THE 
 
 * % sao 
 
 EGYPTIAN DYNASTIES 
 
 OF 
 
 MANETHO. 
 
 Reprinted from The Journal of Sacred Literature and 
 Biblical Record for January , 1863. 
 
 cC 'Jb' 'PucJ( J S‘ 
 
 FOR PRIVATE USE. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 MITCHELL AND SON, PRINTERS, W ARDOUR STREET, W. 
 
 i 
 
THE 
 
 EGYPTIAN DYNASTIES OF MANETHO. 
 
 1. Few persons would probably hesitate to admit that if we pos- 
 sessed the chronological work of Manetho in its original form, 
 we should have information on which we could reasonably depend 
 as to the duration of each Egyptian dynasty, and as to the interval 
 between its commencement and a fixed point of time, for at 
 least as far back as the expulsion of the Hyk-Shos. On the 
 other hand, few persons would venture to assert that any of the 
 lists of kings, with the durations of their respective reigns, which 
 have been handed down to us as those of Manetho, can be de- 
 pended on as really his. The discrepancy which everywhere exists 
 between these lists appears to most persons a sufficient reason 
 for rejecting the authority of them all. This being the case, it 
 becomes a question, whether any certainty is attainable in re- 
 spect to Egyptian chronology. It is vain to appeal to the 
 monuments. I do not say this with reference to the scepticism 
 which still exists as to there being any monumental evidence 
 which can be depended on as properly interpreted. Scepticism 
 like this can only exist where the grounds of hieroglyphical in- 
 terpretation have not been properly investigated. I say how- 
 ever, advisedly, that we do not yet possess, and that it is ex- 
 tremely unlikely that we ever shall possess, such monumental 
 evidence as would enable us to construct a chronological canon. 
 
 2. The chronological value of the evidence which we possess 
 is extremely small. The Egyptian kings dated their public acts, 
 not from any fixed epoch, but by the years of their respective 
 reigns. In a few instances the interval between events which 
 occurred in recorded regnal years of different kings is recorded 
 also ; and when this is the case we can compute the interval be- 
 tween their accessions. We know in this manner that Ahmos 
 the Saite came to the throne forty years after Nekau, and Pemi 
 fifty-two years after Shishonk III. In a few other instances, 
 where the reign of a king overlapped that of his successor, and 
 where the regnal years of both the existing kings are recorded 
 together, the interval between their accessions can also be deter- 
 mined. In this manner I ascertained, many years ago, that the 
 first year of T’usortasen II. was the thirty-third of his father, 
 Amen-em-he II. ; and that the first year of the latter was the 
 forty-third of his grandfather, T'usortasen I., whom he suc- 
 ceeded. The number of cases, however, in which intervals be- 
 tween the commencement of reigns can be determined with 
 accuracy by either of these methods is so extremely small, when 
 
4 
 
 The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 compared with the entire number of reigns, as, in place of en- 
 couraging us to hope for ultimate success in constructing a per- 
 fect canon, to lead us to despair of even approximating to its 
 construction. 
 
 3. In a few instances, but a few only, genealogies exist which 
 link together by a known number of generations an earlier and 
 a later reign. We have it on record, for example, that in the 
 thirty-seventh year of Shishonk IV., which must have been one 
 of the very last years of the twenty-second dynasty, a tablet 
 was erected by a person who was ninth in descent from Shis- 
 honk I., the founder of the dynasty. Assuming that Osorkon 
 I., his ancestor in the eighth degree, was of the same age when 
 his father became king as he himself was when he erected the 
 tablet, the duration of the dynasty would be exactly measured 
 by eight generations ; and it could not be very much more or 
 very much less than this." There is, I believe, no instance in 
 Egyptian history where a genealogical tablet gives such good 
 chronological evidence as this; and yet how far is this from 
 giving us accurate information ! The dynasty lasted “ about 
 eight generations ;” how many years should that be reckoned 
 to be ? In English history a generation has been on an average 
 about 32 years. Between the birth of William the Conqueror 
 and that of Queen Victoria, the twenty-fifth in descent from 
 him, 792 years intervened. At this rate eight generations would 
 occupy 2534 years. In ancient times and in eastern countries 
 the average was less. The interval between the births of Reho- 
 boam and Jeconiah, the sixteenth in descent from him, was 
 about 416 years, giving 208 for the eight generations. The 
 highest sum of eight consecutive generations in the line of 
 Rehoboam is 244 years, the lowest, 195. The genealogy to 
 which I have referred may be regarded as conclusive against 
 those who, relying on the statements attributed to Manetho by 
 Julius Africanus, make the duration of this dynasty only 120 
 or even 116 years; and it harmonizes well with the reading 
 “ 202 years,” which I will hereafter shew to have been what 
 Manetho really made it ; but I would not venture to rely on 
 this genealogy as conclusive against the views of Lepsius and 
 Bunsen, who, with the knowledge of what it contains, have 
 assigned to the dynasty 174 and 176 years respectively. We 
 may assume 25 years as a probable average for a generation; 
 
 ° That Shishonk I. was not a very young man when he obtained the king- 
 dom, and that Osorkon his son had then attained to man’s estate, are evident 
 from the monumentally-recorded fact (Nile statue, British Museum) that Osor- 
 kon, and not Shishonk himself, married the daughter of Psusennes, the last king 
 of the twenty-first dynasty. 
 
The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 5 
 
 but even if the length of the dynasty had been accurately, in- 
 stead of approximately, measured by eight generations, a large 
 margin must be allowed on each side within which it might 
 range without being decidedly at variance with what is stated in 
 the genealogical inscription. 
 
 4. Neither is the evidence to be obtained from regnal dates 
 to be implicitly relied on. Some persons seem to have thought 
 that a chronological canon might be constructed by counting 
 the highest regrial years of the successive kings which occur in 
 the dates of tablets. But, on the one hand, we can never be 
 sure that the highest date found is the highest that may have 
 existed. The highest regnal year, for example, which has been 
 found for Shishonk III. is his twenty-ninth year; and yet there 
 is evidence, to which I have already adverted (§ 2), that he 
 reigned fifty-two. On the other hand, in such cases of joint 
 reigns as I have mentioned in the latter part of § 2, it is manifest 
 that if the highest regnal years of all the kings were to be 
 taken as the lengths of their reigns, the years in which two 
 sovereigns reigned together would be counted twice over. Nor 
 have we any right to assume that cases of this kind were few in 
 number, or that the durations of these joint reigns were always 
 small. There is a stele at Leyden (V., 4) which has the double 
 date of the fourty-fourth year of T’usortasen I. and the second 
 of Amen-em-he II. There is another tablet (Sharpe, i., 83) which 
 appears to be dated in the following year, the third of Amen- 
 em-he II. No second date accompanies this, but king T’usor- 
 tasen I. is mentioned in the body of the inscription, and his 
 name is followed by the addition “ May he live !” which cha- 
 racterizes living kings ; while his father’s name has the usual 
 addition “ who hath spoken truth (or been justified)/’ which is 
 characteristic of the dead. In this instance I suppose no one 
 would question that T’usortasen I. was still alive; yet in a 
 similar instance in the twenty-second dynasty, the validity of 
 this conclusion is strenuously denied. In the Karnac inscription 
 (Lepsius’ Auswahl, 15) dated in the eleventh year of Takelut, 
 king Osorkon, the grandfather of his wife, and, as I take it, 
 his own father, is mentioned with the very same addition “ May 
 he live !” I shall have to return to the consideration of this 
 clause (see § 57). I will only remark here, that it is at least 
 possible that king Osorkon was actually alive in the eleventh 
 year after his son had begun to reign in conjunction with him ; 
 nor should I be surprised at the discovery of a document dated 
 during these eleven years, bearing the names and years of both 
 the kings, or the name and year of Osorkon alone. 
 
 5. Another source of error in computation by regnal years 
 
6 
 
 The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 is the possible existence of double epochs at which reigns may 
 he reckoned to commence. There may be cases in Egyptian 
 history analogous to what occurred in the time of James I., or 
 Charles IT. In the former instance, a king who had reigned 
 for sixteen years in Scotland from his mother's death, became 
 king of England, and reigned over both countries for twenty- 
 two years more. A chronologer who, possessing no historical 
 information, should take as his guide dated documents only, 
 might discover from English documents that the first year of 
 Charles I. was only twenty-two years after the first of James I., 
 and might come to the blundering conclusion that the reign of 
 Mary of Scotland terminated when that of Elizabeth really ter- 
 minated. This hypothesis would, of course, destroy the earlier 
 synchronisms between Scottish and English history; and it might 
 then occur to our supposed chronologer that the best way of 
 setting matters straight would be to strike off twenty years or so 
 from the long reign of Elizabeth. Absurd as this mode of pro- 
 ceeding must appear to persons acquainted with English and 
 Scottish history, its absurdity would not appear to one who had 
 only a few detached documents before him, relating to private 
 affairs, although dated by regnal years. What I have supposed 
 that this chronologer might have done is exactly parallel to what 
 our best Egyptologers have done. A document is discovered 
 which proves that the reign of Tirhaka as king of Egypt 
 (reckoning from the death of Seti III.) was only twenty-seven 
 years before the first of Psamitik I. ; the false inference is 
 drawn that his reign as king of Ethiopia (reckoning from the 
 death of Shebetok, which was fourteen years earlier) began 
 twenty-seven years only before that of Psamitik I. The con- 
 sequence of this false inference is, that the conquest of Egypt 
 by Shebek is made to fall a good many years after the conquest 
 of Samaria; and as Hoshea, the last king of Samaria, is said to 
 have made an alliance with Shebek, the anachronism thus pro- 
 duced is removed, not (as it ought to have been) by adding to 
 the Egyptian chronology the fourteen years which had been 
 improperly omitted, but by striking off twenty years from the 
 reign of Manasseh of Judah, which is considered sufficiently 
 long to admit of this reduction ! It goes for nothing with the 
 gentlemen who have made this correction , forsooth, of Egyptian 
 chronology, that in the second book of Kings, Tirhaka is called 
 king of Cush, or Ethiopia, a “ Pharaoh king of Egypt" being 
 spoken of as his cotemporary ; that Herodotus speaks of Sethos 
 as king of Egypt when Sennacherib invaded Palestine, and that 
 Sennacherib himself speaks of having for his adversaries “ kings 
 of Egypt and the king of Ethiopia." All these proofs that the 
 
The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 7 
 
 invasion of Sennacherib took place while Tirhaka was king of 
 Ethiopia, and before he had become king of Egypt, are disre- 
 garded ; and to meet the supposed exigency of an Egyptian 
 regnal date, Jewish, Assyrian, and Babylonian chronologies are 
 all recklessly violated. 
 
 6. The other occasion in English history which I mentioned 
 as what might give rise to a chronological blunder, is the reign 
 of Charles IT. Counting from the death of his father, from 
 which he reckoned his regnal years, to his own death, he reigned 
 thirty-six years ; but in reality he began to reign in what he 
 called his fourteenth year, thirteen years having belonged to 
 the Commonwealth. So far as respects chronology, it does not 
 matter whether the interval between the deaths of father and 
 son be counted as thirty-six years of Charles II., or as thirteen 
 years of the Commonwealth and twenty-three of Charles II. ; 
 but it would he a serious chronological error, into which however 
 a person would be very likely to fall who had only detached 
 regnal years to guide him, if this interval were counted as thir- 
 teen years of the Commonwealth and thirty-six of Charles II. 
 Some instances are certainly to be met with in Egyptian history 
 in which a chronologer would be likely to commit an error 
 analogous to this ; but I will not enter on the discussion of them 
 here. I have said, I believe, quite enough to shew that the evi- 
 dence furnished by the Egyptian monuments is quite insufficient 
 for the construction of a chronological system. It may accredit, 
 or it may shew the worthlessness of, dynastic lists — it may 
 verify, or it may overturn, a chronological system otherwise 
 constructed; but of itself it can produce nothing that can be 
 relied on. 
 
 7. This being the case, it is evident that if a correct chrono- 
 logy of the Egyptian dynasties can be obtained at all, it must 
 be obtained from the dynastic lists attributed to Manetho ; a 
 comparison of which in their present state of corruption may 
 enable us to discover what Manetho really wrote. The problem 
 to be solved is this : — Given the durations assigned to the dynas- 
 ties and reigns by Africanus and Eusebius, and to the dynasties 
 by the compiler of the Old Chronicle ; to recover by legitimate 
 criticism the durations originally assigned to them by Manetho 
 himself; from which all the existing documents have been de- 
 rived by misconceptions of Manetho’s meaniug, blundering at- 
 tempts at correcting his supposed errors, and subsequently to 
 these , deliberate falsifications, with a view to bring lists which 
 appeared to be inconsistent with the received Biblical chrono- 
 logy into harmony with it. I believe that I have completely 
 solved this problem. In the present article I give the durations 
 
8 
 
 The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 of the dynasties according to the restored text of Manetho, 
 with such explanations as are necessary to the correct under- 
 standing of his chronological system ; and I then gave the syn- 
 chronisms by which the correctness of my restoration is, as I 
 conceive, established. In a subsequent article it is my intention 
 to fill up the outline which I have here drawn, by giving a 
 restoration of the durations assigned to the several reigns by 
 Manetho. In the meantime it is my wish that what I now 
 publish should undergo the most searching criticism. 
 
 8. It will be observed that I go no further back than to the 
 commencement of the eighteenth dynasty. Manetho himself, 
 as will be seen, marks this as a point of chronological departure ; 
 and the data by which, as I conceive, his text can be confidently 
 restored back to this point, fail as to earlier dynasties. I ought 
 to remark also that I carefully distinguish in my investigation 
 between two things which some enquirers have confounded, 
 namely, the true chronology of the period, and the chronology 
 of it according to the mind of Manetho. I have, in the first 
 instance, sought to discover the latter, using no other data than 
 the three corrupt lists which I have mentioned, and those Greek 
 writings which guided those who prepared them in their cor- 
 ruptions. Thus my restoration of the text of Manetho stands 
 absolutely independent of Egyptian monumental evidence. And 
 yet it can scarcely be doubted that Manetho had correct in- 
 formation with respect to the period in question, and that even 
 when he thought it necessary to deviate from historical truth, 
 he adhered strictly to chronological truth. I mean to say that, 
 though he might misrepresent facts in a manner analogous to 
 that of an English historian, who, ignoring the Commonwealth, 
 ascribed thirty-six years to Charles II. of England as his reign 
 de facto, he always in his summaries of the reigns in the dynas- 
 ties gave the correct sums; so that the commencements of the 
 several dynasties are all truly given. Hence the synchronisms, 
 by which I shew that the dates according to my system are cor- 
 rectly given, are evidences also of the correctness of my restora- 
 tions of Manetho^s text. 
 
