« a i s l a M U l l
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■ H BL
M M i ü T
IVth Manethonian dynasty, cotemporary 'with the building of the Geezeh group of pyramids,
loomed like a meteor in the night of time.
Some perceptions were entertained, about those days, even in America, of the probable
extent to which tnonumental researches would eventually carry the epoch of Menes. In
1845, Bunsen’s era for this monarch was b . o. 3643; and in 1849, Lepsius’s is b . c. 3893.
Our “ Chapters” (1843) assert, that “ if 1000 more years could be shown admissible by
Scripture, there is nothing in Egypt that would not be found to agree with the extension."
It is a happy coincidence, exhibiting how different minds, in countries widely apart, reasoning
upon similar data, arrive at conclusions nearly the same, that, if the above “ 1000
years ” be added to our former conjectural and minimum estimate, printed ten years ago, of
the date of Me n e s , noted at about b . c. 2750,(392) the sum b . c. 8750 falls, almost equi-
distantly, between the eras assigned to this primordial Pharaoh by two of the three highest
hierologicai chronographers: — the third, it need scarcely be observed, being Mr. Birch;
who, whilst tabulating Egyptian events in the recognised order of Manethonian dynasties,
(393) has never yet-put forth an arithmetical system of hieroglyphical chronology. As
•remarked by us ( Qtia, p. 45)
;; “ We are dealing, in events so inconceivably remote, with stratified masses of time, and not
with supposititious calculations of the exact day, week, month, or year; in futile attempts
to ascertain which so many learned investigators “ ne font qu’un trou dans l’eau.”
Our sketch of the progressive conquests over the past, commenced by Champollion in
1822, through which a pathway has been hewn, inch by inch, by the axes of the Hiero-
logists, far into the briery jungle of Pharaonic antiquity, has reached the year 1843; and
already Fourier’s “ twenty-five hundred years b . c.” for the monuments of the Nile, even
to the uninformed eye, began to wear the garb of probability — to the hieroglyphical student,.
who had actually biheld with his own eyes these monuments in Egypt itself, they had
assumed in that year the aspect of certainty.
It is a remarkable fact, that with the exception of Wilkinson, whose chronological consistency
has been indicated [supra), not one of those Egyptologists of whom the critical opinion
is now authoritative, and who, at this day, yet aspires to the name of a sAori-chronologist
(that is, one to whom the Usherian deluge, at b . c. 2348, is a bed of Procrustes), has ever
studied Egyptian monuments in Egypt!- Much allowance, therefore, should be made for
living English scholars who still, like the ostrich, bury their heads in gand; surrounded as
they are, essentially^ by the “ intellectual flunkeyism” for which this age, in England, is
eminently celebrated among scientific men on the Continent and in the United States. The
ponderous weight of brains, congealed in the “ cast-iron moulds” of Oxford and Cambridge,
presses upon British intelligence a n d education with the numbing power of an
incubus. Among recent vindicators of the claims of Egypt to the longest chronology is
Ferguson (“ True Principles of Beauty in Art,” &c., London, 1849), to whose crushing pamphlet
we must refer admirers of the educational “ standard of a by-gone and semi-barbarous
a g e ,” upheld' in “ the Sister U n iv e r sitie sw ith which standard the citizens of republican
America, of course, need have nothing to do, physically, morally, or intellectually. (394)
The discovery made by Lepsius, in 1840 (not publicly known for some years later), that
the Tablet of Abydos, between Carlouche No. 40 and No. 39, omits the XHIth, XIYth, XVth,
XYIth, and XYIIth Manethonian dynasties, thus jumping over the entire HyTcsos-period, (895)
(392) I am happy to find th a t this (by myself long ago abandoned— Otia, pp. 37-42) scheme of the possible
epoch of Menes, approximates so nearly to the date adopted by Nolan; who places, according to the. “ Old Chronicle,”
Menes (whom he takes to be Noah I) a t B.C. 2673; or only ten years difference from “ my reduction
of the Old Chronicle, B. O, 2683,” five years previously—(compare Egyptian Chronology analysed', London, 1848;
pp. 133, 156, 212, and 399, with Chapters, p. 51). Still less doesJt differ from the point at which a “ great
authority, whoso permission I have not asked to give his name,” fixes [astronomically speaking) the era of
Egypt’s first Pharaoh : viz., b. c. 2714-’15 — the very date (b. c. 2715) to which I had reduced Manetho, in 1843.
Compare lAterary Gazette; London, 1849; pp. 485, 522, and 641; w ith Chapters; p. 51.) — G. R. G.
(393) “ Relative Epochs of Mummies/’ in Otia Mgyptiaca; pp. 78-87; algo, pp. 113-115.
(394) Observations on the British Museum, National Gallery, and National Record Office; London, 1849.
