As to the dates employed in the following chronology, a word of explanation is necessary. Neither Manetho’s lists nor any other available sources enable us at present to supply exact dates for the earlier periods of Egyptian history with any precision. Authorities differ as to the early period to the extent of more than three thousand years. Thus Champollion gives the date 5867 B.C. for the beginning of the Ist Dynasty, while Wilkinson supplies for the same event the date 2320 B.C. Later authorities are pretty fully agreed that such a date as that of Wilkinson is much too recent. Meyer fixes upon 3180 B.C. as the minimum date, and no doubt he would very willingly admit that the probable date is much more remote. For our present purpose it has been thought well to adopt an intermediate date, as in some sense striking an average among divergent opinions. The dates of Brugsch, which agree rather closely with those of Mariette and Petrie, have in the main been followed here, with certain modifications made necessary by recent discoveries, chiefly with reference to synchronism with known dates of the Assyrian empire and other countries. It will be understood, therefore, that all the earlier dates of this chronology are accepted as merely approximative, the approximation becoming closer and closer as we come down the centuries. At the middle of the XVIIIth Dynasty the dates cannot be more than twenty years out of the way, while from the XXIInd onward the probable error is very small indeed, vanishing entirely with the accession of Psamthek I of the XXVIth Dynasty. [Illustration: THE TEMPLE AT KARNAK] For present purposes it is undesirable to give a complete list of the names of Egyptian kings. Fuller details as to monarchs and events will be given elsewhere in our text. But the purposes of our preliminary view are better subserved by confining attention to the more important Pharaohs, and to the principal events that give picturesqueness and interest to Egyptian history. We take up now the synoptical view of the successive dynasties. Such a survey will, it is believed, furnish the reader with the best possible preparation for the full comprehension of the more detailed presentation that is to follow. THE OLD MEMPHIS KINGDOM IST DYNASTY, 4400-4133 B.C. 4400 B.C. Accession of =Menes=. Ist Dynasty founded. Tradition ascribes to him the foundation of Memphis, the capital of the Old Memphite Kingdom, whither it was moved from This or Thinis; and states that he was killed by a hippopotamus in a campaign against the Libyans. _Monument._--A tomb discovered by De Morgan (1897) is believed to be that of King Menes, or of his wife Nit-hotep. 4366 =Teta.=--Second king, said to have written a work on anatomy. _Monument._--A papyrus bought in Thebes by Ebers refers to a pomatum made for Teta’s mother, Shesh.