 9. The restoration that I have given is, as I have said, wholly 
 independent of Egyptian monumental evidence. I have, how- 
 ever, tested it as well as I could by this last ; and I am not 
 aware of a single fact, nor do I believe that any exists, which is 
 established by monumental evidence, and yet inconsistent with 
 my system. This is, however, a matter on which I challenge 
 the most searching criticism. If any such supposed fact be 
 produced, either in the April number of this Journal or in a 
 private letter to myself, and if I cannot shew that the person 
 
The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 9 
 
 who produces it is mistaken in supposing it either to be esta- 
 blished by monumental evidence or to be inconsistent with my 
 restored chronology, I will admit that, however plausible my 
 restoration may be, it is unsound. I have no expectation, how- 
 ever, that this will be the case; and I hope that in the July 
 number I shall be able to give, together with a triumphant reply 
 to my assailants, if any, a restoration of the duration of the 
 reigns in the dynasties as originally given by Manetho. I hold 
 this in reserve, until my restoration of the duration of the dynas- 
 ties be sufficiently tested. 
 
 10. Let it be observed, however, that it is to facts alone that 
 I will surrender my opinion. Authority will have no weight with 
 me. I am perfectly well aware that almost all Egyptologers sup- 
 port a chronological system which is altogether opposed to mine. 
 They think that the accession of Rehoboam to the throne of 
 Judah, and that of Shishonk to the throne of Egypt, which 
 almost immediately preceded it, took place considerably after 
 the time assigned to them in the margins of our tables ; and in 
 this Sir Henry Rawlinson and Mr. Bosanquet agree with them. 
 And they refer the exodus to the latter part of the nineteenth 
 dynasty. I maintain, on the contrary, and I think demon- 
 strate, that the accessions of Shishonk and Rehoboam were in 
 980 and 979 b.c.; and that consequently no curtailment of the 
 reign of any of the kings of J udah is admissible ; nor any such 
 arrangement of the Persian reigns as Mr. Bosanquet proposes. 
 I shew also that the Egyptian reign, in which Egyptologers place 
 the exodus, did not commence till about 250 years before the 
 death of Solomon ! By me the exodus is placed at a far earlier 
 period. This great diversity between my views and those which 
 are generally entertained, renders it a matter of course that quo- 
 tations from various eminent Egyptologers can be produced ad 
 libitum, expressing opinions which, if taken as standards of 
 truth, would prove me to be in error. Such quotations, how- 
 ever, being mere expressions of opinion, have not the slightest 
 weight with me. Unless some monumentally-recorded fact can 
 be produced, which is inconsistent with my chronological ar- 
 rangement of the dynasties, I shall continue to hold that its 
 inconsistency with the opinions of Egyptologers is no proof 
 whatever that it is wrong ; the fact being that the inconsistent 
 opinions of Egyptologers are wrong. Again, as respects Sir 
 Henry Rawlinson’s canon. This is not a cotemporary document, 
 but a compilation made by an unknown person in the reign of 
 Assur-bani-bal. Its inconsistency with my restoration of 
 Manetho, supported as this is by recorded astronomical observa- 
 tions, proves that the compiler of the canon was a blunderer; 
 
10 
 
 The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 and that the early dates which it is supposed to give are incor- 
 rect. Again, as to the Astronomer Royal, while I would cheer- 
 fully submit to him our astronomical questions generally, I 
 except the two questions, which are linked together, of the date 
 of the Medo-Lydian war, and the magnitude of the moon’s 
 acceleration. I protest against any argument against my restora- 
 tion which may be drawn from its inconsistency with his no- 
 tions, that the Medo-Lydian war was terminated by the eclipse 
 of 585 b.c., and that the coefficient of T 2 in the mean elonga- 
 tion of the moon, was 12"- 192, as Hansen makes it, or even 
 more. On the contrary, I appeal to the monumentally-recorded 
 eclipse, which I shall bring forward as furnishing conclusive evi- 
 dence that the coefficient of T 2 is much less than this, and con- 
 sequently that the moon’s shadow in the eclipse of 585 b.c. 
 could not have passed where the Astronomer Royal supposes 
 that it did. 
 
 11. It is to facts monumentally recorded alone that I will 
 yield ; and if any one brings forward facts which he may con- 
 ceive to be at variance with my views, I have to request that 
 he will quote the precise fact monumentally recorded. There is 
 very great temptation to quote, as a monumentally-recorded 
 fact, what is not really so, but an inference from one ; the sup- 
 pressed premise of the enthymeme being one, of which the 
 person who has drawn the inference has no doubt, but of which 
 others may entertain very great doubts, which, in short, they 
 may regard as positively erroneous. The extent to which this 
 error has been committed by Egyptologers is really surprising. 
 References to the evidence quoted should also be precise. 
 
 12. One word more of preliminary matter. The views put 
 forward in this paper are not, so far as I am aware, held by any 
 one but myself. Some of them I expressed so long ago as in 
 March, 1856. See th e Literary Gazette for that year, p. 111. 
 I advanced further in a paper in The Journal of Sacred Litera- 
 ture for October, 1858, p. 126 ; and still further in a paper in the 
 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1861, vol. xviii., p. 378. 
 In all these papers, while I was in the right direction and gradually 
 approaching the truth, I admitted errors which kept me from 
 attaining to it. My views are now matured. I have succeeded 
 in completely removing the inconsistencies which, though they 
 only introduced errors of small amount, disfigured my former 
 papers. I have produced an arrangement of the dynasties which 
 will, I flatter myself, be found to run on all fours ; my former 
 one, though much to be preferred to any that had been pre- 
 viously produced, limping in more places than one. As respects 
 the medium through which I publish this restoration of Mane- 
 
The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 11 
 
 tho, I think a weekly journal would be objectionable ; as in it 
 I could not publish at once the entire of my system, so far as 
 respects the dynasties, with the proofs of its truth. The Journal 
 of Sacred Literature seems to be preferable to that of the Royal 
 Asiatic Society, because the subject is closely connected with 
 sacred literature ; the chronology of the Israelites in Palestine, 
 and particularly that of their kings, is as much my subject of 
 discussion as that of the Egyptian dynasties ; and the views of 
 the early Christians as to Israelitish chronology have to be 
 taken into account as an important means of restoring the cor- 
 rupt text of Manetho. 
 
 13. The mode of proceeding by which I restore the original 
 dynastic durations of Manetho includes a double criticism. 
 These were depraved in the first instance by blundering Egyp- 
 tian or Greek writers, who looked no farther than Manetho, and 
 whose successive depravations of his numbers were the result of 
 misapprehensions of his meaning in the first instance, and of 
 injudicious attempts at restoring a text which they perceived to 
 be faulty, at a subsequent period. Three texts were thus formed, 
 which I will call A, B, and C, the last of them being the pro- 
 duction of a person who had the two former before him, and 
 who sought to reconcile their discrepancies. From these three 
 documents, that attributed to Africanus, that of the Old Chro- 
 nicle, and that of Eusebius were respectively derived, the pro- 
 cess in each case being a process of deliberate falsification of the 
 Egyptian text, grounded on non-Egyptian documents, with a 
 view to establish synchronisms between dates given by A, B, 
 and C, and dates supposed to be given by the non-Egyptian 
 documents. The processes by which the lists of the supposed 
 Africanus, the compiler of the Old Chronicle, and Eusebius, 
 were obtained from the original list of Manetho, have to be 
 reversed in our present proceeding. That is, we have, first, by 
 a criticism in which non-Egyptian documents play a principal 
 part, to recover the documents A, B, and C ; and we have, 
 secondly, by a criticism grounded on these three documents 
 alone, to obtain the original text of which they were corruptions. 
 
 14. I begin with the first criticism, the object of which is 
 from the three existing lists to recover the three lists A, B, and 
 C ; and I begin by remarking that in order that the result of the 
 criticism may be satisfactory, the criticism must proceed on 
 fixed and sound principles. In the first place, we have nothing 
 to do with the question, What is the truth? Chronological 
 truth is, I feel confident, contained in the original list of Ma- 
 netho, but it is certainly not contained in any of the lists, A, B, 
 and C. Nay, it is very possible that these may deviate from it 
 
12 
 
 The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 even more than the existing lists. Our present object is to 
 distinguish non-Egyptian corruptions from what is Egyptian ; 
 whether the latter be the truth of Manetho, or the blunders of 
 his followers. To distinguish what is Egyptian from what is 
 non-Egyptian, I lay down the following canons : — 
 
 I. If a number occurs in two of the existing lists, it is Egyp- 
 tian ; the number in the third list may, or may not, be Egyp- 
 tian. The three existing lists are independent of one another, 
 having been corrupted by persons who sought to establish by 
 their corruptions different synchronisms. It is, therefore, not to 
 be supposed that two of them should have obtained the same 
 numbers by their corruptions. 
 
 II. If a marginal note be appended to one of the lists, say 
 A, which is inconsistent with that list, the marginal note is 
 Egyptian, and probably Manetho's own, and the inconsistency 
 arises from one or more non-Egyptian corruptions. 
 
 III. Where any of the lists contains or implies a synchron- 
 ism with a non-Egyptian date, this synchronism has been pro- 
 duced by a corruption ; the interval between the Egyptian date 
 in the original list and the date which the compiler of the exist- 
 ing list believed to be the proper one having been added to, or 
 subtracted from, some one of the Egyptian numbers, or having 
 been divided into parts, which ^ ere added to, or subtracted from, 
 some two or more of the Epvptian numbers. 
 
 It will be seen that each of the three existing lists contains 
 a synchronism, produced by corruption, and that the three syn- 
 chronisms are all different. 
 
 IY. Where a number that has to be added or subtracted in 
 order to produce a synchronism is divided, it may be assumed 
 that the division is so made as that all the changes but one are 
 of the easiest and most obvious kind ; that is to say, additions 
 or subtractions of multiples of ten, or omissions of the units in 
 a number, so as to reduce it to a multiple of ten. 
 
 Y. Where a number is taken away from the duration of one 
 dynasty and added to that of another, in order to correct a sup- 
 posed non-Egyptian anachronism, the number so dealt with is 
 probably a round number, that is, a multiple of ten. 
 
 I lay down these canons in order that it may be seen that 
 my mode of proceeding is not an arbitrary one, and that the 
 result at which I arrive is the only one that can be legitimately 
 attained. 
 
 15. I will now consider what the synchronisms were which 
 guided the persons who introduced into the lists non-Egyptian 
 corruptions. Two of these are derived from the exodus of the 
 Israelites ; and it is therefore, necessary to consider at what date 
 
The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 13 
 
 the early Christians placed this. St. Clement of Alexandria 
 says expressly that the exodus took place 345 years before the 
 renewal of the canicular cycle, which we know was in 1322 b.c. 
 The date intended is therefore 1667 b.c. ; a date which appears 
 to have been that of all the early Christians, with the exception 
 of Julius Africanus, who threw the exodus back 130 years. In 
 the dynastic lists attributed to Africanus we find the accession 
 of the eighteenth dynasty placed in 1667 b.c., a marginal note 
 being added stating that this was also the date of the departure 
 of the Israelites under Moses. From this Bunsen inferred that, 
 when Clement placed the exodus in 1667 b.c., he meant that 
 this was the date of the accession of the eighteenth dynasty, 
 with which he erroneously supposed that the exodus synchronized. 
 I have not a copy of the Stromates within reach, but I believe 
 that there is no proof that he believed the exodus to synchronize 
 with the accession of the eighteenth dynasty. This, however, is 
 immaterial; others certainly thought so. But what appears to 
 me quite certain is that 1667 b.c. is given by him as the date of 
 the exodus itself, and that it was obtained from the Bible, with- 
 out any reference to Egyptian chronology. Instead of its being 
 borrowed from Manetho, as Bunsen imagined, the list which 
 bears the name of Africanus has suffered corruption, in order 
 that it might be brought into harmony with the Biblical date of 
 the exodus, which was assumed to be that of the accession of the 
 eighteenth dynasty. 
 
 16. In order that it may be clearly seen that this date of 
 1667 b.c. is a Biblical one, and that the authority on which it 
 rests may be made manifest, I will give the chronology of the 
 two books of Kings, according to the early Christians, and accord- 
 ing to the margin of the English Bible, in parallel columns ; the 
 difference between the two dates being given in a third column; 
 and whenever this difference changes, I will explain the grounds 
 of the change. 
 
 The Exodus 
 
 
 1667 
 
 B.C, 
 
 1491 
 
 B.C. 
 
 176 
 
 Building of the Temple. . . . 
 
 1027 
 
 99 
 
 1012 
 
 „ 
 
 15 (a) 
 
 Accession of Rehoboam. . . . 
 
 990 
 
 99 
 
 975 
 
 99 
 
 15 
 
 99 
 
 Abijam 
 
 973 
 
 99 
 
 958 
 
 99 
 
 15 
 
 1 „ 
 
 Asa 
 
 970 
 
 „ 
 
 955 
 
 99 
 
 15 
 
 99 
 
 Jehoshaphat. . 
 
 929 
 
 „ 
 
 914 
 
 99 
 
 15 
 
 99 
 
 Jehoram . . . . 
 
 904 
 
 „ 
 
 892 
 
 99 
 
 12 (1>) 
 
 
 Ahaziah 
 
 896 
 
 „ 
 
 885 
 
 
 11 (c) 
 
 99 
 
 Athaliah 
 
 895 
 
 99 
 
 884 
 
 99 
 
 11 
 
 
 Jehoash . . . . 
 
 889 
 
 99 
 
 878 
 
 99 
 
 11 
 
 99 
 
 Amaziah . . . . 
 
 849 
 
 
 839 
 
 
 10 (d) 
 
 99 
 
 Uzziah 
 
 820 
 
 99 
 
 810 
 
 99 
 
 10 
 
 99 
 
 Jotham 
 
 768 
 
 99 
 
 758 
 
 99 
 
 10 
 
 99 
 
 Ahaz 
 
 752 
 
 
 742 
 
 19 
 
 10 
 
 99 
 
 Hezekiah . . . . 
 
 736 
 
 ,9 
 
 726 
 
 
 10 
 
14 
 
 The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 Accession of Manasseh .... 
 
 707 b.c. 
 
 698 b.c. 
 
 9 (d) 
 
 „ Amon 
 
 652 „ 
 
 643 „ 
 
 9 
 
 „ Josiah 
 
 650 „ 
 
 641 „ 
 
 9 
 
 „ Jehoiakim. . . . 
 
 619 „ 
 
 610 „ 
 
 9 
 
 „ Zedekiah .... 
 
 608 „ 
 
 599 „ 
 
 9 (e) 
 
 17 (a). The difference between the two dates is here dimin- 
 ished by 161 years, of which the main part 160 is due to the 
 circumstance that in 1 Kings vi. 1 the early Christians read in 
 their Bibles “ six hundred and fortieth/' where our Bibles, fol- 
 lowing the present Hebrew text, read “ four hundred and 
 eightieth." In the text of the LXX., as now received, we have 
 “ four hundred and fortieth," — a corrupt reading made out of 
 the true reading of the LXX. and the translation of the Hebrew 
 text which Origen made for his Hexapla. The additional year 
 of difference arose from the early Christians having counted 640 
 complete years, whereas the English Bible counts 480 current 
 years, or 479 complete years. 
 
