The following has been purchased by the Council for the Library of the Society :

Topography of Thebes, and General View of Egypt, &c. By I. G. Wilkinson, Esq. 8vo. London, 1835.

The following were nominated for election at the next meeting on December 6th:

Dr. Carl Bezold, 34, Brienner Strasse, Munich.

David Burnett, 107, Fortess Road, N.W.

Hon. Charles P. Daly, LL.D., 84, Clinton Place, New York, U.S.A.

Aquila Dodgson, Limehurst, Ashton-under-Lyne.

George Carruthers Finnis, 13, York Terrace, Regent's Park, N.W. Dr. Lucien Gautier, Professor of Theology, Lausanne, Switzerland. Dr. Grant-Bey, The Sanatorium, Cairo.

Thomas Greer, M.P., F.R.G.S., Grove House, Park Road, Regent's Park, N.W.

Dr. William Lotz, 22, Bahnhofsstrasse, Cassel.

Dr. Alexander Macalister, The University, Dublin.

Dr. Eberhard Nestle, Münsingen, Wurtemburg.

Samuel Perkes, C.E., Larnaka, Cyprus.

Demetrius Pierides, Larnaka, Cyprus.

The Hon. George Shea, Chief Justice of the United States Marine Courts, 205, West 46th Street, New York, U.S.A.

Rev. William Saumarez Smith, B.D., Principal's Lodge, St. Aidan's College, Birkenhead.

Rev. Arnold Dawes Taylor, B.A., The Rectory, Churchstanton, Honiton, Devon.

Frederic Cope Whitehouse, M.A., Founder's Court, E.C.

Rev. A. F. A. Woodford, M. A., 25A, Norfolk Crescent, Hyde Park, W.

To be added to the List of Subscribers :

The Department of Antiquities of the National Museum of Hungary, Buda Pesth.

DR. BIRCH thought that the Society would like to hear the discoveries at the Deir-el-Bahari, and that this most remarkable find of mummies should engage its attention. The site of the Deir-elBahari had been revealed by an Arab, and had no doubt been known to the Arab explorers for many years. By a shaft about 4 feet square and 25 feet deep, the explorers descended to a passage about 60 feet long, which was found strewed with coffins and other remains. These had been exhumed, and transported to the Museum of Boulaq, where they are now deposited. The coffins and mummies of the royal persons had been removed from other Theban sepulchres, especially those at the Drah-Abou-el-Neggah, where some of those found at the Deir-el-Bahari are known to have been originally deposited, as amongst them are the coffin and mummy of Taakan III, described in the account of the robbery in the days of Rameses IX, given in the Abbott Papyrus of the British Museum. The mummies of the XVIIIth dynasty were those of Aahmes I, of the same line, the monarch who drove the Shepherd Rulers out of Northern Egypt. This mummy, it was observed, had been placed in the coffin of a private person, and although it coincided with the description of the times, and the name of Amasis was said to be written on the hands and feet, it did not necessarily follow that it was the body of the king. His wife, known as Aahmes-Nefert-ari, was apparently an Ethiopian, and her mummy had also been found with those of princes and princesses of the family of Aahmes. The coffin and mummy of Amenophis I, successor of Aahmes, had also been found; also those of Thothmes I and Thothmes II; but that of Thothmes I had been occupied by Finotem II, of the XXIst dynasty, and the mummy of Thothmes had disappeared. Thothmes III, the great Egyptian conqueror, who had advanced the frontier to Mesopotamia, and even possibly to India, as shown by his elephant hunts, was also found, but in so mutilated a condition that it is impossible to make out either his features or stature, and his inscribed shroud had also extracts of the Funereal Ritual, and not inscriptions of any historical value. An inscribed board of the same period also had religious inscriptions, and no historical ones were in the find. The body of Amenophis I had probably reposed in a tomb of the Deir-el-Bahari, but those of the Thothmes family had probably been originally in sepulchres in the vicinity of the Deir-el-Bahari itself; and up to the present moment the original sepulchres had not been discovered.

