It would exceed our limits, and it is not our purpose, to trace in detail the successive steps by which the existence of each of the kings of Manetho’s list, from the expulsion of the Phœnician shepherds from Lower Egypt, and the consequent union of Upper and Lower Egypt in a single monarchy, to the reign of Sesostris, has been attested by the monuments. Suffice it to say, that the same number of individuals as stated by Manetho, namely, eighteen, filling a space of four centuries, are shown, by the monuments, to have reigned in that interval, and to have borne the same relationship, as well as succession, to each other, as is expressed by the historian: that, of the eighteen names, eight in different parts of the list are read on the monuments identically as in the historical record; and that in regard to the names that are not identical, we have the testimony of Manetho that some amongst the kings, Sesostris, for example, were known by two and even by more names. The table of Abydus appears to have been strictly a genealogical record; a record of generations, in which view it is strictly accordant with the historian. The period of the Egyptian annals on which this light has been thrown, is precisely that which might have been selected in the whole history of Egypt as the most desirable for such purpose. Independently of its very high antiquity, it was the period of the greatest splendour and power of the native Egyptian monarchy, and of the highest (Egyptian) cultivation of the arts. The greater part of the more ancient, and by far the most admirable in execution, of the temples, palaces, and statues, which still attest by their ruins their former magnificence, are the work of that age; and the hieroglyphic inscriptions still [p184] extant on them, and which, when not defaced by wanton injury, are almost as perfect as when first executed, make known the reigns in which they were respectively constructed, and frequently the purposes for which they were designed. This is in itself no small achievement, when we reflect that these extraordinary remains of ancient art were equally the objects of vague wonderment in the times of the Roman emperors, as they were in those of the generation preceding ourselves; but that they are become to us objects of a more enlightened curiosity, which they promise amply to repay, when the study that has already made known their founders, shall reveal the signification of the hieroglyphic histories, with which the walls of the palaces and temples are covered. Already have we gained some very important facts in regard to the condition, political and otherwise, of the countries adjoining to Egypt at that early period. The monuments of Nubia are covered with hieroglyphics, perfectly similar both in form and disposition to those on the edifices at Thebes; the same elements, the same formulæ, the same language; and the names of the kings who elevated the most ancient amongst them, are those of the