instalment of taxes for the year, signed by Severus. No. 66. Writing exercise for the formation of letters. The Copts sometimes covered the outside of an unbroken jar with lists, etc., _e.g._, the amphora, No. 166F, Fourth Egyptian Room, Wall-case No. 163. On this are written six lists of names of men, with those of their fathers and mothers, and it is probable that the inscriptions were written not later than the eighth century. CHAPTER III. EGYPTIAN LITERATURE, SACRED AND PROFANE. =Egyptian Literature.=—The literature of Ancient Egypt, written in the hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic characters, is large, and the contents of the principal divisions of it may be thus summarized:— =Religious literature=: first and foremost is the great compilation of texts, partly magical and partly religious, to which was given the name “Per-em-hru,” _i.e._, the “Book of Coming Forth by Day,” or, as it is now generally called, the =Book of the Dead=. This work is extant in three great Recensions, viz., the Heliopolitan, Theban, and Saïte. The =Heliopolitan Recension= consists of a series of formulas of a semi-magical character, written in hieroglyphics, which were collected by the priests of Ȧn, or Heliopolis, about B.C. 3300. A large number of these formulas were in existence long before this period. The oldest copies of texts of this Recension are found in the Pyramids of kings Unȧs, Tetȧ, Pepi I, Meḥti-em-sa-f, and Pepi II at Ṣaḳḳârah, but series of the formulas from it were copied on coffins and sarcophagi down to about B.C. 200. Among such is the =coffin of Āmamu= in the British Museum (First Egyptian Room, No. 6654). On this magnificent coffin are written some hundreds of lines of text in black ink, and a list of canonical offerings, according to the Liturgy of Funerary Offerings, is appended. The coffin itself was intended to represent the chamber of a _maṣṭaba_ tomb, and on the inside are painted pictures of doors and panels, similar to those which are found in the tombs about B.C. 3500. It is one of the finest of its class, and it was probably made before the XIth dynasty (B.C. 2600). In connection with this must be mentioned the portion of a =wooden coffin of Menthuḥetep=, a king of the XIth dynasty, on which is inscribed a version of a part of the XVIIth Chapter of the Book of the Dead (Second Egyptian Room, Wall-cases 86-88).