SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY.--These are (1) the inscriptions on the monuments. These, it must be remembered, are commonly in praise of the departed, and of their achievements. (2) The list of kings in the Turin papyrus, a very important Egyptian manuscript, discovered by Champollion. (3) _Manetho_. An Egyptian priest, he wrote, about 250 B.C., a history. Only his lists of dynasties are preserved as given in an Armenian version of _Eusebius_, a writer of the fourth century, and in _George Syncellus_, a writer of the eighth century, who professed to embody the statements of Eusebius and of another author, _Julius Africanus_, probably of the second century, who had also quoted the lists of Manetho. Manetho is of great importance; but we do not know accurately what his original text was, it being so differently reported. His details frequently clash with the monuments. Moreover, the method adopted by him in making his lists is, in essential points, subject to doubt. (4) The Greek historians. _Herodotus_ had visited Egypt (between 460 and 450 B.C.), and conferred with Egyptian priests. _Diodorus_, also, in the time of Julius Caesar, had visited Egypt. He is largely a copyist of Herodotus. (5) The Old Testament. Here we have many instructive references to Egypt. But, until Rehoboam, the kings of Egypt have in the Scriptures the general name of _Pharaoh_. Hence it is not always easy to identify them with corresponding kings on the Egyptian lists. CHRONOLOGY.--The date of the beginning of the first dynasty of Egyptian rulers is a controverted point; there are advocates of a longer and of a shorter chronology. The data are not sufficient to settle accurately the questions in dispute. Some judicious scholars put the beginning of _the first dynasty_ as early as 5000 B.C.; others have wished to bring it down even lower than 3000 B.C. Egyptian history, prior to the Persian conquest (525 B.C.), divides itself into three sections,--the _Old Empire_, having its seat at Memphis; the _Middle Empire_, following upon a period of strife and division, and embracing the rule of foreign invaders, _the Hyksos;_ and the _New Empire_, the era of conquest, by foreign power, and of downfall.