After his sojourn in Egypt, Lepsius was able for the first time to bring to a positive conclusion the studies on Egyptian mythology, which he had begun in Italy. Yet he wrote to Bunsen from Thebes that he had almost despaired of any real progress in the field of mythology, and had only collected the materials in obedience to a blind instinct. “Now,” he continues, “I have found the red thread, which will lead through this apparently endless labyrinth. I have made out the divinities, great and small, and also the most important data for the history of Egyptian mythology. The relation between the Greek accounts and the monuments has become clear to me; in short, I know that an Egyptian mythology really can be written.” That which he found in Thebes he combined, at a comparatively late date, with what he had gained in Italy, and the results of all these collections, studies, and combinations were finally accumulated in his epoch-producing work on the first Egyptian Pantheon.[34] This proves that even with the motley swarm of Egyptian Gods it is possible to follow the historical principle of classification. Lepsius was the first, not only to discover and more nearly determine the “group of the superior gods,” but also to establish clearly the reasons why the adored beings of whom it consists are associated together. Where variations occurred he explained their origin from local or temporal causes in a convincing manner. His conjectures as to the age of the Osiris myth have been confirmed by the inscriptions in the lately opened pyramids. In his treatise on the gods of the four elements[35] there is much with which we cannot now agree. Contrary to his opinion their names occur much earlier than the time of the Ptolemies. But in spite of this and other errors the paper stands, as far as method is concerned, on an equal footing with its predecessors, and it is here that he has summed up in a brief phrase the rule which he steadfastly obeyed during his long and active scientific career: “In all antiquarian investigations it will always be safest to begin with a chronological analysis of the material, before proceeding to a systematic arrangement thereof.”