dently the seven Diodorus specifies as being of little account, excepting one, whom he calls Nilus. Herodotus represents the good old time as ending with the Amenophis, whom he calls Remphis; and both he and Diodorus represent the builders of the pyramids as having succeeded these seven kings; so that no reasonable doubt can exist that we have correctly pointed them out in the 20th dynasty, so called, restored, and that the builders of the largest pyramids, at least, were of the 5th dynasty nominally considered.

The following from Africanus' 21st dynasty: 7 Tanite Kings.

None of these names correspond in form to those of the builders of the pyramids as given by Diodorus and Herodotus; nor do those of the seven of the next dynasty, 22nd, nor those of any of the succeeding dynasties; so that we may rest satisfied that the great pyramids were built by the third house of the Ramessides, so called, of the old 12th dynasty. The name Nephercheres means the good king; it is found as No. 3 of the old 5th dynasty, and No. 1 of the third. Independently of any idea as to Egypt's being possessed for thirteen years by the Hebrews, it appears plain that the compulsory labors of a portion of that people among others were used by Sesostris and his son, Amenophis, in the accomplishment of works of a public character. But at this time the Hebrews would be regarded as Egyptian Indigenæ, the time referred to being about 280 years anterior to the founding of the great pyramid by the third king of the old 12th dynasty. The circumstances of the case would imply the Hebrews to have been only among the number of the oppressed, who were undoubtedly, for the most part, captives of war. In the labors performed at this time there is no mention made of the pyramids. The inter

val of time between this Amenophis and the building of the pyramids was too great to allow us to suppose that there were any stone then prepared at the quarries for those structures. From Menes to the first year of Rameses the Great, there intervened 570 years; from the death of Rameses to the accession of Cheops, 230 years; and from the death of Cheops till Herodotus' visit to Egypt there passed all of 700 years. Cheops, the builder of the great pyramid which was one of the oldest of the pyramids, perhaps the oldest of all, was the thirteenth successor on the throne of Amenophis, son of Sesostris the Great. They were public works which were done, but of a different character from pyramids. Speaking, however, in reference to the second predecessor of Cheops, the eleventh successor of this Amenophis, and to Cheops himself, Herodotus says: "I was also informed by the same priests that, till the reign of Rhampsinitus, Egypt was remarkable not only for its abundance, but for its excellent laws. Cheops, who succeeded this prince," (Cheops was his second successor) degenerated into the extremest profligacy of conduct. He barred the avenues to every temple, and forbade the Egyptians to offer sacrifices. He proceeded next to make them labor servilely for himself. Some he compelled to hew stones in the quarries of the Arabian mountains and drag them to the banks of the Nile; others were appointed to receive them in vessels and transport them to a mountain of Libya," etc. He is here speaking of the prep aration for the building of the great pyramid. In the study of the history of a people, the time spaces, and the changes which they are likely to bring about are always to be closely observed. The age of Amenophis, the son of Sesostris, was considerably different from that of Cheops, and the age of the latter considerably different from that of Herodotus, in Egypt.

66

You must have noticed that in the fragmentary way in which he dealt with the subject that while the average reign Africanus allows to his kings of the 18th and 21st dynasties is only a little over 16 years in each case, the average reign for his 19th dynasty is 32 years; but we already know that his 18th dynasty really consists of two, the 1st and 3rd, and that he expressed only the years, 263, pertaining to the first of these. As said before, for his 20th dynasty he simply states "12 Diospolitan (Theban) Kings in 135 years," without giving any names, or any other information. For this dynasty Eusebius gives 182 years (245 being given in brack

ets). Lepsius, in his systematizing, gives it 185. But one of these sums may be said to be as nearly correct as the other; for the period is that of the last twelve kings of the List of Eratosthenes, to which that author gives 340 years, being an average reign of 281. Double of the period, as given by Eusebius, would be not far from that given by Eratosthenes, which doubtless, is about correct. The giving of only 135 or even 185 to so many reigns as four or five reigns sometimes exhaust, and the giving to the old 18th and 19th dynasties an aggregate of years only a little over half of what they reigned was undoubtedly meant to obscure the subject of the history at this juncture of it in subservience to some vain notion or concoction of the mind in an endeavor to lay the base for establishing some historic religious origin, that is, on paper, a notion which was worse than nothing and vanity and plainly shows the effeminacy and iniquity of mind of those who concocted and tried to establish it. Is not a Schemite or a Cushite all the same as to race, whether he have been born at the sources of the Nile or of the Euphrates or Jaxartes, on the Mountains of Kurdistan, in the plains of Chaldæa, in the plains of Dongola or Meroë, all of which places these races inhabited in what may be called the mythic or beclouded ages of history? Even in the Egyptian language the name of Ethopia is Kesh or Cush as well as it is Cush in Kurdistan in Gedrosia and Caramania and Cuth in Persia and Chaldæa. In fact the whole fragmentary exhibit of the 18th, 19th and 20th dynasties so called, as found in Africanus and Eusebius, tells its own story on its face, namely, that its object is to obscure the whole subject of the history and make believe a state of things to have been which could have been so only allegorically.

