on a throne and invested with the kingly sceptre. He who looked upon the statue “heard a terrible noise proceeding from it which almost caused his heart to stop beating, and he who had heard this noise would die.” An image of rose-coloured granite watched over the pyramid of Khephren, standing upright, a sceptre in its hand and the urous on its brow, “which serpent threw himself upon him who approached it, coiled itself around his neck, and killed him.” A sorcerer had invested these protectors of the ancient Pharaohs with their powers, but another equally potent magician could elude their vigilance, paralyze their energies, if not for ever, at least for a sufficient length of time to ferret out the treasure and rifle the mummy. The cupidity of the fellahîn, highly inflamed by the stories which they were accustomed to hear, gained the mastery over their terror, and emboldened them to risk their lives in these well-guarded tombs. How many pyramids had been already rifled at the beginning of the second Theban empire! The IVth dynasty became extinct in the person of Shop-siskaf, the successor and probably the son of Mykerinos.* The learned of the time of Ramses II. regarded the family which replaced this dynasty as merely a secondary branch of the line of Snofrûi, raised to power by the capricious laws which settled hereditary questions.** * The series of kings beginning with Mykerinos was drawn up for the first time in an accurate manner by E. de Rougé, _recherches sur les Monu-mails qu’on peut attribuer aux six premières dynasties_, pp. 66-84, M. de Rouge’s results have been since adopted by all Egyptologists. The table of the IVTH dynasty, restored as far as possible with the approximate dates, is subjoined:-- [Illustration: 211.jpg TABLE OF THE IVTH DYNASTY] ** The fragments of the royal Turin Papyrus exhibit, in fact, no separation between the kings which Manetho attributes to the IVth dynasty and those which he ascribes to the Vth, which seems to show that the Egyptian annalist considered them all as belonging to one and the same family of Pharaohs.