obtained the power, and that the list of Manetho has passed him over as the opponent of the legitimate princes. As a fact we shall find that other usurpers beside Tnephachtus rose up beside and against Petubastis and Osorkon; that Osorkon was restricted to Bubastis, and as the inscriptions of Thebes mention Psammus (Psimut) we may further suppose that he retired from Tanis, where Manetho's list places him, to Upper Egypt. The extinction of the military vigour of Egypt under the later Ramessids, the formation of the body-guard and army of Libyan mercenaries, bore its natural fruit. The disruption of the state-power, which thus begun as early as the later Bubastites, led under Petubastis and Osorkon III. to the complete ruin of the kingdom. The commanders of the army in the districts, and no doubt other men of great position and ambition, threw off obedience, made themselves independent, and supported by their soldiers gained an independent power. Nine hundred years after the expulsion of the shepherds the ancient kingdom broke up into a series of separate dominions. A memorial stone discovered in the remains of Napata, near Mount Barkal, displays to us quite a different picture of the condition of Egypt about the middle of the eighth century from that which we should imagine when we read in Manetho an apparently unbroken succession of Pharaohs. On that stone Osorkon is indeed mentioned, but only as king of the city of Bubastis. Beside him we find Petisi of Athribis (west of Bubastis), Anchor of Sesennu (Hermopolis minor), Nimrod (Nemrut) of Sesennu (Hermopolis major, now Ashmunein), Ssheshonk of Busiris, Pefabast of Chnensu (Heraclea major), Pithenef of Pisabtu; fourteen or fifteen princes, and among them Tafnecht (Tnephachtus) of Sais. It is clear from this that Petubastis and Osorkon were not able to maintain the royal authority; that Osorkon was limited to Bubastis; the chiefs of the rest of the land stood beside him with equal right and equal power. The same memorial teaches us that Tnephachtus of Sais gained Memphis; that he undertook to subjugate the remaining princes to his supremacy. He succeeded in forcing king Osorkon and the chiefs of Upper Egypt into obedience; they recognised in him their superior; and he attempted to make even the princes of Upper Egypt, _i.e._ the Begs of the Mamelukes in that region, his vassals.