Beban-el-Moulouk, and is now in the Museum of the Louvre. He was succeeded by his son,

17. RAMSES V., surnamed AMENOPHIS, who is considered as the last of this dynasty, and who was the father of Sesostris.

The acts of none of the kings of this dynasty are commemorated by the Greek Historians, with the exception of Moris. He is celebrated by them for a variety of useful labours, and appears to have done much to promote the prosperity of Egypt, particularly by forming a lake to receive the surplus waters of the Nile, during the inundation, and to distribute them for agricultural purposes during its fall.

The connexion with sacred history is more obvious. In the eighth year of the reign of Amenoph I., Joseph came into Egypt; the oppression of the Israelites is commemorated in the tomb of Ousirei, and the last year of the reign of Ramses Amenophis is the era of the Exodus.

Thus, the application of the hieroglyphic alphabet, shows that this 18th Egyptian Dynasty, seated at Thebes, were the authors of many and vast public works and monuments. Indeed to them is to be ascribed the foundation of the greater part of the more ancient edifices, existing in all parts of Egypt. It also shows, that at a time when the rest of the ancient world was occupied by barbarous tribes, the valley of the Nile was the seat of a powerful and rich nation, that had made great progress in the arts. The memorials of the splendour and power of this great family are still extant in greater number than those of all their successors united. They consist in temples, palaces, tombs, and obelisks, colossal statues, and graven inscriptions; nay more, some of their public acts are still found, although written originally on no more durable material than Papyrus.

Vast, however, as was the glory of this line of kings, it was eclipsed by the greater reputation of the chief of the next, or 19th Dynasty, RAMSES VI., the famed Sesostris. He added to the renown of his progenitors, acquired by the exclusion of a race of oppressors, and by the encouragement of the useful and liberal arts, the more striking, if less solid reputation of a conqueror. In his long reign the arts of peace were not, however, neglected; and besides the structures at Thebes, which still bear his impress, he is stated to have embellished the new capital Memphis with many superb buildings. Throughout the whole of Egypt and Nubia, there are hardly any edifices worthy of note, that do not, in some part of their decorations, assist in commemorating the reign of this monarch.*

This Nineteenth Dynasty consisted of six kings, all of whom

Bulletin Universel, Juin. P. 473.

bear, upon monuments, the name of RAMSES, with various distinguishing epithets. The last of these was cotemporary with the Trojan war, and is called Polybus, by Homer.

The Twentieth Dynasty of Manetho, also took its title from Thebes. Their names may still be read upon the temples of Egypt; but the extracts from Manetho do not give their epithets. In the failure of his testimony, Champollion Figeac has had recourse to the last given by Syncellus. The chief of this dynasty is celebrated, under the name of Remphis, or Rempsinitis, for his great riches. Herodotus gives him for successor, Cheops, the builder of the largest of the pyramids. The same authority places Cephrenes, the builder of the second pyramid, next in order; and, after him, Mycerinus, for whom is claimed the erection of the third pyramid. The researches of the two.Champollions, have not yet discovered any confirmation of this statement of the father of profane history. But it is exactly in this part of Egyptian history, that we are the most in want of materials. It is more than probable, that the latter kings of the eighteenth, and all those of the nineteenth and twentieth, made Memphis their chief seat, although they did not entirely abandon the cradle of their race, the hundred-gated Thebes. But Memphis has undergone a much greater share of violence, than the other successive capitals of Egypt, or its monuments have been more easily destroyed. The pyramids almost alone remain in a state of preservation; and, if they were ever inscribed, as there is strong reason to believe, it must have been on a perishable casing, which has long since mouldered away.

The next dynasty, the twenty-first of Manetho, derived its name from Tanis, a city of Lower Egypt. It was composed of seven kings, the first of whom was the Mendes of the Greek historians, the Smendis of Manetho, whose name Champollion reads, upon the monuments of his reign, MANDOUOTHEPH. He was the builder of the fabric known in antiquity by the name of the labyrinth. The other kings of this family are also commemorated.

The account which has reached us, of the building of the labyrinth, throws great light upon the state of the government of Egypt, during the reign of Mendes and his successors. It was divided into as many separate compartments, as there were Nomes in Egypt; and in them, at fixed periods, assembled deputations from each of these provinces, to decide upon the most important questions. Hence we may infer, that, in the change of dynasty, the Egyptians had succeeded in the establishment of a limited monarchy, controlled like the constitutional governments of Europe; if not by the immediate representatives of the people, at least by the expression of the opinion of the notables.

The ruins of Bubastis, in turn, present memorials of the reigns

*

of the Bubastite kings. These succeeded the First Dynasty of Tanites; and we find Egypt again immediately connected with Judea, and its history with that of the Scriptures. SESONCHIS, the head of this dynasty, was the conqueror of Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, and the plunderer of the treasures of David. This king, the Sesak of the Second Book of Kings, built the great temple of Bubastis, which is described by Herodotus, and likewise the first court of the palace of Karnac, at Thebes. His son, OSORCHON, (Zoroch,) who also led an army into Syria, continued the important works commenced by his father. But their successor, TAKELLIOTHIS, is only known to us by a simple funereal picture, consecrated to the memory of one of his sons. This painting has been broken, and one half is preserved in the Vatican, while the other forms a part of the royal collection at Turin.

Various buildings are found among the ruins of Heliopolis, and still more among those of Tanis, constructed in the reigns of the Pharoahs of the Second Tanite Dynasty.† Upon these, the names of three of them have been decyphered, PETUBASTES, OSORTHOS, and PSAMMOS. Champollion considers them as having immediately preceded the great Ethiopian invasion, which gave to Egypt a race of kings from that country. Manetho, however, places Bocchoris between these two races, forming his TwentyFourth Dynasty of one Saite.