 18 (h). It is distinctly stated in 1 Kings xxii. 42, that Jeho- 
 shaphat reigned twenty-five years. In the margin of the English 
 Bible this is reduced to twenty-two, on the strength of certain 
 synchronisms between the reigns of the kings of Judah and 
 Israel, which, according to the present Hebrew text, are incon- 
 sistent with his having reigned twenty-five years. The passages 
 which give these synchronisms were translated into Greek by 
 Origen for his Hexapla, and from that, as in many other in- 
 stances, they have found their way into our present copies of the 
 LXX. The original reading of the LXX. is, however, given 
 also in these copies, and it fully supports the larger number of 
 years assigned to Jehoshaphat in the passage already cited. 
 After 1 Kings xvi. 28, the LXX., as uncorrupted, proceeds : 
 a And in the eleventh year of Omri Jehoshaphat the son of Asa 
 began to reign." Then follows the passage which in our present 
 Bibles stands as 1 Kings xxii. 42 — 50, substituting, however, in 
 verse 49 “ the king of Israel" for “ Ahaziah, the son of Ahab." 
 After relating the succession of Jehoram, the LXX. proceeds as 
 in 1 Kings xvii. 29, etc. ; but in the beginning of verse 29 it 
 reads, “ And in the second year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah 
 began Ahab," etc. 
 
 19 (c). It is stated in both the Hebrew text and the LXX. 
 that Jehoram reigned eight years. In the margin of the English 
 Bible, however, only seven are assigned to him. The suppression 
 of a year is, no doubt, due to the synchronisms which, as they 
 now stand in the Hebrew, cannot be reconciled with one another 
 without great difficulty, and without arbitrary assumptions of 
 kings reigning in consort, and reigns being counted from different 
 
The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 15 
 
 epochs. I observe that the latter part of 2 Kings i. 17 is 
 omitted in the LXX. It appears to be spurious. The Hebrew 
 text in 2 Kings viii. 16 does not admit the translation given in 
 the English Bible, which however is scarcely capable of a con- 
 sistent interpretation. The only admissible translation would 
 be, “And in the fifth year of Joram, the son of Ahab, king of 
 Israel, and of Jehoshaphat king of Judah;” which is mani- 
 festly self-contradictory. Our present copies of the LXX. furnish 
 us with no help. They contain a version of the Hebrew text, 
 probably that of Origen taken from the Hexapla . The genuine 
 reading of the LXX. is not given also , as it is in the First Book 
 of Kings. Under these circumstances the only safe course is to 
 have regard to the lengths of the reigns which are given, neg- 
 lecting the corrupted synchronisms ; and here we meet with no 
 difficulty, for the two sets of numbers correspond. In the Bibli- 
 cal chronology of the kings of Judah, I take it that we have a 
 chronological canon of the same nature as that of Ptolemy ; as 
 many years being assigned to each king as there were new moons 
 of Nisan in his reign. On the contrary, a reign of a king of 
 Israel was reckoned to include all the years in any part of which 
 he was king. His first year was the civil — or, as some call it, 
 the ecclesiastical year (beginning with the new moon of Nisan) — 
 in which he came to the throne ; while the accession of a king 
 of Judah might be described, in reference to the reign of a king 
 of Israel, either as the year corresponding to his first year, or 
 as the year next before this. The following table will shew how 
 the two sets of numbers of years assigned to the kings of Judah 
 and Israel correspond. I prefix years b.c. at the new moon 
 next after the vernal equinox of which the regnal years of the 
 kings of Judah commenced. For the present these years b.c. 
 may be regarded as arbitrary, and only approximate ; but I will 
 shew in the course of this paper that they are the true years, as 
 fixed by astronomical observations. I begin with the accession 
 of Omri in the thirty-first year of Asa, after the termination of 
 the civil war. See 1 Kings xvi. 23. 
 
 b.c. 929 
 
 Thirty-first Asa 
 
 First Omri 
 
 „ .919 
 
 Forty-first Asa 
 
 Eleventh Omri 
 
 „ 918 
 
 First Jehoshaphat 
 
 Twelfth Omri and first Ahab 
 
 „ 917 
 
 Second Jehoshaphat 
 
 Second Ahab 
 
 „ 897 
 
 Twenty-second Jehoshaphat 
 
 Twenty-second Ahab and first Ahaziah 
 
 „ 896 
 
 Twenty-third Jehoshaphat 
 
 Second Ahaziah and first Joram 
 
 „ 894 
 
 Twenty-fifth Jehoshaphat 
 
 Third Joram 
 
 „ 893 
 
 First Jehoram 
 
 Fourth Joram 
 
 „ 886 
 
 Eighth Jehoram 
 
 Eleventh Joram 
 
 „ 885 
 
 First Ahaziah 
 
 Twelfth Joram 
 
 20 (d). The reigns of Jehoasli and Hezekiah are expressly 
 
16 
 
 The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 stated to have lasted forty and twenty-nine years respectively ; 
 but in the margin of the English Bible a year is struck off from 
 each of them. 
 
 (e). The early Christian placed the accession of Zedekiah and 
 the captivity of Jeconiah, which was in the same year, seventy 
 years before the capture of Babylon by Cyrus, which all agree to 
 have been in 538 b.c. They assumed this to be the true in- 
 terval, believing that the prophecy of the seventy weeks* cap- 
 tivity referred to these limits. Archbishop Usslier transferred 
 the earlier limit from the captivity of Jeconiah to an earlier 
 captivity in the first year of Nebuchadnezzar. He assumed 
 that this was 606 b.c., and that the year of Necho’s expedition, 
 in which Josiah was killed, was 610 b.c. In reality, however, 
 this last event took place in 608 b.c.; the earliest date of which 
 Egyptian chronology admits, as I will shew when I come to 
 consider the separate reigns ; and the canon of Ptolemy fixes the 
 accession of Nebuchadnezzar in 604 b.c. Archbishop Ussher 
 thought that the canon gave the date of his father’s death, and 
 that he reigned two years in conjunction with him previous to 
 604 b.c. This, however, is an inadmissible hypothesis. Ne- 
 buchadnezzar’s years must have been counted from the year 
 when he became king. They were certainly counted from 
 604 b.c, and therefore he became king then. If he became king 
 two years before his father’s death, his father must have lived 
 till 602 b.c. I believe that his father was the Labynetus of 
 Herodotus, and that he was the king who intervened at the ter- 
 mination of the Lydian war in 603 b.c. The death of Josiah, 
 and capture of Jerusalem by Necho, in 608 b.c., and the first 
 captivity, at the beginning of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar in 
 604 b.c., appear to me to be fully-established chronological facts, 
 as to which no rational controversy can exist. We may date the 
 seventy years’ captivity from the former, and make it to termi- 
 nate at the capture of Babylon; or we may date it from the 
 latter, and make it to terminate at the death of Darius the 
 Mede, placing this last in 534 b.c. I am not aware of there 
 being any authority for preferring the received date of 536 b.c. 
 to tins. The question of the seventy years’ captivity belongs to 
 the department of theology rather than to that of chronology ; 
 and its discussion does not lie within the compass of the present 
 paper. 
 
 21. I have now shewn that the date of 1667, assigned to the 
 exodus by St. Clement of Alexandria, and believed to be the 
 true date by the early Christians generally, was a purely Biblical 
 date, obtained by calculation from Biblical numbers, historical 
 or prophetical. It appears to have been accepted by all the 
 
The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 17 
 
 early Christians, with the exception of Julius African us, who 
 threw the exodus back 130 years. He is blamed for having 
 done this by Georgius Syncellus, who frequently complains of 
 his chronological blunders. It appears that while he adhered to 
 the apostolical tradition, that the incarnation of Christ was ex- 
 actly 5500 years after the creation, he omitted the generation of 
 the second or post-diluvian Cainan, which is given in the LXX. 
 as 130 years, and that he compensated for this omission by add- 
 ing 110 years to the interval between the exodus and the foun- 
 dation of the temple, and twenty more to the interval between 
 that and the first year of Darius. The Syncellus is not very 
 clear in his statements as to where this error was committed. It 
 seems clear, however, that he placed the captivity of Jeconiah 
 in 631 b.c., seventy years before the accession of Cyrus to the 
 throne of Persia. Here then he added twenty-three years to 
 the received chronology. Somewhere , therefore, between the 
 building of the temple and the captivity of Jeconiah he must 
 have dropped three years. It is a matter of no importance, 
 however, where this loss was, or how it was occasioned. 
 
 22. Having now shewn what was the date of the exodus 
 according to the early Christians generally, and what it was 
 according to the peculiar views of Julius African us, I proceed 
 to speak of the synchronisms believed to exist between the 
 exodus and events in Egyptian history. Two opinions seem to 
 have divided the early Christians, each of which has been 
 brought to bear on one of the existing lists. Africanus imagined, 
 as Josephus had done before him, and probably other Jews, who 
 thought that it was creditable to their nation, that the Hyk- 
 shos were the Israelites, that their expulsion was an Egyptian 
 mode of describing the exodus, and that, consequently, the 
 accession of the eighteenth dynasty, which synchronized with 
 the expulsion of the Hyk-shos, ought to be referred to the 
 Biblical date of the exodus. The other opinion, which was pro- 
 bably held by a much greater number of the early Christians, 
 and which was subsequently adopted by the Syncellus, harmo- 
 nized much better with the Biblical narrative. According to it, 
 the exodus did not take place at the commencement of the 
 eighteenth dynasty, but eighty years or upwards after it. The 
 Israelites came into Egypt in the time of the shepherds. One 
 of these was the Pharaoh that advanced Joseph ; Ahmos of the 
 eighteenth dynasty, who expelled them, was the new king who 
 knew not Joseph, and who commanded that the Hebrew infants 
 should not be suffered to live. Aaron was born before this edict, 
 and of course before Ahmos came to the throne ; and Moses, it 
 is supposed, was born very shortly after his accession. The 
 
 E 
 
18 The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho . 
 
 exodus, it is said, took place when Moses was eighty years old. 
 All, therefore, that was necessary in order to determine the 
 exact interval was, as was supposed, to find the least interval, 
 consisting of a complete number of reigns, extending from 
 Ahmos downwards, and exceeding eighty years. Now Josephus 
 gives the reigns from Ahmos down with very great apparent 
 accuracy, not only the years but the months being stated ; and 
 it cannot reasonably be doubted that the list which Josephus 
 gives was Egyptian, if not Manetho’s own. According to this 
 list, the first four reigns consisted of 25 y. 4 m. -j- 13 y. + 20 y. 7m. + 
 21 y. 9m. = S0y. 8m., or 81 years. Hence, the early Christians 
 placed the accession of the eighteenth dynasty eighty-one years 
 before the Biblical date of the exodus, or in 1748 b.c. 
 
 23. Plausible as this hypothesis is in some respects, there is 
 probably no Egyptologer of the present day that could accept it. 
 To say nothing of the monumental evidence connected with the 
 early kings of the eighteenth dynasty (which, however, present 
 very great difficulties), there are two parts of this hypothetic 
 scheme which are plainly repugnant to the Biblical narrative. 
 In the time of Joseph every shepherd was an abomination to the 
 Egyptians : this could not have been the case when the Hyk- 
 shos kings were on the throne. And again, the fourth reign of 
 those which make up the eighty-one years is that of a queen, 
 whereas the Biblical narrative states expressly that the exodus 
 was at the end of the reign of a king. The Biblical narrative 
 would obviously be better satisfied by supposing the persecutors 
 of the Israelites to be of the Hyk-shos dynasty, and the patron 
 of Joseph to be of the Egyptian dynasty which preceded them ; 
 when the Shosu, or shepherds, were known as troublesome neigh- 
 bours, but were not yet known as conquerors and oppressors of 
 Egypt. Neither of the two modes of making the exodus to 
 synchronize with events in Egyptian history which were current 
 among the early Christians was a proper mode. It is fortunate, 
 however, that both were in use, and that the existing lists were 
 falsified, one of them in order to produce one synchronism, and 
 another to produce the other ; as this circumstance is a great 
 assistance in restoring the genuine reading. 
 
 24. But, whatever be the defects of the two hypothetic 
 schemes which I have mentioned, I cannot help saying that 
 either of them is, in my judgment, far less objectionable than 
 the modern scheme which has been devised as a mode of recon- 
 ciling them. The inventor of it, — I will not mention his name, 
 because I am not sure of it, and I have not the works within 
 reach which would enable me to ascertain it, and also because I 
 suspect it to be one to whom Egyptology is under very great 
 
The Egyptian Dynasties of Manet ho. 19 
 
 obligations, — the inventor of it, whoever he was, set out with 
 supposing that, instead of the two hypotheses starting from the 
 one date of the exodus, 1667 b.c., and placing the accession of 
 Ahmos, one of them in that year, and the other eighty-one 
 years before it, they started from the accession of Ahmos, and 
 supposed two — not exoduses, but — expulsions of the Hyk-shos, 
 one of them at that time, and the other, eighty-one years after, 
 at the beginning of the fifth reign in the dynasty. Ahmos, 
 according to this hypothesis, drove the Hyk-shos out of the 
 rest of Egypt, and shut them up in Avaris, and Thothmos, the 
 fifth king of the dynasty, drove them out of Avaris. One 
 writer after another has repeated this statement, as if it were an 
 unquestionable truth, although the only ancient authority ad- 
 duced in support of it was manifestly misunderstood. To me, 
 who never accepted this hypothesis, and to whom it was always 
 a puzzle how any one else could believe it, the pertinacity with 
 which it has been adhered to appears most unaccountable. 
 Bunsen in his latest work, the fourth volume of his Egypt’s 
 Place in Universal History, and Lepsius in his Konigsbuch, 
 treat the existence of this interval between the partial and the 
 complete expulsion of the shepherds as a settled point. Lepsius 
 makes a seventeenth dynasty of it, to which he assigns ninety- 
 three years. Now this appears to me absolutely inconsistent 
 with the well-established fact that Thothmos I., the third king of 
 this dynasty, carried his arms into Mesopotamia. I cannot 
 conceive it possible that he could have done this, if there were 
 within the frontiers of Egypt, in the direction to which he had 
 to march, a large fortified city in the hands of his enemies. And 
 more than this, as De Rouge has long since pointed out, Ahmos, 
 the son of Abna, is made to say on his funeral stele that in the 
 sixth year of king Ahmos he took part in the capture of Avaris ; 
 after which he says that the king passed along the Nile, the 
 whole length of Egypt from the north to the south fStele Egyp - 
 tienne , p. 119). The idea of the shepherds having remained in 
 Egypt till the reign of Thothmos III. is, in one word, a pure 
 fiction of modern Egyptologers, for which there is no founda- 
 tion either in the writings of the extractors from Manetho, or 
 in the hieroglyphic records. 
 
