The recent explorations made by Mariette among the archives of Egypt have confirmed the testimony of Manetho. The names of the kings, their order of succession, and the length of their reigns correspond with Manetho's table. These discoveries not only testify to the great antiquity of the empire, but also throw light on the nation, its manners, and customs. There were found stools, cane-bottomed chairs, work-boxes, nets, knives, needles, toilet ornaments, earthenware, seeds, eggs, bread, straw baskets, a child's plaything, paint boxes, with colors and brushes, etc., from three thousand to six thousand years old. There were also found the jewels of Queen Aah-hotep, who lived 1700 B. C., consisting of exquisite chains, diadems, ear-rings, and bracelets, which no modern queen would hesitate to wear. These statements are still further confirmed by the testimony of geology. In the year 1850 borings were commenced in the mud deposit of the Nile. The most important results were obtained from an excavation and boring made near the base of the pedestal of the statue of Rameses at Memphis, the middle of whose reign, according to Lepsius, was 1361 B. C. Assuming with Mr. Horner that the lower part of the platform or foundation was fourteen and three-fourths inches below the surface of the ground, or alluvial flat, at the time it was laid, there had been formed between that period and the year A. D. 1850, or during the space of three thousand two hundred and eleven years, a deposit of nine feet four inches round the pedestal, which gives a mean increase of three and one-half inches in a hundred years. It was further ascertained, by sinking a shaft near the pedestal, and by boring in the same place, that below the level of the old plain the thickness of old Nile mud resting on desert sand amounted to thirty-two feet; and it was therefore inferred by Mr. Horner that the lowest layer (in which a fragment of burned brick was found) was more than thirteen thousand years old, or was deposited thirteen thousand four hundred and ninety-six years before the year 1850."[96] Other excavations were made on a large scale. In the first sixteen or twenty-four feet there were dug up jars, vases, pots, a small human figure in burnt clay, a copper knife, and other articles entire. When the water soaking through from the Nile hindered the progress of the workmen, boring was resorted to, and almost everywhere, and from all depths, even where they sank sixty feet below the surface, pieces of burned brick and pottery were extracted.[97]