(395) Bunsen: JEgypteris Sidle; 1845; ii. p. 277 ; and Egypt's Place; 1848; pp. 42, 49, 52. Compare Hinoks:
On the Egyptian Stele; 1841; p. 68; and Bjbucchi: Discorsi Critici sopra la Cronologia Egizia; Torino, 1845;
pp. 129-131.
' •
had marked a new era in the chronological consideration to be .awarded to some royal gene-
a,logical Tablets. This discovery was by far the most important feature of that day ; but
so varied and unforeseen were the victorious achievements effected, in the year 1843, by the
Prussian Scientific Mission, among the pyramids, from Memphis to the Labyrinth ; so completely
have they revolutionized all preceding judgments upon Nilotic antiquity ; that we
must pause to indicate how they originated, and where they are to be found.
Chevalier Richard Lepsius, long celebrated as Corresponding Secretary of the Institute
of Archoeological Correspondence at Rome, directed his studies into Egyptology soon after the
publication of a prize-essay, (896) that placed him in the front rank of linguistical scholarship
in 1834. A Lettre à M, le Prof, Hippolite Rosellini sur VAlphabet Hiéroglyphique, 1837, (397)
next announced, to the world of science, that the loss of the illustrious Champollion
had but momentarily arrested the onward march of his disciples. The return of Perring
from Egypt after his indefatigable exploration of 39 pyramids, (398) [rendered the fact
generally known that, immense as had been his own successes, the necropolis of Memphis
had, notwithstanding, scarcely begun to yield up its historical treasures. French and
Tuscan national, with English private enterprise, had been rewarded, in the valley of the
Nile, by victories over past time as noble as they were scientific. It remained for Frederic
William IVth of Prussia to give full scope to the hitherto pent-up yearnings of Germany
towards Egyptian discovery ; and upon Lepsius, in 1842, naturally fell the manllcs 0f his
predecessors.
With eight coadjutors, the Chief of the Prussian Scientific Mission pitched his tents in
the shadow of the great Pyramid on the 9th of November, 1842.
By May, 1,843, he was enabled to announce that the Germans had gleaned the sites of
thirty other pyramids, entirely unknown to him (Mr. Perring), or to any preceding travellers
Ot these, not a few are of very considerable extent, bearing evident traces o f the mode
in which they were raised, and surrounded by the ruins of temnles, and extensive fields
of tombs or burial-grounds. AU these pyramids, without exception, belong to the ancient
kingdom ot Egypt before the irruption of the Hykahos, who invaded Lower Egypt about the
year 2000 b . c ., and the whole of them were erected (those at least between Abrorooàsh and
ra! r 0ri byA mg? reigned at Memphis. To the same period belong also the majority
ot the effaced tombs, of any importance, that surround them.” (399)
After determination Of the sites, and unfolding much of the history of “ sixty-seven pyramids,”
sepulchres of ancient Egyptian sovereigns ; together with “ one hundred and thirty
private tombs ” of noble families, with these sovereigns coetaneous, back to the “ fourth
thousand year before Christ,” the Prussians proceeded up the river; exploring every foot
of ground, as far as Sob a on the Blue Nile (Bahr-el-Azrek), and Sennàr to the 13 th degree of
N. latitude ; returning to Thebes on the 2d November, 1844. While his able assistants prosecuted
the necessary labors amid Theban ruins, Lepsius orossed the Red Sea and explored
the Sinaic Peninsula ; not only, thereby, rescuing from perdition hieroglyphical records of
mining operations conducted between the IVth and the Xllth dynasty, 3400—2200 b . c .,
but also ascertaining that, if the Gebel Serbàl be not the Mount of Moses, of which there
is little doubt, (400) the peaks above the Convent of St. Catherine most assuredly are not.
Revisiting Thebes, Lepsius left it with his party on the 16th May, 1845: and after examining
the land of Goshen, much of Palestine, and touching at Smyrna and Constantinople,
landed at Trieste on the 5th January, 1846 : having spent above thirty-six months in unparalleled
monumental researches on the river, alluvium, and deserts of the Nile.
The reader-wili now perceive that we'are dealing in realities; that our Egyptian deductions
are based upon actual and positive researches, made by the “ primi inter pares” of
K 1' aoeT aphie hlittclfür die Sprachfcrscliung zunachst am Sanscrit nachgewiesm; Berlin, 1 S 3 5 ; 8vo.
{ Annali ddP Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica; vol. ix.; Roma 1837.
(398) V y s e : The Pyramids from Actual''Survey ; Bird vol.; 1841.
(399) L e p s iu s ; Ueber den Ban der Pgramidm: Berlin Academy, August, 1843; pp. 2, 3 ; - s e e the order of
nouncement of these discoveries in Gltddon : Otia; 1849; pp. 30-42.
w i ^ / ^ r / T 1 Th‘ieS ,sïnai> m Manh end April, 1845; transi. Co tteh a ; London, 1846.
to the men8 5 Ga~man o d ,t io n 1 with its tin ted map, without which L e p s iu s ’s certain discovery «v me general reader. is not so evident