While, as I have before noticed, Diodorus agrees in general with Herodotus in regard to the time of the building of the largest pyramid, yet it appears that he had himself no settled ideas on that subject; for in another place he gives it as his opinion that "Armæus built the first of the three great pyramids, Amosis the

* 263+224=487, which if multiplied by 2=974. Then 1076 years, the whole period to the end of the 20th dynasty, so called, minus 974-102 years. If to this last number we add only 33 years, or one generation, we shall have 135 years, the number Africanus allows his old unexpressed 20th dynasty to have reigned, showing us plainly that only a little over half of the number of years really reigned are by him given to the 18th and 19th dynasties, together, and more than one generation less than half the number reigned by his so-called 20th dynasty.

second, and Inaron the third, which some ascribed to Rhodopis." The name of Armais, which was that of the brother of Sesostris, would put the building of the great pyramid all of three centuries before the time at which Herodotus put it and at which it was built. This Armais, whom the Greeks called Danaus (Da-Naus the ship), is said in the tradition to have settled an Egyptian colony in Greece. If he were such a man as some historians picture him to have been, one would not suspect that he undertook or carried out any such a work as the building of a pyramid; and it appears evident that the other two, to whom Diodorus ascribes the erection of the other two great pyramids, lived at a period by far too late for them to have had anything to do with the building of the pyramids. Amosis, the friend of the Greeks, lived not more than a generation or two before the Persian invasion. And the Inaron referred to is doubtless that one called Inarus, the Libyan, "the son of Psammetichus,' who, in connection with Amyrtæus of Sais and the Greeks, revolted from Artaxerses in about the year 460 B. C. This man had, however, only four or five years of reign afterwards, which did not allow him sufficient time to have built any pyramid, if he had not done so before. This was not far from the time at which Herodotus visited Egypt, when the pyramids were already old structures. Lucan (Phars. ix. 155) takes notice to this and says: "Diodorus (464) says some attribute the second pyramid to Amosis: the first to Armæus ; and the third to Inaron as well as to Rhodope."

Now it is noticeable that those who get from some Greeks the credit of having built the great pyramids we reall Egyptians who had been not only very friendly to the Greeks, but were very peculiarly connected with them, and it is reasonable to suppose that they would be more inclined to attribute to those rather than to others something of a noble and extraordinary character. Speaking of the time of the building of the third pyramid Herodotus himself says: "Some of the Greeks erringly believe this to have been erected by Rhodopis, the courtesan, but they do not seem to me even to know who this Rhodopis was; if they had they never could have ascribed to her the building of a pyramid, produced at the expense of several thousand talents. Besides this Rhodopis lived at a different period, in the time not of Mykerinus, but of Amasis and many years after the monarchs who had erected the pyramids."

In his summing up of the ancient history of Egypt Diodorus re

counts in succession the ancient Egyptian sages and legislators (c. 94 seq.):

I. Mnevis (Menes or Menphis) who after the dominion of Gods and Heroes was the first king who gave written laws. He suc ceeded in persuading the people to live according to these, professing that he had received them from Hermes. Of all kings he was the most magnanimous and popular.

II. Sasuches, a sovereign of very diverse talents, enlarged the code of his predecessors, regulated the forms of religious worship, and invented geometry and astronomy, both theoretical and practical.

III. Sesoosis, the great warrior, legislated for military affairs in general, but particularly for the warrior caste.

IV. Bocchoris, all matters connected with the duties and privileges of the sovereign were treated by him, also laws concerning treaties. He was of a delicate constitution and avaricious beyond all his predecessors.

V. Amasis, the friend and counsellor of Polycrates; - to the governors and general administration of the nomes his enactments related.

VI. Darius, on account of his wisdom, virtue and respect for the sacred books and ordinances of the Egyptians, was during his lifetime honored as a god and at his death was ranked among the most upright princes."

As far as he goes Diodorus appears, in the main, not to disagree with Herodotus his arrangement and order being about the same; but he is more particular chronologically, meaning to give the number of generations between points, etc. But it should be remembered that the chronology of Herodotus really commences with Psammetichus, who became king about 640 B. C., or about two centuries before that historian visited Egypt. In his reckoning by generations however he is found to have been pretty correct in his conclusions. In both historians the heroes and some of the dynasties of the old and new empire appear to have been confounded; but Diodorus has remarked that the history of Sesoosis (Sesostris) for example, is related in very different ways.

THE TABLET OF KARNAK.

The very interesting monument called the Tablet of Karnak was discovered by Mr. Burton at the southeast angle of the temple