh Necho, fifth king of the twenty-sixth dynasty of Saites, and the death of Josiah, King of Judah, (2 Kings, xxiii. 29, seq.-2 Chron. xxxv. 20, et seq. -Jerem. xlvi. 2), B.c. 607-604. Sixthly, The alliance of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, with Pharaoh Hophra, (Jerem. xxxvii. 5, &c.), Vaphres or Apries, seventh king of the same dynasty, against the Babylonians, about B.c. 591. Seventhly, The conquest of Hophra by the Babylonians, and the captivity of Egypt in or soon after the twenty-seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, (Ezek. xxix. 27, to xxxii. 32.-Jerem. xliv. 30, &c.), B. C. 578. Eighthly, the conquest of Egypt by the Persians,

Whether this king was an Ethiop or a Saite, is uncertain. He is called an Ethiop by Eusebius, who, nevertheless, refers him to the XXVI. or Saite dynasty.

The twenty-seventh year mentioned by Ezekiel, xxix. 17, has been usually referred by chronologers to the captivity of King Jeconiah, from which the prophet in general takes his dates. This brings the conquest of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar, which is there announced as about to commence, to B. c. 570, the first year of Amasis, or later; and Newton, accordingly, from thence computes the forty years' captivity of Egypt (Ezek. xxix. 13), and supposes them to end with the death of Cyrus, B.C. 529. The respite of Egypt, until the final conquest by Cambyses, B.C. 525, would, according to this view, be four years only, which is very improbable.

Cyrus, although a conqueror, was, equally with Alexander, considered as a deliverer by the Jews and Egyptians-the first from the Babylonian tyranny, and the latter from that of the Persians.

We have, therefore, no question but that the forty years' captivity of Egypt, like

and setting up of the twenty-seventh or Persian dynasty, in the last year of Amasis, ninth king of the twentysixth dynasty, when his son Psammetichus, or Psammenitus, reigned six months, in the fifth of Cambyses, king of Persia, (Manetho, et al.), B.C. 525.

All these dates are so well determined as to admit of no difference of opinion sufficient to affect the chronology of the series of dynasties, while the subsequent dates in the times of the Persian empire, are known to be

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mathematically determined by ec lipse and the evidence of contemporary writers, so as not to admit of a second

statement.

We shall now repeat our table, inserting the reigns of the leading dynasties which are connected with synchronous history, viz. of the twentysecond, twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh, and thirty-first; and adding the Saite and Persian reigns from Herodotus and the Greek astro

nomers.

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5 Nechao II.*

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522

521

486

465

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424

424

424

339

336

332 Macedonians

the seventy years' captivity of Judah, terminated about the accession of Cyrus to the throne of Babylon, and we would refer both to the same date, B.C. 536, when the decree of Cyrus was issued; and the rather, because the forty years had particular

The reign of Nechao II. according to Syncellus; which is confirmed by a hieroglyphic stete, produced by Rosellini from the Florentine Museum, by which it appears that the period from the IIId. of Nechao to the XXXVth. of Amasis was 71 years.

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