 25. Having thus cleared the way, I will proceed to consider 
 the three lists as handed down to us by Georgius Syncellus, con- 
 fining myself to the portions which begin with the eighteenth 
 dynasty and end with the twenty-sixth. I here give the dura- 
 tion of each dynasty according to the three authorities, and the 
 interval from the accession of Ahmos to the beginning of each 
 dynasty after the eighteenth. 
 
 b 2 
 
20 
 
 The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 
 Africanus. 
 
 Old Chronicle. 
 
 Eusebius. 
 
 Eighteenth dynasty 
 
 263 
 
 263 
 
 348 
 
 348 
 
 348 
 
 348 
 
 Nineteenth „ 
 
 209 
 
 472 
 
 194 
 
 542 
 
 194 
 
 542 
 
 Twentieth „ 
 
 135 
 
 607 
 
 228 
 
 770 
 
 178 
 
 720 
 
 Twenty-first „ 
 
 130 
 
 737 
 
 121 
 
 891 
 
 130 
 
 850 
 
 Twenty-second „ 
 
 120 
 
 857 
 
 48 
 
 939 
 
 49 
 
 899 
 
 Twenty-third „ 
 
 89 
 
 946 
 
 19 
 
 958 
 
 44 
 
 943 
 
 Twenty-fourth „ 
 
 6 
 
 952 
 
 44 
 
 1002 
 
 44 
 
 987 
 
 Twenty-fifth „ 
 
 40 
 
 992 
 
 44 
 
 1046 
 
 44 
 
 1031 
 
 Twenty-sixth „ 
 
 150 
 
 1142 
 
 177 
 
 1223 
 
 167 
 
 1198 
 
 It will be observed that the interval between the expulsion of 
 the Hyk-shos and the conquest of Egypt is exactly eighty-one 
 years more according to the Old Chronicle than according to 
 Africanus, the latter going back to the exodus, and the Old 
 Chronicle to a period eighty-one years before it. Take 1142 
 for 1667 b.c., or 1223 from 1748 b.c., and there remains 
 525 b.c. for the date of the conquest of Egypt. 
 
 26. Before going further, it is necessary to consider the sum- 
 mation at the end of the twenty-fourth dynasty which is given 
 by the Syncellus in the list which he ascribes to Africanus. No 
 one, I believe, pointed out the meaning of this number until I 
 did so in my paper of 1861, already cited. I observed that if 
 we substituted 44 for 6 as the duration of the twenty-fourth 
 dynasty, which number 44 is found both in Eusebius and in the 
 Old Chronicle, we should have 990 in place of 952 for the sum 
 of the dynasties beginning with the eighteenth and ending with 
 the twenty-fourth. This number left standing alone, and with 
 nothing to explain it in the list where it stood, is therefore 
 Egyptian, and I doubt not Manetho's own (can. ii. of § 14). It 
 follows from this that the number 6 in Africanus's list was 44 
 in A ; that one of the numbers in the list of the Old Chronicle 
 is too great by twelve, and one of those in that of Eusebius is 
 too small by three. 
 
 27. I have hitherto said nothing as to the synchronism, to 
 effect which the list of Eusebius was corrupted from C. It did 
 not depend on the exodus. Eusebius places this at the end of 
 one of the reigns in the latter part of the eighteenth dynasty, 
 and does not seem to have connected any other Egyptian event 
 with it. He placed it honestly where, according to his Biblical 
 views, it ought to be placed, making no alteration in Egyptian 
 chronology with a view to establish a synchronism. If we look, 
 however, to the end of the nineteenth dynasty, we shall see his 
 synchronism. He says that Troy was taken in the last year of 
 this dynasty. Take 542 from 1198, and there remains 656, the 
 interval, according to Eusebius, between the fall of Troy and 
 525 b.c., the conquest of Egypt. Eusebius's date of the taking 
 of Troy is 1181 b.c., three years later than that of Eratosthenes ; 
 
The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetlio. 
 
 21 
 
 and it cannot be doubted that Eusebius struck off the three 
 years mentioned in the last section, in order to reduce the re- 
 ceived date, with which C was in harmony, to his own. Let us 
 now consider from which dynasty he struck off these years. 
 Certainly not from the eighteenth, nineteenth, nor twenty-fourth, 
 in which his numbers are the same as those in the Old Chronicle ; 
 nor yet from the twenty-first, where he agrees with Africanus. 
 There remain the twentieth, twenty-second, and twenty-third ; 
 but if we look to the twenty-second, as it stands in Africanus* s 
 list, we shall see that the forty-nine years assigned to this dynasty 
 by Eusebius are Egyptian. Africanus divides the dynasty thus : 
 
 a 2e<ru>7%t? er rj KA' 
 
 ft! ’ OaopOwv eTrj IE' 
 
 7' e V AW 01 t pets eTrj KE' 
 
 9' TcuceXcuOis errj ir' 
 
 tj ' O' V A\X 01 rpeis er? 7 MB' 
 
 It is evident that, when the compiler of C thought it necessary 
 to diminish the length of this dynasty, he felt himself obliged to 
 stop at forty-nine, the sum of the three single reigns which are 
 given; viz., 21 + 15+ 13. We may be sure, therefore, that these 
 three numbers are Egyptian. We cannot substitute fifty-two for 
 forty-nine in C ; nor yet can we admit any such correction as 
 KA' for KA' or 10' for IE', which have been proposed. If a 
 correction of any number be required to make the sum accurate, 
 we must read K&' for KE'. But it is an unsafe assumption 
 that changes of the text were accidental, having been occasioned 
 by similarity of letters ; in the great majority of instances they 
 were deliberately made, with a view to improve the text which 
 the writer knew that he had before him. 
 
 28. It appears from what has been said that the three years 
 struck off from C by Eusebius, were struck off either from the 
 twentieth or from the twenty-third dynasty. We must suppose 
 either that C had 181 for the length of the twentieth, or that it 
 had 47 for that of the twenty-third. It will occur to most 
 persons that the latter supposition is the more probable of the 
 two, as it alters one of the three forty-fours which appear in the 
 list of Eusebius as the number of years in these successive 
 dynasties. It seems, at first, very improbable that this should 
 be the case; and yet, if Eusebius obtained the number 44 
 accidentally by taking three from 47, neither of which last 
 numbers was chosen in order to produce the 44, it does not 
 appear to me that the improbability of the concurrence of three 
 forty-fours is such as to have much weight. It appears to me a 
 much stronger argument in favour of making this change rather 
 
22 The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 than the other, that 228, the length of the twentieth dynasty in 
 the Old Chronicle, is probably a corruption of 178, the length 
 according to Eusebius; and that the corruption having been 
 made to avoid an anachronism, a displacement of the round 
 number fifty years is vastly more probable than one of forty- 
 seven. At any rate, as the two arguments tend to the same 
 conclusion, I think we may safely infer that the change was 
 made in the twenty-third dynasty, where C had 47 for the 44 of 
 Eusebius. It will corroborate this conclusion if we find that to 
 read 178 in the Old Chronicle as the length of the twentieth 
 dynasty would produce an anachronism, according to a natural 
 mode of connecting the reign of Rehoboam with Egyptian 
 history, and that the substitution of 228 for it would remove the 
 anachronism. Before, however, I consider the numbers in the 
 Old Chronicle, I have something more to say of Eusebius. 
 
 29. It is not to be supposed possible that so laborious a 
 chronologist as he was, and who had made so many changes as 
 we know he did in the chronology previously received, as 
 respected both sacred and profane history, should have made no 
 change in the list of the Egyptian dynasties, other than to sub- 
 stitute 44 for 47 as the length of one of them. I by no means 
 affirm this. I say that this was the only difference between the 
 list given by the Syncellus as that of Eusebius, and the list that 
 I call C, — the only change made by Eusebius from a non- 
 Egyptian source ; but I believe that the list C was constructed 
 by Eusebius himself out of the two Egyptian documents A and 
 B, which he had before him : and it will be found very useful in 
 settling points that might otherwise be dubious in these two lists. 
 We may assume that there is nothing in C which is not derived 
 from A or B ; and as a first-fruit of this principle we may con- 
 clude that 167, the duration of the twenty- sixth dynasty in C, 
 must have been that of B also; for it is impossible that it could 
 come from A. The person who diminished the durations of the 
 later dynasties in order to bring down the exodus to 1667 b.c., 
 and who struck off 38 years from the twenty-fourth, and mani- 
 festly 4 from the twenty-fifth (rejecting the units in the 44 found 
 in the other two lists), must have rejected a unit in the twenty- 
 sixth also. The duration must have been 150+ X, X being less 
 than ten, and could not therefore have produced 167. 
 
 30. The framer of the list in the Old Chronicle then added 
 22 years to the duration of the dynasties in B, in order to raise 
 the accession of the eighteenth dynasty to 1748 b.c., i.e., 81 
 years before the exodus ; and he effected this by adding 10 years 
 to the twenty-sixth, and 12 to some of those before the twenty- 
 fourth. The duration of the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth 
 
The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 23 
 
 were 44 in all the Egyptian copies, as well as in the Old 
 Chronicle and Eusebius. Now why did he divide these 22 years 
 and add them in two places? Evidently to throw the accession 
 of the twenty-fourth, or Ethiopian dynasty, sufficiently far back 
 to maintain the proper Biblical synchronism. Hezekiah began 
 to reign, according to the early Christians, in 736 b.c. (§ 16), 
 and the first Ethiopian king had his aid sought by Hoshea before 
 this. Now, according to B, the twenty-sixth dynasty began, as 
 we have just seen, 167 years before Cambyses, that is, before 
 525 b.c. (§ 25), or in 692 b.c. The Ethiopian dynasty began 
 44 years earlier, or in 736 b.c., which as we have just seen is too 
 late. Accordingly the compiler of the chronicle added ten years 
 to the twenty-sixth dynasty, throwing back the accession of the 
 twenty-fourth to 746 b.c., which produces the required syn- 
 chronism. 
 
 31. We see from this that the compiler of the Old Chronicle 
 did not look to the Exodus alone, as what required a synchronism 
 in Egyptian chronology. He made a change in order to make 
 the period of the Ethiopian dynasty synchronize with the reigns 
 of Hoshea and Hezekiah; and this being the case we cannot 
 doubt but that he would make the close of the reign of Solomon 
 and the fourth year of Behoboam to stand in what he would 
 consider their proper place in Egyptian chronology. We now 
 know perfectly well that the Shishak who then reigned in Egypt 
 was the first king of the twenty-second dynasty; but to the 
 compiler of the Old Chronicle such a supposition could not occur. 
 According to the Old Chronicle the twenty-second and twenty- 
 third dynasties together only lasted 67 years, and there is a doubt 
 whether the twelve years which the compiler of the Chronicle 
 added were not added to one of these dynasties. On the most 
 favourable supposition, the twenty-second dynasty, which began 
 according to the Old Chronicle in 847 b.c., would not begin 
 before 837 b.c. in B ; and it very probably would not begin till 
 825 b.c. The fifth year of Behoboam fell according to the early 
 Christians in 986 b.c. : so that the synchronism now known to 
 be the proper one was one that he could not conceive possible. 
 His idea evidently was that the year 994 must fall within the 
 twentieth dynasty, where the kings were not named, and not in 
 the twenty-first, where all the kings were named, and where it 
 was clear that none could be identified with Shishak. Let us 
 suppose that the twentieth dynasty lasted according to B 178 
 years; the eighteenth beginning in 1726 b.c., the nineteenth in 
 1378 b.c., and the twentieth in 1184 b.c. ; the twenty-first would 
 begin according to B in 1006 b.c., and according to the Old 
 Chronicle in 1028 b.c. This is 42 years before the fifth year of 
 
24 
 
 The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho . 
 
 Rehoboam, which, according to the notions of the compiler of 
 the Chronicle, was the limit which the twentieth dynasty must 
 include. Therefore, he added 50 years to the twentieth dynasty, 
 and subtracted the same number from one of the subsequent 
 ones. 
 
 32. It is still uncertain what were the durations of the 
 twenty-first, twenty-second, and twenty-third dynasties, accord- 
 ing to B ; but we now know that the sum of the three was not 
 121 + 48+19 = 188 as in the Old Chronicle, but 188 + 50—12 
 
 We have 
 
 B 
 
 
 C 
 
 
 Eighteenth 
 
 348 
 
 348 
 
 348 
 
 348 
 
 Nineteenth 
 
 194 
 
 542 
 
 194 
 
 542 
 
 Twentieth 
 
 178 
 
 720 
 
 178 
 
 720 
 
 Twenty-first 1 
 
 (121 ? 
 
 > 
 
 130 
 
 850 
 
 Twenty-second 
 
 48? 
 
 p 
 
 49 
 
 899 
 
 Twenty-third J 
 
 19?) 
 
 946 
 
 47 
 
 946 
 
 Twenty-fourth 
 
 44 
 
 990 
 
 44 
 
 990 
 
 T wenty-fifth 
 
 44 
 
 1034 
 
 44 
 
 1034 
 
 Twenty-sixth 
 
 167 
 
 1201 
 
 167 
 
 1201 
 
 The lists B and C only differ in the duration which they assign 
 to the twenty-first, twenty-second, and twenty-third dynasties ; 
 and it is evident that as to these they do differ materially. No 
 addition of 50 years to a dynasty of the Old Chronicle and 
 subtraction of twelve from the same or another can bring them 
 into harmony. Here then the list C must have been taken from 
 A ; and I will now proceed to recover as far as possible this last 
 list, which may again, when recovered, assist us in recovering 
 the deficient numbers in B. 
 
 33. The list given in § 25 as that of Africanus cannot be 
 really his; for the list, as given by the Syncelius, contains a 
 statement that the exodus took place at the beginning of the 
 eighteenth dynasty; and we know that Africanus placed the 
 exodus 130 years earlier than the accession of the eighteenth 
 dynasty is here placed. When we recollect, however, that 
 Josephus, w r ho agrees with Africanus in respect to the synchronism 
 of the exodus, says expressly and repeatedly that the eighteenth 
 dynasty lasted 393 years, I think we cannot reasonably doubt 
 that 263 was substituted for 393, which Africanus had in his 
 list, by some corrector of Africanus, who disapproved of his 
 lengthened chronology. It is certain, however, that the early 
 Christians placed the exodus in 1667 b.c., and that this was, 
 consequently, the date of the accession of the eighteenth dynasty, 
 after they had cut down the three last dynasties from 44 + 44 + 
 150 + X to 6 + 40+150. Somewhere, therefore, after the 
 eighteenth dynasty Africanus must have added 130 years; and 
 let us now consider where. 
 
