sieurs siècles les mesures qu’on lui avait imposées au nom des calouls que la chronologie
ordinaire avait fondés sur la généalogie d’A5raAim.” (409)
We moreover coincide entirely in the same ahthor’s doctrine, when, after indicating the
various chances of miscalculation inherent in Egyptian no less than in all other chronologies,
he declares : —
“ These oauses of error, which cross each other in every direction, make up a large part
of uncertainty, for any chronological sum that it may be wished to draw-from the sole
addition of reigns, after a nuniber of centuries at all considerable. The chances of inexactitude
augment with the number of partial sums ; and I have always thought that an uncertitude
of more than 200 years was very admissible, in the ciphers that result from
monumental dates combined with the lists of Manetho, when one rempunts to the XVIIIth
dynasty, after the expulsion of the shepherds.” (410)
Nor need any doubt be entertained upon De Rougé’s adoption of the most lengthy chronology,
when he declares elsewhere—| Were we to accept the data most clearly preserved
in Manetho, the Xllth dynasty must have preceded the Christian era by thirty-four centuries”
(411)
We have already seen that, in England, the profoundest hieroglyphical scholar, Birch of
the British Museum, tabulates Manethonian dynasties in their serial order, but without
encumbering his monumental discoveries with any arithmetical chronology. Kenrick follows
Lepsius. Hinck’s former depression of the feign of Ramses II., in the XVIIIth
dynasty, and of Thotmes HI. to the year 1355 B. o., on the ground that Egyptian armies
(born amidst solar calorics) avoided the heat of the weather, (412) was an argument too
feeble to be seriously combated ; but the matured judgment of this universal savant favors
every scientifical extension demanded for Nilotic annals.
“ A statement has been preserved, to which I am now inclined to attach more credit than
I did formerly, that the Egyptians reckoned all the dynasties from Menes to Ochus as occupying
3555 years.- If from this number we subtract 2291, which the Egyptians reckoned
from Menes to the end of the Xllth dynasty, we have 1264 from the end of the Xllth
dynasty to Ochus, or to 340 b . c. This would place the Xllth dynasty between the limits
1817 and 1604 b . c. ; and I am disposed to accept these dates, as the genuine Egyptian
computation. Nor indeed do I see much reason to question their correctness.”
Followers ourselves “ of the German and French school,” we pause not to debate the
learned Irishman’s deductions as to such an untenably modem date for the Xllth dynasty;
but, adding his accepted 3555 years to the reign of Ochus, b . o. 340, we are gratified in
finding that Dr. Hincks, (413) with several Germans and Frenchmen,places Menes at 3895
years before c. ; and henceforward, therefore, can enrol, as we have already, his great name
among the long chronologists. ,
On the opposite side, as representative of the shortest Egyptian computation, stands a
gentleman, whose vast classical erudition, and keener criticism, we are always proud to
acknowledge; and it is with pain that, having so often availed ourselves of his instructive
pages, especially in regard to biblical history and exegesis, that, in Egyptian chronology,
we must protest against the contracted system of a great Hellenist, Mr. Samuel Sharpe.
With respectful deference we would, however, submit objections to his assumed dates for
Osirtesen, whom he arbitrarily changes into an “ Amunmai Thor I. (414) still more emphatically
to his views upon Menes. Scientific criticism, to be practically useful, must be
free ; and pupils, often, of Mr. Sharpe in its application to the Greek New Testament, and
to the theosophical notions of the Alexandria School, we feel persuaded that no writer of
the day loves truth more than himself. We may therefore utter our mode of viewing it.
(409) Examen de VOuvrage de M. Bunsen; p. 82, Annales de Philosophie Chrétiennes, 184T.
(410) Dr B o ug é : Mémoire sur guelgues Phénomènes Célestes; Bev. Archéol., 183; p. 654; — Çomp. Otia, p. 41.
(411) Sur le Sésostris de la Douzième Dynastie; Bev. Archéol., 1847 ; p. 482.
(412) Bev. Dr.-HiNCKS: On the Age of the XTIllth Dynasty; Trans. K. Irish Acad, 1846; xxi. pp. 5-9.
(413) Observations of Dr. E. Hincks, in W ilk in so n ' s “ Hieratic Papyrus of Kings at Turin,” 1851 ; pp. 67, 58.
(414) History of Egypt; new edition; London, 1846; pp. 7, 9 ,1 0 ;— Chronology and Geography of Anaal
Egypt; 1849; pp. 4,14, pi. 2, figs. 25, 32.