Some other mummies and coffins of the XVIIIth dynasty occurred; but after Thothmes III none till the XIXth dynasty: the coffins and mummies of two early kings, Seti I, whose tomb was in the Biban-elMelook, and whose coffin of alabaster is in the Soane Museum, also the wooden coffin and mummy of Rameses II or Sesostris, whose tomb and sarcophagus are in the Biban-el-Melook. The period of the removal of these mummies was in the seventh year of some monarch, probably Herhor, of the XXIst dynasty, and according to the hieratic inscriptions, is stated to have been caused by the fear of a foreign invasion and the Assyrian conquest of Egypt by Assurbanihabla or Esarhaddon naturally suggests itself. No mummies or coffins of the XXth dynasty, but only some bones and other objects, were found; but of the XXIst dynasty, at which period and for whom this mummy pit was made, several of the kings and princes were discovered Pinotem II, with satyrrial features like Voltaire; in the coffin of Thothmes III, with brown skin as if a mulatto or Ethiopian, other members of the family of Pinotem III, the king Menkheperra and his wife Hesiemkheb; the queen Makara, with her deceased infant daughter, and various other mummies of the period. No mummies or coffins were discovered after this period.

The Rev. Henry George Tomkins read a communication on the Campaign of Rameses II, in his fifth year, against Kadesh on the Orontes.

For the homes of the various tribes allied together against the king of Egypt, Mr. Tomkins expressed the opinion that it was not necessary to seek far into Asia Minor, as had been proposed by some writers; they might he thought be found within narrower limits. Their names as given on the inscriptions were mentioned, with some identifications as to position and race.

The position of the fortified Kadesh was next considered. The second pylon of the Ramesseum (Ross. M. R. cix-cx, Leps. Denk., vol. iii, 164) gives the Orontes flowing from the left into a lake which curves upwards, and then turns to the right, where the doubly-moated Kadesh stands on its island, with bridges above and below, the lower bridge being south, for the Kheta, shown there, crossed the southern moat (as the narrative says) to attack the brigade

of Ra.

Below the river a straight embanked canal runs right across the picture. With these particulars agrees the tableau on the first pylon of the Ramesseum (Denk. III, 157-160), where we have the important addition of the point where the canal flows out of the Orontes at its east side, north-easterly in direction. In both pictures Kadesh must be at the north-east end of the long lake, which is at least five times as long as the island where Kadesh stands, and cannot represent a mill-pool 50 yards across with a Tell 400 yards long. It must be the Lake of Homs (formerly Lake of Kadesh); and in the sunken level about Saddeh, "behind Kadesh," and "to the north-west," as the Egyptian narratives tell us, a large force might lie unseen by Râmeses as he advanced from the south along the north-west side of the lake. This agrees with all the military movements depicted in the two battle-pieces of the Ramesseum, and in the colossal tableau of Abusimbel, which Mr. Tomkins explained in detail with drawings, map, and diagram, showing how, in his opinion, the ground north-west of Tell Neby Mendeh (Lieut. Conder's Kadesh) would be fully in view of the Egyptian army as they "crossed a ridge (as Lieut. Conder says), and descended into the plains north-west of (his) Kadesh," the very place where the great ambuscade would have been laid, and the movements given would be quite inconsistent with this position. He therefore adhered to his supposition (expressed to Lieut. Conder before he left England) that "the fortified island with its double moat and bridges formed a part of the great engineering works at the northern end of the long lake, which included the great dyke holding up the waters of the Orontes, by which the lake was artificially formed."*

The route by which Rameses arrived at the place, with the cities he passed, were mentioned, and finally the events of this short campaign were traced. The various positions of the troops as represented upon the great battle-piece at Abu-Simbel, which covers an area of 57 feet in length and 25 feet in height, were pointed out and described.

* Palestine Exploration Fund "Quarterly Statement," July, 1881. For the use of the annexed sketch map of the Lake of Homs, explaining the identification made by Lieut. Conder, we are indebted to the kindness of Walter Besant, Esq., M.A., Secretary of the Palestine Exploration Fund.

The Rev. Wm. Wright agreed with the lecturer in limiting the area of the district from which the allies of the Hittites came. He had no doubt that the places mentioned would be found in the vicinity of "the land of the Hittites" when the explorers had thoroughly investigated that region.

He thought Mr. Tomkins had accurately traced the march of Ramses II from "Khetam in the land of Zar," to Kadesh on the Orontes, the chief town of the Khita. He had made excellent use of the material on which he was obliged to work, and had only failed to recognise "Tell Neby Mendeh" as the Kadesh of the Khitar, through the ambiguous way in which the name Lake was used in the Egyptian inscriptions. Lieut. Conder was correct in the spelling of Tell Neby Mendeh, and he was right in confirming Dr. Thomson's identification of that place with Kadesh (see "The Land and the Book," p. 110). Mr. Wright, after securing the casts of the Hamath Inscriptions, returned with Consul Green in 1872 to Tell Neby Mendeh, and found the name Ketesh well known.