The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 25 
 
 34. In the first place, there can be no doubt that the duration 
 of the nineteenth dynasty, which is divided into the several 
 reigns, has been enormously magnified by Africanus. He makes 
 the reigns of four kings, in four successive generations from 
 father to son, to reign 191, or rather, if we correct a clerical 
 error, 196 years, which is out of all bounds of probability. 
 Here then Africanus has added something considerable. Sixty 
 years, which would leave 136 years for the four reigns, cannot be 
 thought too much to take from the 209, which he joins to the 
 dynasty; and that this was the true number that he added is 
 rendered almost certain from the comparison of 393 + 149 with 
 348 + 194. Each sum is 542. It is very possible that the 
 eighteenth dynasty was divided by Manetho into two portions, 
 the latter of which lasted 45 years; and that while some of 
 Manetho's followers, including the author of A, connected this 
 period with the eighteenth dynasty, others, as the author of B, con- 
 nected it with the nineteenth. We shall see hereafter that there 
 is direct evidence that such a division of the eighteenth dynasty 
 was made, and that the latter portion of it lasted 45 years. 
 
 35. There remain seventy years, which Africanus must have 
 added to some dynasty between the nineteenth and the twenty- 
 fourth. This could not be the twenty-first, because Eusebius, 
 whose authorities were A and B, agrees with Africanus as to the 
 duration of this being 130 years. It must, therefore, be either 
 the twentieth, the twenty-second, or the twenty-third. In 
 favour of the first supposition there are two probabilities. 
 Africanus would be likely to make his additions to two adjacent 
 dynasties; and the addition was more likely to have been made 
 in the twentieth dynasty, where the reigns are not divided, than 
 in either of the others, where the reigns are divided, and are 
 already below the average, and in one of the dynasties greatly 
 below it. It may occur to a person that by taking 70 years 
 from 89, the length of the twenty-third dynasty in Africanus, 
 we get 19, its length according to the Old Chronicle; but this 
 number 19 is a very doubtful one, being one of three among 
 which there exists two errors (§ 32). And the division of 
 Africanus’s duration of the entire dynasty 89 into the four 
 separate reigns 40 + 8+10+31 (AA for AA) seems to me to 
 have strong internal evidence of its genuineness. But what 
 seems to me to settle the question is this. Suppose that 65 was 
 the reading of the early Christians and of A in this place, it 
 accounts for the numbers in C. Eusebius in compiling this list 
 had before him A and B. The four dynasties as to which there 
 is now a doubt would, on the last supposition, stand thus in A, 
 B, and C ; all of which agree as to their entire duration being 404. 
 
26 
 
 The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 ABC 
 
 Twentieth 65 178 178 
 
 Twenty-first 1301 130 
 
 Twenty-second 120 l 226 49 
 
 Twenty-third 89 J 47 
 
 Eusebius seems to have preferred B*s duration of the twentieth 
 dynasty, and to have taken A's durations as the more likely to 
 be correct for the three following ones. He retained A*s number 
 for the twenty-first dynasty, and he had then to subtract from 
 the two following the 113 which he had added to A’s duration 
 of the twentieth. He took from the twenty-second so many as 
 reduced the entire duration according to A to 49, the number in 
 the three reigns expressed separately (see § 27); that is, he took 
 71 from this dynasty, and the remaining 42 he took from the 
 twenty-third, reducing its duration from 89 to 47. 
 
 36. I now proceed to compare the lists A and B. Both of 
 these are imperfect; the duration of the twenty-sixth dynasty 
 being wanting in the former, so far as respects the units, by 
 which it exceeded 150, and the durations of the twenty-first, 
 twenty-second, and twenty-third being uncertain in the latter. 
 We only know that they were the three numbers, 121, 48, and 
 19, one of them increased by 50, and one of them diminished 
 by 12, the third being unaltered ; or possibly, though not pro- 
 bably, one of them being increased by 38, and the other two 
 unaltered. I will now assume what cannot be considered abso- 
 lutely certain, but what has a great deal of plausibility about it. 
 It is not the only hypothesis that is admissible ; but I find that it 
 gives the duration of the eighteenth dynasty according to 
 Manetho, when all corruptions have been weeded away, such as 
 can be divided into separate reigns in a more satisfactory manner 
 than the other hypothesis does. It will be observed that, accord- 
 ing to B, the accession of the twentieth dynasty synchronizes 
 with the fall of Troy, according to Eratosthenes. According to 
 A, it was at least eight years later; for 159 is the greatest length 
 that we can assign to the twenty-sixth dynasty. I assume that 
 it was nine years later; that the number 121 is according to B 
 the duration of the twenty-first dynasty, and that it was increased 
 in A to 130, with a view to throw back the accession of the 
 twentieth dynasty to 1184 b.c. The two lists A and B would 
 then stand as follows, as proved, and on the hypothesis just 
 assumed. 
 
 A (as proved) (as assumed) B (as proved) (as assumed) 
 
 Eighteenth 
 
 393 
 
 393 
 
 348 
 
 348 
 
 348 
 
 348 
 
 Nineteenth 
 
 149 
 
 542 
 
 194 
 
 542 
 
 194 
 
 542 
 
 Twentieth 
 
 65 
 
 607 
 
 178 
 
 720 
 
 178 
 
 720 
 
The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 27 
 
 
 A (as proved) 
 
 (as assumed) 
 
 B (as proved) 
 
 (as assumed) 
 
 Twenty-first 
 
 130 
 
 7371 
 
 
 
 
 121 
 
 841 
 
 Twenty-second 
 
 120 
 
 857 l 
 
 
 226 
 
 l 
 
 105 
 
 
 Twenty-third 
 
 89 
 
 946 J 
 
 
 V 
 
 946/ 
 
 946 
 
 Twenty-fourth 
 
 44 
 
 990 
 
 
 44 
 
 990 
 
 44 
 
 990 
 
 Twenty-fifth 
 
 44 
 
 1034 
 
 
 44 
 
 1034 
 
 44 
 
 1034 
 
 Twenty-sixth 
 
 150 + X 1184 + X 
 
 158 1192 
 
 167 
 
 1201 
 
 167 
 
 1201 
 
 37. Now, assuming what I have here assumed, it is easy to 
 trace back these lists to two earlier lists, which may be called D 
 and E. The latter will be obtained by merely reducing the duration 
 of the twenty-sixth dynasty from 167 to 158. The former will 
 be obtained by substituting 74+121 for 65 + 130, as the duration 
 of the twentieth and twenty-first combined. A corruptor first 
 added nine years to the 121, in order to bring the accession of the 
 twentieth dynasty to 1184 b.c.; and then, observing that the 
 sum of the seven dynasties had become 999 in place of 990, 
 some other corruptor struck the nine years in excess from the 
 twentieth dynasty. We have thus 
 
 D E 
 
 Eighteenth 
 
 393 
 
 393 
 
 1717 
 
 348 
 
 348 
 
 1717 
 
 Nineteenth 
 
 149 
 
 542 
 
 1324 
 
 194 
 
 542 
 
 1349 
 
 Twentieth 
 
 74 
 
 616 
 
 1175 
 
 178 
 
 720 
 
 1175 
 
 Twenty-first 
 
 121 
 
 737 
 
 1101 
 
 121 
 
 841 
 
 997 
 
 Twenty-second 
 
 120 
 
 857 
 
 980 
 
 48? 
 
 p 
 
 876 
 
 Twenty-third 
 
 89 
 
 946 
 
 860 
 
 19? 
 
 946 
 
 ? 
 
 Twenty-fourth 
 
 44 
 
 990 
 
 771 
 
 44 
 
 990 
 
 771 
 
 Twenty-fifth 
 
 44 
 
 1034 
 
 727 
 
 44 
 
 1034 
 
 727 
 
 Twenty-sixth 
 
 158 
 
 1192 
 
 683 
 
 158 
 
 1192 
 
 683 
 
 I add a third column under each letter giving the year b.c. 
 when the dynasty began. 
 
 38. There is still a material difference between the two lists ; 
 but it will be possible to produce an earlier list F from which 
 both these lists were derived, and a still earlier one, Manetho’s 
 own, of which this is a corruption. The lists D and E differ, it 
 will be perceived, only as to three dynasties, the twentieth, 
 twenty-second, and twenty-third ; and the differences are of such 
 a nature as can only be explained by supposing that two of these 
 dynasties overlapped the following ones, so as to have two 
 durations; — that each list gives the longer duration of one of 
 the dynasties, that is, the time from its commencement to its 
 extinction, and the shorter duration of the other, that is, the 
 time from its commencement to the commencement of the fol- 
 lowing one ; — and that the third of the dynasties, manifestly the 
 twenty-second, was shortened by the difference between the 
 longer and the shorter duration of that dynasty of which the full 
 length was given. To give the correct chronology the shorter 
 duration ought to have been given in both instances, and it is 
 
28 
 
 The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 so in F ; but the framers of D and E each gave one dynasty its 
 full length, and to maintain the total 990, they had to shorten 
 the twenty-second dynasty. 
 
 The two durations of the twentieth dynasty are both given, 
 74 and 178; where, therefore, 178 is allowed for the twentieth, 
 as in E, the twenty-second is diminished by 104. Let the shorter 
 duration of the twenty-third be called Y, the longer is 89 ; and 
 in D, where we have 89, the twenty-second dynasty is shortened 
 by 82 — Y; its length is 209 — Y. Of course its length in E is 
 105 — Y; and the list F must have been as follows : — 
 
 Eighteenth 
 
 348 
 
 348 
 
 1717 
 
 Additional 
 
 45 
 
 393 
 
 1369 
 
 Nineteenth 
 
 149 
 
 542 
 
 1324 
 
 Twentieth 
 
 74 + 104 
 
 616 
 
 1175 
 
 Twenty-first .... 
 
 121 
 
 737 
 
 1101 
 
 Twenty-second . . 
 
 209— Y 
 
 946— Y 
 
 980 
 
 Twenty-third .... 
 
 Y + (89 — Y) 
 
 946 
 
 771 + Y 
 
 Twenty -fourth .. 
 
 44 
 
 990 
 
 771 
 
 Twenty-fifth .... 
 
 44 
 
 1034 
 
 727 
 
 Twenty-sixth .... 
 
 158 
 
 1192 
 
 683 
 
 39. The second column in this table gives the interval from 
 Ahmos to the accession of the following dynasty, according to 
 the view of the composer of the list F ; but if we wished to 
 have the sum of the durations of all the dynasties, we must add 
 to the total in this list 104 + 89 — Y= 193— Y ; and the mistake 
 of the composer of this list F, which affected all the other lists that 
 we have been considering, was that he supposed 990 to be the 
 interval between the accession of the eighteenth and the twenty- 
 third dynasty, when it was really the sum of the duration of the 
 seven dynasties. Manetho’s duration of the eighteenth dynasty 
 was 193 — Y years less than 348 or 155 + Y. His durations of all 
 the subsequent ones were the same. In order then to have the list 
 as originally constructed by Manetho, we have only to determine 
 Y the length of the twenty-third dynasty in E. The twenty- 
 second and twenty-third dynasties are in the Old Chronicle 
 made to have lasted 48 and 19 years ; and we have seen that 
 50 years were deducted and 12 years added, so that the sum of 
 the two was 105. It is far more likely that the two changes 
 mentioned were made in different dynasties, than that a single 
 deduction of 38 was made from one of them. In this more 
 probable case, Y would be 69 or 7 ; on the less probable sup- 
 position it might be 19 or 57, but no other value is admissible. 
 Now, the twenty-third dynasty began by the table 771+ Y b.c., 
 and it lasted 89 years, or to 682 + Y b.c. The last king of the 
 dynasty was, according to Manetho, Zet, who is evidently the 
 Sethos of Herodotus, who reigned at and after the time of Sen- 
 nacherib’s disastrous invasion. Now, it is quite certain from 
 
The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 29 
 
 the Assyrian inscriptions that Sennacherib's first or successful 
 invasion was in 701 b.c., which would be the first year of the 
 successor of Zet, if Y were 19. As Zet reigned beyond a later 
 invasion, this is impossible ; and consequently no other value of 
 Y is admissible than 7. This gives for the accession of the 
 dynasty 778 b.c., and accords with the statement of Manetho, 
 following the name of the first king, ifiov oXapTnas 
 TTpcorrj. This remark, though it would have been true if 
 the dynasty had commenced in 790 b.c., would not have been 
 likely to be made. Its appositeness arises from the accession 
 of Petubastes being almost immediately followed by the cele- 
 bration of the first Olympiad. If Y were 69, or were 57, it is 
 manifest that the remark would not be true at all. 
 
 40. We are now in a position to see the object of the divi- 
 sion of the eighteenth dynasty. Manetho stated that it lasted 
 162 years to the death of Amenophis, and 45 years afterwards. 
 Lepsius and others admit that the duration of the eighteenth 
 dynasty after the death of Amenophis was 45 years ; and there 
 was good reason for distinguishing this unhappy period of civil 
 war, inflamed by religious fanaticism, during which the foreign 
 conquests of Egypt were lost, from the prosperous and glorious 
 period which preceded this event. It is remarkable too, that 
 the lists of Josephus and Eusebius, which were composed after 
 186 years had been added to the duration of this dynasty, 
 carried it down to a king whom they called Amenophis, namely, 
 Menephthah, the son of Ramuss II. They made the period, 
 which according to Manetho's genuine list extended to the death 
 of Amenhotep III., extend to the death of Menephthah. 
 
 41. The original list of Manetho was therefore as follows. 
 I give the durations, and the first and last years of each dynasty 
 in years of the new kingdom, and in years before Christ. 
 
 Eighteenth dynasty to the 
 
 death of ~l 
 
 YEARS OF AHMOS. 
 1—162 
 
 YEARS B.C. 
 
 1531—1370 
 
 Amenophis 
 
 Later reigns thereof . . . . 
 
 J 
 
 45 
 
 163—207 
 
 1369—1325 
 
 Nineteenth dynasty 
 
 149 
 
 208—356 
 
 1324—1176 
 
 Twentieth dynasty 
 
 
 357—534 
 
 1175— 998 
 
 Twenty-first dynasty 
 
 121 
 
 431—551 
 
 1101— 981 
 
 Twenty-second dynasty . . . . 
 
 202 
 
 552—753 
 
 980— 779 
 
 Twenty-third dvnasty 
 
 7 or 89 
 
 754—842 
 
 778— 690 
 
 Twenty-fourth dynasty . . . . 
 
 44 
 
 761—804 
 
 771— 728 
 
 Sum of the dynasties . . 
 Twenty-fifth dynasty 
 
 44 
 
 805—848 
 
 727 — 684 
 
 Twenty-sixth dynasty 
 
 158 
 
 849—1006 
 
 683 — 526 
 
 In the recovery of this list, no use whatever has been made 
 of any monumental evidence. It is obtained exclusively from 
 the numbers transmitted to us by the Syncellus, as those which 
 
30 
 
 The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 he found in the Old Chronicle and in the works of Africanus 
 and Eusebius. And in the mode of procedure by which this 
 original list has been recovered, there is scarcely anything which 
 is at all arbitrary. The only doubts that can be entertained are 
 whether 158, rather than 157 or 159, was the duration assigned 
 to the twenty-sixth dynasty, and whether 121 or 130 was that 
 of the twenty-first. The effect of supposing it to be 130 might 
 be to bring down the date of the accession of Ahmos nine years; 
 for in that case, in order to maintain the summation of 990, we 
 must subtract nine years either from the twenty-second dynasty, 
 which would bring down the date of Shishonk's accession to 
 971 b.c., leaving the earlier and later dates as they stand; or 
 from the twentieth, which would require that 65 be substituted 
 for 74 as the interval between the accessions of the twentieth 
 and twenty-first, which change again would require that 113 + 
 82 = 195 years be subtracted from 348, in place of 186, and 
 would thus bring down the accession of the eighteenth dynasty 
 by nine years. The monumental eclipse of the twenty-second 
 dynasty appears to me to furnish conclusive evidence in favour 
 of the date 980 b.c.; and the consideration of Manetho’s lengths 
 of the several reigns has led me to prefer the earlier to the later 
 date of the accession of Ahmos, and therefore to prefer 121 to 
 130. Besides, I have given a plausible reason for corrupting 
 the former of these numbers into the latter, and I can see no 
 reason for a change in the opposite direction. 
 
