MENES RECENT DISCOVERIES CONCERNING.
In tgoi Dr. W. M. Flinders Petrie, of the Uni versity of London, wrote a most interesting ac count of his recent work. In a letter from Arabah, Baliana, Upper Egypt, to the London Times he says: "The continuation of the work of the Egypt Exploration Fund on the Royal Tombs of the first Egyptian dynasties has proved in some respects more surprising than that of last year. We are now able to trace out the regular development of civilization during some four hundred years, from the time when writing was but rarely used, and then only in rude pictorial stage, down to the common use of delicately figured hieroglyphs in distinguishable from those used for thousands of years after.
"We have now in our hands the beautifully wrought jewelry and gold works, the minutely engraved ivories, the toilet objects, of Menes, the founder of the monarchy, and his successor, fash ioned more than 6,5oo years ago.
"The following summary will give an idea of the gain of knowledge during the last three months: "Of Menes and his predecessors there are about thirty inscriptions and labels in stone and ivory. From these we learn certainly the names of three kings,—Narmer, Ka, and a name written with a fish sign ; perhaps also Det and Sam are two other names, but they are more probably word signs. Among these works of Menes are parts of four ebony tables with figures and inscriptions, one apparently showing a human sacrifice. The strangest object is one showing a massive strip of gold of unknown use with the name of Menes (Aha) upon it.
"Of Zer, the successor of Menes, the astonish ing find is the forearm of his queen, still in its wrappings, with four splendid bracelets intact. One is a series of figures of the royal hawk perched upon the tomb, thirteen figures in cast and chased gold alternating with fourteen carved in turquoise. The second bracelet is of spiral beads of gold and lazuli in three groups. The third bracelet is of four groups of hour-glass beads, amethyst between gold, with connections of gold and turquoise. The fourth has a center piece of gold copied from the rosette seed of a plant, with amethyst and turquoise beads, and band of braided gold wire. This brilliant and
exquisitely finished group of jewelry shows what a high level was already attained at the beginning of the First Dynasty. It is two thousand years older than the jewelry of Dahshur; the oldest yet known, and it has the great advantage of being carefully examined as found, and restrung in its exact arrangement.
"Of the same king there are some forty in scribed pieces of ivory and stone, and two lions carved in ivory. Also the great royal tombstone has been found in pieces and rejoined. About sixty private tombstones give us the names in use in the royal household; many formed from the goddess Neith, but not one from Isis." Pertaining to the same subject, Prof. A. H. Sayce has an article in the Homiletic Review for March, tgoi, entitled "The New Light from the Ancient Monuments," in which he says: "Once more the light which has come from the monu ments of the past has been fatal to the pretensions of critical skepticism. The discoveries at Abydos have discredited its methods and results. They have shown that where these can be tested they prove such pretensions to be absolutely worthless.
"Menes and his dynasty were very real and historical personages, in spite of the critics, and the age in which they lived, so far from being mythical, was an age of literary culture and civili zation. It is only reasonable to conclude that methods and results which thus break down under the test of monumental discovery must eoually break down in other departments of history where no such test can as yet be applied.
"The principles and mode of argument which have turned the Hebrew patriarchs into creatures of myth are precisely the same as those which declared Menes to be unhistorical. and the fate which has overtaken them in the case of Menes may be expected also in the case of the Old Testa ment.
"It is not the discoveries of higher criticism, but the old traditions, which have been confirmed by archxological research."