The contemporaneousness of Egyptian dynasties (415) we have always repudiated; (416)
hut, until the appearance of Lepsius’s “ Book of Kings,” when our assent may possibly be
yielded (if monuments to us now unknown establish it), in respect to the 1st and lid , YIth
and Vllth (VIHth), Xth and Xlth, X lllth and XIYth, and XVth and XVIth, Manethonian
dynasties, we should commit the same fallacy, so frequently blamed in others, if we spoke
dogmatically on that point without the new documents of the Prussian Mission. There is
no more foundation, however, for Mr. Sharpe’s dynastic arrangement than were we to
make Canute's invasion of England coeval with Wil l ia m the Conqueror in the reign of
J ames !•> under the synthronic sway of Geo rg e III and the Prince Regent. It is a
favorite hypothesis of his own ; in which not an Egyptologist coincides. But for the exposure
of a radical error in Mr. Sharpe’s system—root of all his deviations from hierologioal
practice—our knife must be applied to one of its many vital spots. In his imménsely-
valuable folio plates, (417) through inadvertency, he had read
J nfr, (418) the “ lutè,” théorbe, in lieu of | tt; (419) the “ blade of an oar,”
as tke sculpture stands. Through misapprehension of the groups (in line 9 compared with
line .2, of the same inscription), Mr. Sharpe then deemed that this malcopied sign “ nfr ”
was the homophone of I
I b, (420) the “ human leg
and, in consequence, he always reads “ nfr ” as if it were the latter articulation— “ That
the arrow-shaped character is rightly sounded B or Y is proved by its admitting that sound
in the above four names, as also in No. 160 and No. 165.” (421) The extraordinary metamorphoses
of well-known royal names which this misconception, founded upon a mistake,
has occasioned, are too evident to the hierologist to require comment. Unfortunately,
through- such concatenation of fallacies, Mr. Sharpe (422) transmutes the prenomen of
Queen AMENSeT,(423) and the nomen of this queen’s husband AMENEMHA, (424) and
the oval of MENKERA, (425) into a fabulously bisexual “ Mychera-Amun Neitchori”—■
rolls up the IVth, Vlth, and XVIIIth dynasties into one—and thus makes the 3d pyramid
of Geezeh ( b . c. 3300) contemporary with the majestic obelisk (b . c. 1600) in the temple
of Xarnac ! It is as if one were to call E dward the C.onfessor the same personage as “ V ic toria
and A lb er t and then to insist that the former’s tomb in Westminster Abbey must
be coeval with the equestrian statue of We lling to n at Hyde Park corner ! (426)
Mr. Sharpe’s restricted system of Egyptian chronology, for times anterior to Th othmos is
III. (placed by him in the 14th century b . c.) , may now be considered as “ non-avenu.”
But, while compelled to shatter its.superstructures down to his XVIIIth dynasty, let no one
impute to us lack of respect for the profound author of the “ History of Egypt” — a work
that (from page 30 to 592) ever has our warmest admiration. Contenders for the longest
(415) Sh a r p e : Chronology ; pp. 14,'15.
(416) G l id d o n : Chapters; p. 57 ; — Otia ; pp. 39, 45.
(417) Sh a r p e : Inscriptions in British Museum,; pi. cxvi., line 9, and line-2.
(418) B u n s en : Eg. FI,, i. p. 587, No. 31; —Ch a m po l u o n : Dictionnaire; p. 293, No. 338 — “ NOFRE.”
(419) B u n sen : No. 30 ; — C h a m po l u o n : p. 378, No. 459 — “ TOTJW.”
(420) B u n s e n : p. 5.58, B, 1 ; - - C h a m po l u o n : p. 100, No. 60¡É; “ B.”
(421) Chronology ; p. 4.
(422) Op. cit. ; p. 6, Nos. 60, 61, 60 ; and plate ii., figs. 60, 61, 62.
(423) R o se l l in i : Cartouche No. 103.
(424) Ibid. ; Cartouche No. 103/.
(425) B u n s en : Ægyptens SteOe; iii., pi. i. — Men-lce-tora.
(426) I t is a year ago since this was written, and so reluctant do I feel to contradict a respected fellow-
laborer, th a t I should have suppressed these comments hut for a “ rifacimento” of the same doctrines reported
m the London Athenaeum, Nov. 19, 1853. “ The third aim of the paper was to show th a t the 3d and 4th pyramids
were hoth made by Queen Nitocris, who governed Egypt during the minority of Thotmosis the Hid. Tho
name of King Mycera has been found in both of these pyramids ; Mycera is the first name of Queen Nitocris f j |
and it was probably the name used in" Memphis for Thothmosis the Hid.” &c.-(Syro-Egyptian Soc., Nov. 8.)