 42. Assuming then that these doubtful points, which very 
 slightly affect the result of my criticism, have been correctly 
 decided, I proceed to test the correctness of my restoration by 
 monumental evidence. There are three points to be specially con- 
 sidered, viz., the Ethiopian synchronisms with Biblical history, 
 the monumental eclipse of the twenty-second dynasty, and the 
 Sothic date of Thothmos III. I will consider these in the 
 order in which I have named them, and first : — My position 
 respecting the portion of Manetho^s list which relates to the 
 twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth dynasties is, that while it is chro- 
 nologically true, it is for a period of 41 years historically false. 
 He omitted to distinguish the government of Tirhakah as ruler 
 of Ethiopia from his reign as king of Egypt ; and he introduced 
 into his list the names of three kings at the head of the twenty- 
 sixth dynasty, who were not kings of Egypt in any sense. 
 
 43. To make this matter plain, I will give a detailed chro- 
 nology of the period which intervened between the close of the 
 twenty-second dynasty and the accession of Psamitik I., dis- 
 tinguishing by brackets those portions in which Manetho deviated 
 from the truth : — 
 
The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 31 
 
 B.C. 
 
 778 
 
 771 
 
 738 
 
 730 
 
 727 
 
 720 
 
 715 
 
 703 
 
 690 
 
 DYN. XXIII. DYN. XXIV. 
 
 Pefcubastes 40 
 
 First Olympiad. 
 
 Bocchoris, 44. 
 
 Osorkon 8 
 
 Psamut 10 dyn. xxv. 
 
 Sabacon, tbe Ethiopian, conquered Egypt 
 
 Zet 31 and burned to death Bocchoris, 12. 
 
 Sebikos, 12. 
 
 Tarakos came with an army out of Ethi- 
 opia and slew Sebikos, [20]. 
 
 Last year of Zet. 
 
 DYN. XXVI. 
 
 [683 Stephinates 7 
 
 676 Nechapsos 6 
 
 670 Nekao 8] 
 
 662 Psamitik I. 
 
 Chronologically there is no error here, because the interval 
 between Tahraka's overthrow of the first Ethiopian dynasty 
 and the accession of Psamitik I. is correctly given as 41 years, 
 but historically there is a great error. When Tahraka overthrew 
 Shebetok, he did not succeed him as king of Egypt, but con- 
 tented himself with the crown of Ethiopia, which he assumed, 
 restoring Zet, or Seti III., to the throne from which his ancestor 
 had been expelled by Bocchoris, during whose reign, and the 
 reigns of Shebek and Shebetok, they were confined to the 
 marshes of the Delta. Probably his reason for adopting this 
 course was that an oracle had limited the rule of the Ethiopian 
 kings over Egypt to fifty years, and that twenty-four of these 
 had already expired when he obtained the Ethiopian kingdom. 
 Accordingly he allowed Seti to reign to his death, on which 
 event he assumed the double crown of Egypt ; his first year as 
 king being fourteen years after his conquest of Shebetok, or 
 689 b.c. He reigned twenty-six years, completing the fifty 
 allowed by the oracle, and then withdrew to Ethiopia. One 
 year of dodecarchy or interregnum intervened, and then Psametik 
 assumed the royal title; but some years probably elapsed before he 
 was generally recognized. As respects actual sovereignty, there- 
 fore, as recognized in Memphis, the succession stood thus : — 
 
 778 b.c. Petubastes. 
 
 771 ,, Bocchoris, who drove Petubastes to the marshes, and was himself taken 
 
 prisoner and burned by 
 727 „ Shebek the Ethiopian. 
 
 715 „ Shebetok his son. 
 
 703 „ Zet restored by Tahraka, an Ethiopian chief, who slew Shebetok. He 
 
 would, however, reckon his regnal years from the death of his father, 
 calling that which was really his first his eighteenth. 
 
 689 „ Tahraka, king of Ethiopia, becomes king on the death of Zet. 
 
 663 „ Interregnum, Tahraka having retired to Ethiopia. 
 
 662 „ Psamitik I. 
 
 Here everything is consistent with the Second Book of 
 
32 
 
 The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 Kings, and with the cuneiform inscriptions. The embassy of 
 Hoshea to So (Shebek) falls in his second year, and the inva- 
 sions of Sennacherib, the first of which was in 701 b.c., find a 
 king of Egypt, “ a bruised reed,” weak and unable to protect 
 himself, and a king of Ethiopia his powerful protector. This 
 king, the cotemporary of Sennacherib, is called by Herodotus 
 Sethos, evidently the same name as Zet, and as Seti, a well- 
 known name in the nineteenth dynasty. 
 
 44. Thus far I believe to be certain ; and to disprove it would 
 be to overthrow my arrangement of the chronology. I am now 
 going to state what I believe to be true, but what I do not con- 
 sider quite so certain, and what may be disproved without affecting 
 the truth of my arrangement. I believe that this Seti III. is the 
 king whose titles are given in the Konigsbuch, No. 618, from a 
 stele in the Louvre (C 100) where he is commemorated along 
 with bis daughter Mutiritis (No. 620). So far as I can judge 
 from the description given by others, the former part of the 
 king’s name is obliterated precisely in the same manner as the 
 first element in the name of Seti I. and II. The defacement 
 was not intended as a dishonour to the king but to the god, and 
 was probably in every instance where it occurs the work of 
 the Persians. Lepsius identifies this Mutiritis with a princess 
 of that name, who became the wife of a man named Petamon, 
 and from whom one of the wives of Ahmos the Saite was 
 descended in the fourth generation. This accords well enough 
 with his view as to the name of her father being Pankhi, and as 
 to the time when he lived. It does not, however, agree with 
 my view ; as it is scarcely probable that only six generations 
 intervened between Seti III., who became king in 720 b.c., and 
 Psamitik III., son of Ahmos, who became king in 525 b.c. It 
 is my belief that Lepsius confounds two princesses, of whom one 
 was the granddaughter of the other. Mutiritis, of the stele in 
 the Louvre, daughter of Seti III., I suppose to have married 
 Kashto, who may have received the title of king in the lifetime 
 of his father-in-law, and been the second of the “ kings of 
 Egypt” mentioned by Sennacherib as existing at the time of 
 his invasion. Their daughter Amuniritis was the wife of Pankhi, 
 who was an Ethiopian, perhaps the son of Tahraka; and this 
 couple had two daughters, Shapenap, wife of Psamitik I., and 
 Mutiritis, wdfe of Petamun, whose son and grandson w 7 ere both 
 born in the reign of, and called after, their maternal uncle by 
 marriage. The great-granddaughter of the one sister, and the 
 granddaughter of the grandson of the other, were both married 
 to Ahmos, who thus acquired a title, in their right, to the 
 throne which he usurped. 
 
The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 33 
 
 45. Although genealogies do not furnish evidence of dates 
 that can be depended on for accuracy, they often afford good 
 approximations. It so happens that in connexion with the royal 
 pedigrees of this period, there are two personages, the dates of 
 whose births are determined within a year, or at most two years, 
 by the evidence of their names; and from these we may, by 
 allowing twenty-five years to a generation (see § 3), approximate 
 to the reigns of others who are genealogically connected with 
 them. The two persons whose births are thus known were king 
 Apries and his half-sister, the wife of Ahmos, whose coffin is in 
 the British Museum. The former must have been born in the 
 reign of his great-grandfather, Psamitik I., whose throne-name 
 was given to him as his family name ; and he could not have been 
 horn long before its close, because his grandfather made a cam- 
 paign the year after his accession, which it cannot be supposed 
 that a very old man would do. If we say 610 b.c., we cannot 
 be above two years astray in the time of his birth. His half- 
 sister was born, as her name indicates, during the reign of 
 Psamitik II., which only lasted five years. Placing her birth in 
 the middle of the reign in 591 b.c., we cannot be above two 
 years astray. We have thus approximately the dates of the 
 births of the Saitic kings, and of the descendants of the elder 
 dynasty, as follows : — 
 
 K. Psamitik I b. c. 685 b.c. lived to c. 76. 
 
 K. Nekau b. c. 660 ,, lived to c. 67. 
 
 K. Psamitik II. . . . b. c. 635 „ lived to c. 47. 
 
 K. Wah-het-Phra. . b. c. 610 „ dethroned c. 41. 
 
 Seti III b. c. 741 b.c. lived to c. 52. 
 
 Mutiritis b. c. 716 m. K. Kashto. 
 
 Amuniritis b. c. 691 m. K. Pankhi. 
 
 Shapenap b. c. 666 m. K. Psamitik I. Mutiritis m. Petamun. 
 
 Nitokrit, sen b. c. 641 m. K. Nekau Wah-het-Phra. 
 
 Nitokrit, jun b. c. 616 m. K. Psamitik II. Psamitik. 
 
 Ankh-nes-nofer-het-Phra. . b. c. 591 m. K. Ahmos Petenit. 
 
 b. c. 566 Tentkheta m. K. Ahmos. 
 
 K. Psamitik III. 
 
 The birth of Psamitik was, probably, considerably less than 
 twenty-five years after 566 b.c. We may be sure that Ahmos 
 would marry his mother as soon as she had attained a sufficient 
 age; and Psamitik had children when Egypt was conquered in 
 525 b.c. (Herod., iii., 14), who must have been five or six years 
 old at least. We can readily suppose that the descendants of 
 Mutiritis were some years older than those of Shapenap, on the 
 same line with them. 
 
 The above pedigrees are fully established from Kashto down- 
 wards. The point in which I differ from Lepsius, De Bouge, 
 
 c 
 
34 
 
 The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 and others, is, that they consider the king with the partly de- 
 faced name, mentioned with his daughter on the Louvre stele, 
 c. 110, to be Pankhi, the son-in-law of Kashto, while I consider 
 him to be Seti III., his father-in-law. 
 
 46. The genealogy and chronology, as I have given them, 
 are evidenly in perfect harmony ; and this harmony will con- 
 tinue if we trrce back the twenty-third dynasty; Psammus being 
 born c. 766 b.c., Osorkon, c. 791, and Petubastes, c. 816. 
 This last would thus be about twenty-eight years of age when 
 he came to the throne, and would have lived till he was seventy- 
 eight. I see no reason to doubt that he was the son of 
 Shishonk IV., the last king of the twenty-second dynasty 
 Here, and in several other instances, I conceive that Manetho 
 made a new dynasty, when there was a change of the dimen- 
 sions of the kingdom, though there was no change in the reign- 
 ing family. Petubastes was driven out of the capitals and the 
 principal part of Egypt by Bocchoris, and could not, therefore, 
 be regarded as continuing the prosperous twenty-second dynasty, 
 which held the whole kingdom. Perhaps he had the misfortune 
 to be blind, and that this fact contributed to the success of the 
 usurpation. At any rate, I think there can be little doubt that 
 his retreat to the marshes of the Delta, and the subsequent 
 restoration of his great-grandson on the overthrow of Shebetok, 
 were the facts which, distorted and embellished by the in- 
 formants of Herodotus, were the basis of his fabulous history of 
 Anysis (ii., 137, 140). Herodotus represents Anvsis himself as 
 restored, and Sethos as his successor ; but in reality, his Sethos 
 was the restored prince, and was the third in descent from the 
 exiled one. 
 
 47. I will now proceed to consider the eclipse which is re- 
 corded in an inscription of a king Takelut, of the twenty-second 
 dynasty, to have taken place on the 24th Mesore, in the 
 fifteenth year of his father. This eclipse seems to have been 
 first noticed by Brugsch. I am not aware that any Egyptologer 
 has disputed his interpretation of the passage, but its importance 
 as settling the chronology of the period has not been generally 
 recognized. This record of an eclipse has been ignored or 
 pooh-poohed by almost all who have had occasion to notice it ; and 
 for this I can assign no other reason than that its having hap- 
 pened according to the inscription is inconsistent with all the 
 chronological systems that are current among Egyptologers. 
 The following propositions are indisputable : — 
 
 1. On the 24th MeSore of the Egyptian civil year which 
 began 17th April, 916 b.c., that is, on the 4th April, 945 b.c., 
 the moon was totally eclipsed. 
 
The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 35 
 
 2. On no other 24th Mesore than this, could the recorded 
 eclipse have taken place. 
 
 3. Takelut I. was son of Osorkon I., who was son of 
 Shishonk I., the founder of the dynasty, who, according to 
 Africanus and Eusebius, reigned twenty-one years. 
 
 From the first and second of these propositions, it follows 
 that, if the record be true , the eclipse must have been that of the 
 4th April, 945 b.c. No other eclipse can be put forward, except 
 on the hypothesis, that the sculptor of the inscription was care- 
 less, and wrote the 24th Mesore by mistake for some other 
 date. 
 
 48. This hypothesis has been put forward by Mr. Basil H. 
 Cooper, in the Athenaeum ; he would read the 28th Mesore, on 
 which day in the year which began 24th March, 852 b.c., 
 namely, on the 16th March, 851 b.c., there was an eclipse of 
 the moon visible in Egypt. Mr. Cooper felt himself constrained 
 to make this correction of the Egyptian text, through his de- 
 pendence on Lepsius' s arrangement of the kings in the twenty- 
 second dynasty, according to which the Takelut who recorded 
 this eclipse was Takelut II. Of the correctness of that arrange- 
 ment, however, Lepsius offers no positive proof. Mr. Cooper 
 ought to have recollected his own arguments against the cor- 
 rection — rather the corruption — of the date of the rising of 
 Sothis, in the inscription of Thothmos III. at Elephantine, 
 which Lepsius and Bunsen had advocated. It is to me utterly 
 inconceivable, that in the record of any event of which the date 
 is given, the writer of the inscription should put down the date 
 incorrectly. The case of the error committed by the sculptor 
 of the Rosetta stone in respect to the month in which the king 
 came to the throne, is by no means a parallel case. The Rosetta 
 stone was one of many hundred copies of a decree which would 
 only be in force during the life of the king, in whose honour it 
 was made. The general fate of these copies would be, that after 
 the king's death they would be thrown aside as useless, if they 
 could not have the inscriptions cut away so that they might 
 receive new ones. The natural consequence of this would be, 
 that the execution of these steles would be committed to inferior 
 workmen, and that those employed would be careless as to mis- 
 takes. If one of them saw that he had put down a wrong word, 
 he would not take the trouble to correct it. On the other hand, 
 the Karnak inscription which we are now considering was the 
 single record of what it commemorated ; the account of what 
 had occurred was inscribed on the walls of the temple in per- 
 petuum rei memoriam ; and if there had been a mistake in the 
 date, it would have been immediately observed and corrected. I 
 
 c 2 
 
36 
 
 The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho . 
 
 should observe also that the mistaken date on the Rosetta stone 
 is not in the decree itself, but in a recital, and that' it relates to a 
 point in the recital which is absolutely immaterial; whereas, 
 when a date is given in a historical inscription, it is probably the 
 most material information in it. Mr. Cooper saw clearly the 
 absurdity of supposing that the sculptor of the inscription at 
 Elephantine had given a false date, and he ought .not to have 
 admitted so readily as he does that there was a false date in the 
 inscription of Takelut at Karnak. 
 