The yoke of these foreign conquerors, does not appear to have been oppressive, as is evident from the number of monuments that exist not only in Ethiopia, but in Egypt, bearing dedications made in the name of the kings of this race, who ruled at the same time in both countries. The names inscribed on these monuments are, SCHABAK, SEVEKOTHEPH, TAHRAK, and AMENASA, all of whom are mentioned either by Greek or sacred historians, under the names of Sabacon, Sevechus, Tharaca, and Ammeris. No more than three of these kings are mentioned in the list of Manetho, as belonging to this dynasty, the last being included in that which follows.

On the departure of the Ethiopians, the affairs of Egypt appear to have fallen into great disorder. This civil discord was at last composed by PSAMMITICUS I. Memorials of his reign are found in the obelisk now on Monte-Litorio, at Rome, and in the enormous columns of the first court of the palace of Karnac, at Thebes. § The rule of NECHAO II., is commemorated by several stela and statues. He it was who took Jerusalem, and carried

King Jehoahaz into captivity. On the Isle of Philæ, are found buildings bearing the legend of PSAMMITICUS II., as well as of APRIES, (the Hophra of Scripture.) An obelisk of his reign also exists at Rome. The greater part of the fragments of sculpture scattered among the ruins of Saïs, bear the royal legend of the celebrated AMASIS, and a Monolith chapel, of rose granite, dedicated by him to the Egyptian Minerva, is in the Museum of the Louvre. PSAMMENITUS was the last of this Dynasty of Saites. Few tokens of his short reign are extant, besides the inscription of a statue in the Vatican. He was defeated and dethroned by Cambyses; nor did he long survive his misfortune.* With him fell the splendour of the kingdom of Egypt; and, from this date, 525 B. C., the edifices and monuments assume a character of far less importance.

Still, however, we find materials for history. Even the ferocious CAMBYSES is commemorated in an inscription on the statue of a priest of Saïs, now in the Vatican. The name of DARIUS is sculptured on the columns of the great temple of the Oasis; and, in Egypt, we still read inscriptions dated in different years of the reigns of XERXES and ARTAXERXES. During the reigns of the last three kings, a constant struggle was kept up by the Egyptians, for their independence. ‡ The Persian yoke was for a moment shaken off by AMYRTEUS and NEPHEREUS. Two Sphinges, in the Louvre, bear the legends of NEPHEREUS, and his successor ACHORIS, who are also commemorated, by the sculptures of the temple of Elythya. In the Institute of Bologna, there is a statue of the Mendesian NEPHERITES; and the names of the two NECTANEBI, who succeeded to him, in the conduct of this national war, are still extant on several buildings of the Isle of Phila, at Karnac, Kourna, and Saft.

DARIUS OCHUS, in spite of the valiant resistance of these last kings, again reduced Egypt to the condition of a Persian province; but his name is nowhere to be found among the remains yet discovered in Egypt.

Thus, then, the researches of Champollion have brought to our view an almost complete succession of the kings of Egypt, from the invasion of the Hykshos in 2082 B. C. to the final conquest by the Persians, whose empire fell to Alexander in 332 B. C. It tallies throughout, in a most remarkable manner, with the remains of the historian Manetho; and, by the aid of his series of dynasties, the gaps still left by hieroglyphic discoveries, may be legitimately filled up. Before the former era, all is dark and obscure; in the next part, we have little but a list of

names; but, from the reign of Psammiticus I., ample materials exist in the histories of Diodorus and Herodotus; and, from the reign of Darius Ochus, the annals of Egypt become incorporated with those of Greece. A farther research into the subsequent monuments, becomes then rather a matter of curiosity, than of any real value, except in the few cases where their authority may be adduced to verify disputed dates, or the names of ephemeral rulers, too insignificant to be known out of Egypt. We shall, however, that we may complete the chain of historic evidence, mention in order, the inscriptions which have been deciphered, and which belong to this subsequent era.

*

After the death of Alexander the Great, one of his generals, Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, and surnamed Soter, possessed himself of Egypt. For some time, he acknowledged the sovereignty of the royal race of Macedon. In the interval between the death of the Macedonian conqueror, and the consummation of the usurpation of his generals, by the extinction of his family, he caused two of them to be recognised by the Egyptians as their kings. One of these, Philip Aridæus, the brother of Alexander, is commemorated at Karnac, and on the columns of the temple at Aschmouneïn. The name of the other, Alexander, the son of the Conqueror by Roxana, is engraved on the granite propylæa at Elephantine.

PTOLEMY SOTER, and his son, PTOLEMY PHILADELPHUS, have left the remembrance of their prosperous reigns, in various important works. EUERGETES I. not only ruled over Egypt, but rendered his name celebrated, by his military expeditions, both in Africa and in Asia. His titles are, therefore, not only inscribed on the edifices constructed during his reign, in Egypt, but are to be met with in Nubia, particularly on the temple of Dakkhé; and the basso relievos, on a triumphal gate, constructed by him at Thebes, may be admired even among the ancient relics of the magnificence of the Eighteenth Dynasty.

The temple of Antæopolis, dates from the reign of PTOLEMY PHILOPATOR, and ARSINOE his wife. In his reign, too, the ancient palaces of Karnac and Luxor, at Thebes, were repaired. PTOLEMY EPIPHANES, and his wife CLEOPATRA of Syria, dedicated one of the many temples of Philæ, as well as the temple of Edfou.

We shall content ourselves with the simple list of the remaining members of the royal race of Lagus, whose names have been found upon monuments of the Egyptian style, and inscribed in hieroglyphics. They are: PHILOMETOR, and his son EUPATOR; the latter of whom was assassinated by his uncle EUERGETES II.;

* Bull. Univ., Juin, p. 469.
† Ibid. p. 468.