* The chronology of this period is still very uncertain, and the stelae of the Serapseum, which enable us to fix the order of the various reigns, yield no information as to their length. Sheshonq I. did not reign much longer than twenty-one years, which is his latest known date, and we may take the reign of twenty-one years attributed to him by Manetho as being substantially correct. The latest dates we possess are as follows: Osorkon I., twelfth year, and Takeloti I., sixth year or seventh year. Lastly, we have a twenty-ninth year in the case of Osorkon II., with a reference in the case of the twenty-eighth year to the fifth year of a Takeloti whose first cartouche is missing, and who perhaps died before his father and co-regent. In Manetho, Osorkon I. is credited with a reign of fifteen years, and his three next successors with a total of twenty-five years between them, which is manifestly incorrect, since the monuments give twenty-nine years, or twenty-three at the very least, if we take into account the double date in the case of the first two of these kings. The wisest course seems to be to allow forty-five years to Osorkon and his two successors: if Sheshonq, as I believe, died in 924, the fifty years allotted to the next three Pharaohs would bring us down to 880, and it is in this year that I am, for the present, inclined to place the death of Osorkon II. [Illustration: 242.jpg BRONZE] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from. Lanzone's statuette. [Illustration: 243.jpg THE GREAT TEMPLE OF BUBASTIS DURINGNAVILLE's EXCAVATIONS] Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Naville. These monarchs regarded themselves as traditionary suzerains of the country of Kharu, i.e. of Israel, Judah, Ammon, and Moab, and their authority may perhaps have been recognised by the Philistines in the main, but they seldom stirred from their own territory, and contented themselves with protecting their frontiers against the customary depredations of the Libyan and Asiatic nomads.* * Repressive measures of this kind are evidently referred to in passages similar to those in which Osorkon II. boasts of having "overthrown beneath his feet the Upper and Lower Lotanu," and speaks of the exploits of the sons of Queen Kalamait against certain tribes whose name, though mutilated, seems to have been Libyan in character. Under their rule, Egypt enjoyed fifty years of profound peace, which was spent in works of public utility, especially in the Delta, where, thanks to their efforts, Bubastis came to be one of the most splendid among the cities of secondary importance.* * All our knowledge of the history of the temple of Bubastis dates from Naville's excavations.