 49. Unless, therefore, there can be positive proof produced 
 that the eclipse of the 4th April, 945, could not possibly have 
 been the eclipse of the inscription, I contend that we are bound 
 in common honesty to admit that it was so ; and that all pre- 
 sumptions to the contrary, drawn from doubtful hypotheses which 
 are inconsistent with it, ought to fall down before this distinct 
 record. I have already discussed this matter in § 10, to which I 
 refer ; and I now remark that there are three distinct pretended 
 impossibilities, — in reality, inconsistencies with received theories, 
 which are appealed to, as proving that this eclipse of 945 b.c. 
 could not be that intended. First, it is alleged that this eclipse 
 could not have been seen by the Egyptians. If the moon's 
 acceleration be so great as the Astronomer Royal, Hansen, and 
 others imagine, the moon must have been completely disengaged 
 from the earth's shadow before she rose in Egypt. Secondly, it 
 is alleged by Lepsius, and by Egyptologers generally after him, 
 that the writer of this inscription was Takelut II., and not 
 Takelut I., as I contend. If this were true, the date of 945 
 b.c. is, of course, inadmissible. Thirdly, it is alleged that the 
 Biblical date of Rehaboam's accession, 975 b.c., is too early, and 
 that Shishonk's accession, which preceded his, could not have 
 taken place till the latter half of the tenth century before Christ. 
 Now, the fifteenth year of Osorkon I., the father of Takelut I., 
 must be thirty-five or thirty-six years after the accession of 
 Shishonk ; consequently, the eclipse could not have been in 
 that regnal year of his, unless the accession of the twenty- 
 second dynasty was in 980 b.c. or 981 b.c. My reasons for 
 preferring the date 980 b.c. must be deferred till I come to 
 consider the chronology of the separate reigns. Now, I deny 
 that any one of these three alleged impossibilities is a real 
 one. I contend that not one of the hypotheses, with which the 
 supposition that the eclipse occurred as it is recorded that it did 
 is inconsistent, is sufficiently established to cause us to reject a 
 testimony like that of this inscription. I hold that the record 
 ought to be received as it stands ; and that, consequently, the 
 co-efficient of the moon's acceleration must be diminished, so 
 
The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 37 
 
 as to admit of this eclipse having been seen by the Egyptians ; 
 the Takelut of the inscription must have been the first king of 
 that name ; and all the schemes that have been proposed for 
 bringing down the building of the temple, or the accession of 
 any of the kings of Judah below the dates given in the margin 
 of the English Bible, must be rejected. The Astronomer Royal 
 and his numerous followers, Lepsius and other Egyptologers, 
 as well as Sir H. Rawlinson and Mr. Bosanquet, must all 
 abandon their respective theories, which are inconsistent with 
 a well-attested astronomical record. As to the two latter gen- 
 tlemen, what I have said in § 10 will suffice ; but I have some- 
 thing to add in reply to the Astronomer Royal and Lepsius. 
 
 50. The supposition that the moon’s acceleration has been 
 greatly exaggerated by Hansen in his tables is by no means a 
 new one, adopted by me in order to maintain the credit of this 
 eclipse. I have held this opinion, and advocated it whenever I 
 have had an opportunity, for the last six years and upwards. 
 At the Manchester meeting of the British Association, I brought 
 forward what appeared then, and still appears to me, to be con- 
 clusive evidence of this fact. I refer to pages 22 — 24 of the 
 Report for 1861, where I refer to two lunar eclipses, recorded 
 by Ptolemy as having taken place in 720 b.c., in both of which 
 the eclipse is recorded to have taken place considerably after 
 the time when it should have happened, according to Hansen's 
 tables ; the interval between the calculated and the recorded 
 time being, in one instance, a full hour. I stated in the paper 
 that I did not wish the calculations to be taken on my authority ; 
 
 I wished that others should make similar calculations. I am 
 now enabled to state that such calculations have been made, and 
 that those which I made have been found to be perfectly correct. 
 The Astronomer Royal (whose paper read at the same meeting, 
 entitled “ Remarks on" mine, p. 12, is not a reply to mine, 
 which the Astronomer Royal had not heard) referred me to a 
 paper of Dr. Hart wig, in No. 1241 of the Astronomische 
 Nachrichten, in which he gives a calculation from Hansen's 
 tables of the different eclipses mentioned by Ptolemy. With 
 respect to the eclipse of — 719 March 8, he agrees with my cal- 
 culation to a minute. He places the middle of the eclipse at 
 
 II h. 13m., and the end at 12^. 7m. mean Babylonian time. 
 The equation of time was then 14m., which would give 10A. 59m., 
 and 11^. 53m. for the middle and end of the eclipse. Ptolemy's 
 statement is, that the middle of the eclipse was irra/cpto rut 
 peaovv/cTLO), at the very instant of midnight, at that marked 
 period when the sixth of the two-hour clepsydras had run out, 
 and the seventh was set a-going; the first of the clepsydras 
 
38 
 
 The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 having been set a-going at apparent noon. This is, in its 
 nature, an observation on the accuracy of which very great 
 dependence can be placed. It could not have been more than a 
 few minutes astray, and it is evident that it was recognized both 
 by Hipparchus and by Ptolemy as the very best observation that 
 they had. It was that which they both compared with eclipses 
 observed in their own times, in order to determine the mean 
 motion of the moon. And yet Dr. Hartwig, when he should 
 produce Ptolemy's statement of what was observed, for com- 
 parison with what he had calculated, says that the middle of this 
 eclipse was, according to Ptolemy, “unbestimmt, um mitter- 
 nacht,” — undetermined , about midnight ! I question if a more 
 reckless misstatement of adverse testimony was ever made by 
 the advocate of a desperate cause. In reality, the time when 
 the eclipse was stated to have been, and must have been within 
 a mere trifle, greatest, was 61m., according to Dr. Hartwig's 
 own calculation after the eclipse ought, according to the tables, 
 to have been greatest, and 7m. after it ought to have emerged 
 from the shadow. Here we have, as I contend, conclusive evi- 
 dence that the co-efficient of T 2 in the moon's mean elongation is 
 much less than Hansen supposes. If the whole error were due 
 to this cause, it -would amount to 2 r,, 9; but we may well sup- 
 pose that there was a considerable error also in the place of the 
 perigee, and this may have produced a change in the time of 
 opposition, either in the same direction as the change caused by 
 the error in the acceleration or in the opposite direction. In 
 the former case, a less error than 2" 9 would suffice ; in the 
 latter, we must admit a greater error than this. 
 
 51. Having made these preliminary observations, I now pro- 
 ceed to speak of the eclipse of — 944 April 4. The tables of 
 Hansen do not extend beyond — 800; but by the formulae given in 
 the preface, I have calculated the moon's place for this eclipse, and 
 also that of the sun, on the supposition that the eccentricity was 
 then *017915, which is, I believe, what Hansen would make it 
 to be. According to these data, the opposition of the sun and 
 moon would take place on the 4th April — 941 at Oh. 41*8m. 
 G. M. T. ; adding 2 h. 5m. for difference of longitude, and sub- 
 tracting 6*5m. for equation of time, the opposition would fall at 
 2 h. 40m, apparent time at Memphis, or about, as I calculate, 
 3 h. 23 m. before the moon would rise. The eclipse would con- 
 tinue 1 h. 40m., or thereabouts, after the opposition, so that a it 
 would be over, according to Hansen , 1 h. 43m. before the moon 
 rose. The question to be considered is — can we admit such an 
 error in the tables, consistently with the record, as to the eclipse 
 of 8th March — 719, when the error was only 1 h. lm. ? It must 
 
The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 39 
 
 certainly be acknowledged, that we cannot, if the mean longi- 
 tude of the moon herself be the only thing in which the tables 
 are at fault. In the eclipse of — 719, an error of a second in the 
 co-efficient of T 2 in the moon’s mean longitude would produce 
 an error of about 21m. 3s. in the time of opposition; while in 
 that of — 944, it would only produce an error of 22m. 5 7s. ; 
 so that 61m. in the former eclipse, which is the proved error of 
 the tables, supposing the observation to be accurate , would cor- 
 respond to an error of only 66*5m. in the latter. There may 
 have been a slight error of observation in the eclipse of — 719 ; 
 the middle of the eclipse may not have been reached for some 
 5m. after apparent midnight ; but about 72m. is the outside that 
 can be allowed for the error in — 944, corresponding to the 
 observed error in — 719. Let us suppose, however, that, as I sug- 
 gested in § 50, there was an error in the place of the moon’s 
 perigee, which would retard the time of opposition by about 
 10m., this would require that the error in the mean place of the 
 moon, which is in the opposite direction, was greater than I 
 have supposed. It will be convenient to assume the co-efficient 
 of T 2 in the moon’s mean elongation to be 8"‘5. This supposes 
 an error in the time of opposition of 77m. 43s., which is about 
 11m. 43s. greater than the observation admits. Now, in the 
 eclipse of — 944, the error of 77m. 43s. would be increased to 
 84m. 44s. ; while the error caused by the perigee would have its 
 direction changed, the moon being in the opposite part of its 
 orbit; and instead of being — 11m. 43s., would be + 11m. 7s., 
 so that an error of 96m. is admissible. The error of the tables 
 should, however, as we have seen, be at least 103m., supposing 
 the observation to have been in the longitude of Memphis ; but 
 is it quite certain that it was so ? 
 
 52. We know that Shishonk, the founder of the twenty- 
 second dynasty, overran the kingdom of Judah ; and we may 
 naturally suppose that he retained some frontier fortress, which 
 might serve as a point of support to the Egyptians in future 
 wars. Any such fortress must be 14m. of time eastward of 
 Memphis, and it might very well be 15m. The moon might 
 have risen there 7 or 8m. before the termination of the eclipse ; 
 and for aught that we know to the contrary, the record may 
 have referred to this point. Indeed, we have direct evidence 
 that about tbe time of this eclipse, the king of Egypt was at the 
 head of an army in Palestine. It is stated in 2 Chron. xiv. 9, 
 that Zerah, the Ethiopian, who has been pretty generally iden- 
 tified by Egyptologers with Osorkon I., father of Takelut I., 
 was defeated by king Asa at Marisha, about 15m. eastward cf 
 Memphis. In the following chapter, it is stated that after pur- 
 
40 
 
 The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 suing the invaders, and collecting an immense spoil, Asa effected 
 a religious reformation, and gathered the people together at 
 Jerusalem, in the third month of his fifteenth year. According 
 to the canon of kings of J udah, as given in the Books of Kings, 
 and as generally received by the early Christians (when cor- 
 rected by eleven years, falsely inserted at the end of the canon 
 to make up the seventy years' captivity, according to the mis- 
 interpreted prophecy), the first year of Asa was that which 
 began in the spring of 959 b.c. (see § 16), and his fifteenth was 
 that which began in the spring of 955 b.c., fifteen days after the 
 eclipse. The assembly at Jerusalem was, in all probability, at 
 the new moon, seventy-four days after the eclipse ; and the in- 
 terval between the battle and the assembly could not be much 
 less, if at all less, than two months. It is, therefore, reasonable 
 to suppose that the eclipse happened when the king of Egypt 
 was in Palestine, marching eastward, not many days before the 
 battle ; and if so, the eclipse must have been observed there. 
 The record by no means implies that the eclipse was total. 
 Possibly, it implies no more than that the moon was obscured, 
 as it might be by the penumbra, just after it had emerged from 
 the dark shadow ; and if the moon rose, thus darkened, to the 
 army in Palestine, it might appear worthy of notice, more espe- 
 cially when it was found that this phenomenon had not been seen 
 in Egypt. Unfortunately, the text of the inscription at Karnak 
 is in a very mutilated state, so that while the date and the record 
 of the moon being obscured at that date are well preserved, the 
 connexion in which this fact was recorded is wholly lost. 
 
 53. I now dismiss this discussion of the eclipse, which pro- 
 fessed astronomers may take up if they like. I have considered it 
 merely in a chronological point of view. I have, I think, shewn 
 (as I sought to do) that there is no absolute impossibility in the 
 eclipse of 4th April — 944, having been observed as stated in 
 the inscription of Takelut ; its having been observed is not in- 
 consistent with Ptolemy's record of the eclipse of 8th March 
 — 719, nor, I may add, with his record of that of 1 Sept. — 719, 
 nor with the record of the eclipse of Agathorles. All these 
 records are consistent with the eclipse of — 944, having been 
 observed in Palestine. The only supposed records which I know 
 to be inconsistent with it, are the pretended eclipse of Larissa 
 and the eclipse of the Lydian war, if it were that of — 585. Both 
 of these records, however, I hold to be fanciful, and of no autho- 
 rity. The latter involves a decided anachronism. Now, there 
 being no absolute impossibility in this eclipse having taken place 
 as it is recorded that did, I contend that the record ought to be 
 accepted as evidence that it did take place It would in my 
 
41 
 
 The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho . 
 
 opinion be contrary to sound criticism to suppose that an obscu- 
 ration of the moon, recorded to have been observed, did not 
 really take place, or had some other cause than the earth's 
 shadow. 
 
 54. I now come to the objection that is grounded on Lep- 
 sius's arrangement of the kings of the twenty-second dynasty. 
 I admit that if, as Lepsius supposes, the Takelut under whose 
 father the obscuration of the moon is said to have happened, were 
 Takelut II., an eclipse could not have happened at the time 
 indicated; but I maintain that Lepsius' s arrangement is an 
 arbitrary one, and is incorrect. In order that it may be seen in 
 what respect my arrangement differs from his, I will give in the 
 first place so much of the arrangement as I adopt. 
 
 First king Shishonk I. (Ra-hut-h’eper, sotep-en-Ra). 
 
 Second king, his son .... Osorkon I. ? 
 
 Third king, his son Takelut I. ? 
 
 Fourth king, his son .... Osorkon II. ? 
 
 Fifth king Shishonk II. (Ra-hut-h’eper, sotep-en-Araun). 
 
 Sixth king Takelut II. ? 
 
 Seventh king Shishonk III. (Ra-t'user-ma, sotep-en-Ra). 
 
 Eighth king Pemai (Ra-t’user-ma, sotep-en-Amun). 
 
 Ninth king, his son Shishonk IV. (Ra-aa-h’eper). 
 
 Four kings are known by direct monumental evidence to be 
 sons of their predecessors ; Lepsius supposes that all were so ; 
 and I am disposed to agree with him. Twelve generations, 
 averaging twenty-four years, would bring us from Shishonk I., 
 born about 1029 b.c., down to Seti III., born about 741 b.c. 
 The age of Shishonk I. at his accession may be estimated pretty 
 closely. He was not too old to make a warlike expedition in his 
 sixth year, and to reign for twenty-one years ; and yet he was 
 sufficiently old to have a son grown to man's estate, to whom he 
 preferred giving the daughter of Psusennes in marriage, to mar- 
 rying her himself. We cannot suppose him to have been much 
 over or under fifty. Possibly he was somewhat older, as he had 
 a son older than Osorkon, who died before his father. 
 
 55. Now, the question at issue between Lepsius and his 
 followers and me relates to the throne name of the two Osor- 
 kons and the two Takeluts. There is a representation of a king 
 accompanied by a prince, his son, at Karnak (Leps., Auswahl, 
 15), who is certainly the same Takelut in whose reign the in- 
 scription recording the eclipse is dated, because he has the same 
 throne name Ra-hut-h'eper, sotep-en-Ra. The question at issue 
 is, — Was this Takelut I. or II.? The inscription speaks of the 
 prince (who was dead, and apparently not long dead, when the 
 inscription is dated, the eleventh year of Takelut, first of Tobi), 
 as “ first prophet of Amun (with other titles) : Osorkon deceased, 
 
42 
 
 The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 born of the king's principal wife Karamama-merit-Mut (may 
 she live!), daughter of the first prophet of Amun (with other 
 titles) Namerut, royal son of Osorkon, son of Bast (may he 
 live!)" Takelut himself is called son of Hisit : and in an- 
 other inscription in the same plate of the Auswahl , that from 
 the Nile statue in the British Museum, Osorkon I. is named 
 without any such designation as son of a goddess. It is by the 
 contents of these two inscriptions that the question is mainly to 
 be decided. Lepsius and I each draw a conclusion which would 
 settle the question at issue, if the premise which we respectively 
 assume were true : but I deny the truth of his ; and he would 
 probably deny the truth of mine, which he does not notice. 
 Other arguments only tend to shew that one hypothesis is more 
 probable than the other; but these two lead to a certain con- 
 clusion. Of course, one at least of the premises adduced by 
 Lepsius and me must be false. 
 
 56. Lepsius assumes that the addition to a family name of 
 Sa- Hisit, Sa-Bast or Sa-Nit, i.e., “ son of Isis, Bast or Nith," was 
 made with a view to distinguish the king so designated from a 
 previous king who bore the same family name. Granting this 
 to be the case, the Takelut and Osorkon of this inscription must 
 be respectively the second of their name: I meet this argument 
 by denying the truth of the proposition assumed by Lepsius. 
 He admits himself, that the title which he supposes to be dis- 
 tinctive is often omitted, and that the names of the two god- 
 desses are indiscriminately used. All that he can rest on is, 
 then, the supposed fact that this addition is never made to the 
 first king with any family name. It is curious, however, that 
 he has himself furnished evidence contradicting this assertion. 
 In the Konigshuch , No. 576, he gives the family name of Takelut 
 I., with the addition “ son of Isis." This is taken, I believe, 
 from some leathern fragments at Berlin. Here, then, is an 
 instance, given by himself, in which the two kings who alone 
 bore the family name of Takelut are alike called “son of Isis" 
 in their family name ; the two different throne names accompany- 
 ing the very same family name. Again, in the twenty-sixth 
 dynasty, Ahmos is always called son of Nit; and I can scarcely 
 think that this was to distinguish him from a king who reigned 
 about a thousand years before him. I also find the same addi- 
 tion to the name of Psamitik I. (Sharpe, i., 114.) In this plate 
 we have the funeral vases of a general named Wah-het-Phra em 
 k'u (or em tiou-en-Ba, as it was formerly read), whose name 
 implies, as I conceive, that he was born when the Pharaoh, or 
 Sun-god, so distinguished, whom we know to have been Psamitik 
 I., was setting in glory. Now, the father of this general, whose 
 
The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 43 
 
 funeral vases are in the Louvre, is called Psamitik-sa-nit ; and 
 it is a matter of necessity that it was Psamitik I., after whom 
 he was called ; and consequently that king must have borne this 
 title. It may occur to some that the younger general was called 
 after Apries, in which case the elder might have been called 
 after Psamitik II. ; but in the first place, the family name of a 
 king (which Wah-het-Phra was of Apries), was never used in 
 this connexion ; and in the second place, the death of Apries 
 was of such a nature that we cannot suppose it possible that a 
 young courtier should give his name to his son, commemorating 
 a dethroned and murdered king, as if he had died in honour after 
 a prosperous reign. No name could have been more appropriate 
 than this for one who was born in 609 b.c., and it would have 
 been hard to select one less so for a person who was born about 
 569 b.c. Nor again is it at all likely that if a courtier at the last 
 date should have been foolish enough to give his son this 
 name, both he and his son would have been successively advanced 
 by Ahmos to the rank of general. From all that has been 
 said, I feel fully convinced that the designation of a king as 
 son of a goddess was purely honorary, and by no means in- 
 tended to distinguish him from a previous king of the same 
 family name. 
 
 57. The general principle which I assume is, that the ad- 
 dition of “May he live V 9 to a king’s name implies that he is alive. 
 If so, Osorkon, mentioned in this inscription, must be the father, 
 and not the grandfather of Takelut; and, of course, the Take- 
 lut here named must be the first of the name. In order to 
 disprove this it would be necessary to produce an instance in 
 which this addition is made to the name of a deceased king; but 
 I contend that, even if such an instance could be adduced, though 
 this conclusion would not necessarily follow, it would be highly 
 probable that it was true. The only instances in which I have 
 seen this addition made to a king’s name, where his being alive 
 was doubtful, are a tablet of the reign of Amen-em-he II., already 
 referred to, where the fact of the king so qualified being alive 
 appears to me certain ; the present inscription, where it is not 
 impossible, for Osorkon, had he lived, could not be above 
 eighty years old at the outside; and the inscription on the 
 Nile statue, where Psusennes, the last king of the twenty-first 
 dynasty, whose daughter was married to Osorkon I., is thus 
 qualified. This inscription may very well have been made in the 
 third or fourth year of Osorkon I., the twenty-fourth or twenty- 
 fifth of the twenty-second dynasty; and there is no improba- 
 bility in Psusannes having survived his dethronement twenty- 
 five years, if he had been allowed to die a natural death. I have 
 
44 
 
 The Egyptian Dynasties of Manet ho. 
 
 seen no other inscription where the phrase occurs, and where 
 there is any ground for doubting that the king was alive. I 
 have read , however, of one of the Apis steles, in which, if the 
 statement be correctly given, there is a clear instance of the 
 addition being made to the name of a dead king. I allude to 
 the stele of the twenty-eighth year of Shishonk III., in which 
 this addition is said to be made to the name of a king Osorkon, 
 who, whether he be first or second, must have been long dead. 
 
 58. It is safest, under these circumstances, to consider what 
 is probable , assuming for argument’s sake that there is no such 
 certainty to be had, as I have been speaking of. In the first 
 place, we have some sort of evidence from the Apis tombs. Ma- 
 riette gives as successive Apises those who died in the twenty- 
 third of Osorkon II., the fourteenth of Takelut I., and the 
 twenty-eighth of Shishonk III. According to Lepsius, his 
 Takelut I. should be II., whereas, according to my views, his 
 Osorkon II. should be I. According to this view, we must sup- 
 pose that several Apises intervened between the second and third 
 of the above three ; while, according to Lepsius, only one could 
 have done so. It seems improbable, however, that we should here 
 have the complete series ; and if there be a gap for one, it may 
 have included several. According to Africanus, Takelut II. only 
 reigned thirteen years ; but as the duration of the dynasty was 
 shortened from 202 to 120 years, it is likely enough that both 
 the fifteen years of Osorkon and the thirteen of Takelut are too 
 small. I suspect the true numbers were twenty-five and twenty- 
 three. At any rate it is improbable that no Apis should have 
 been buried in the reign of Shishonk III., till his twenty-eighth 
 year. While, then, I admit that the Apis monuments render 
 Lepsius’ s theory rather more probable than mine, I think that the 
 probability in favour of mine, derived from the argument in the 
 preceding §, very nearly, if not altogether, counterbalances this. 
 
 59. The question is then to be decided, as it appears to me, 
 by fitting the several personages mentioned in the inscriptions as 
 connected with the royal family into their places, in the outline 
 already given, and seeing which can be made to fit there in best 
 accordance with the known length of generations. I will give a 
 list of the persons mentioned who have to be placed, with what 
 I suppose to have been their parentages and the approximate 
 times of their births and deaths, and the leading events of their 
 lives. All the dates are b.c. I omit unimportant personages. 
 
 1. Shishonk I., b. about 1029, became king 980, took Jerusalem 975, d. 959. 
 
 2. Osorkon I., b. about 1005, married daughter of Psusennes in 980, by whom he 
 
 had two sons, 3 and 5; became king 959; invaded Judaea in 945; reigned 
 
 alone till 934 [may have lived 10 years or so longer, his son 7 being king.] 
 
The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 45 
 
 3. Namerut, first prophet of Amun, heir of the twenty-first dynasty through his 
 
 mother; b.c. 979, died soon after his father’s becoming king. 
 
 4. Karamama, daughter of 3, heiress of the twenty-first dynasty; b. about 959, and 
 
 was married to her uncle, Takelut I., about 944. 
 
 5. Shishonk, born c. 977 ; became first prophet of Amun on the death of his bro- 
 
 ther; erected the Nile statue soon after; died before 934. 
 
 6. Osorkon (of the Denon papyrus), prophet of Amun, son of 5, born c. 955 ; died 
 
 before 934, after his father, but before his grandfather. He was probably 
 murdered. 
 
 7. Takelut I., son of 2 by Tamentah’onsu, as Lepsius reads her name, b. about 981 ; 
 
 became first prophet of Amun on the death of 5, to the prejudice of the here- 
 ditary rights of 6 ; in 934 became king [alone, or in conjunction with his 
 father]; reigned till 919 at least. 
 
 8. Osorkon, son of 7 and 4, born c. 943 ; was first prophet of Amun, but died in his 
 
 father’s life-time about 924. 
 
 9. Osorkon II., son of 7, and a wife, whose name ends in — pes ; — the former part 
 
 has not yet been read, — born c. 957. 
 
 10. Shishonk II., son of 9, born c. 933; d. c. 889 or 899. 
 
 11. Takelut II., son of 10, born c. 909 ; reigned c. 889 or 899 ; d. c. 876. 
 
 12. Shishonk III., son of 11, born c. 885; reigned c. 876. Apis died 849; he died 
 
 c. 824. 
 
 13. Shishonk, son of 2, and Karamat, Sam of Phthah, chief priest at Memphis, born 
 
 c. 970 ; presided at the burial of an Apis in 937. 
 
 14. Takelut, son of 13, was born c. 910, and succeeded his father in all his offices. 
 
 15. T’esbast-peru, daughter of 9, and Hisit-em-H’eb, born c. 925. 
 
 16. Pet-Hisit, son of 14 and 15, born c. 900, succeeded his father in all his offices. 
 
 He presided at the burial of an Apis in 851, and was living twenty-six years 
 after, when the next Apis was buried; he was then aged about 75, and had 
 grandchildren grown up. 
 
 I need not treat of the descent of Har-pe-son, as it presents 
 no difficulty He assisted at the burial of an Apis in or about 
 77 9, being the sixth in descent from Osorkon II., who was born 
 «c. 957. We may suppose him to have been thirty-four years 
 old, and we should have about twenty-four years on an average 
 for a generation. 
 
 If any one can point out a flaw in the above arrangement, 
 I will readily acknowledge my error; but at present it appears 
 to me perfectly satisfactory, both as respects monumental evi- 
 dence, and as respects the ordinary course of human life. 
 
 60. I must, however, beg my readers to recollect, that if this 
 arrangement of the dynasty be shewn to be inconsistent with the 
 monuments, or if the grounds on which I have maintained that 
 it was possible for an eclipse to have been seen by the Egyptians 
 in 945 should be proved to be untenable, my restoration of 
 Manetho is not affected by it. I bring forward this eclipse as a 
 confirmation of conclusions at which I have arrived, indepen- 
 dently of it. I argue, that as it is almost certain that an eclipse 
 is monumentally recorded to have happened on a specified day, 
 we ought to admit the record to be true unless there be a cer- 
 tainty , arising either from astronomical data or from monumental 
 evidence, that the eclipse which appears to be recorded could not 
 
46 
 
 The Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho. 
 
 have taken place. Probability will not do, because the proba- 
 bility that the monumental record was true would outweigh 
 almost any probability that could conflict with it. And be it 
 remembered that if it be proved that the record was untrue , its 
 error must be in the fact that an eclipse occurred at all ; some 
 atmospheric phenomenon may possibly (though, I think, most 
 improbably) have been mistaken for it : it cannot be in the date ; 
 for it is quite certain that, whether what is recorded happened 
 in 945 or not, it could not have happened in any other year. If 
 my eclipse is a good record, my arrangement of the dynasties is 
 verified in the most remarkable manner. If I fail, there is no 
 monumental eclipse at all, and my arrangement is neither veri- 
 fied nor disproved. 
 
 61 . It is otherwise with the third of the synchronism, which 
 I proposed to consider, — that of the rising of Sothis on the 28th 
 Epipti. It must have risen on that day in four successive years, 
 and there could be no mistake in the observation of the fact. It 
 is certain, too, that the record of the rising on this day belongs 
 to the reign of Thothmos III. Consequently, — unless we suppose 
 that an Egyptian sculptor inscribed the stone through mistake 
 with a false date ; which it is inconceivable that he should do, 
 the stone having been fixed up in a public place, where an error, 
 if it existed, must have been at once observed, and would of 
 course have been immediately corrected, — consequently , I say, 
 Thothmos III. must have reigned in the fifteenth century b.c., 
 when only this phenomenon could have occurred. According to 
 my chronology, he would have done so ; but not according to 
 Lepsius, Bunsen, and most other Egyptologers. 
 
 With this observation I will conclude what I have to say, as 
 respects the dynasties ; and unless my system, so far as I have 
 yet exhibited it, shall be proved to be unsound in the interim, I 
 will, D.V., give the dates of the commencement of most of the 
 reigns in the July number of this Journal. 
 
 Edward Hincks. 
 
 Killyleagh, 29 th Nov., 1862. 
 
• •