But the attestation which the list obtains from contemporary monuments cannot be held to war rant the assumption that it is to be depended upon where these fail. For the monuments which attest, also correct its statements. Monuments prove some reigns, and even dynasties, contemporaneous, which in the list are successive ; but we have no means of ascertaining what was truly consecutive and what parallel, where monuments are wanting. Their dates are always in years of the current reign, not of an era. From Cambyses upward to Psam metichus and his immediate predecessor Taracus= Tirhaka, the chronology is now settled [CHRO NOLOGY, Sec. 14]. Thence up to Petubastes (dyn. xxiii.) the materials are too scanty to yield any determination. For dyn. xxii., headed by Sesonchis = Shishak, the records are copious : dates on apis-stelia, of which Mariette reports seven in this dynasty, prove that it lasted much more than the 120 years of Africanus. But even these reigns cannot be formed into a canon, and the epoch of Sesonchis can only be approximately given from the Biblical synchronism, 'In 5 Rehoboam Shishak invaded Judaea'—in what year of his reign* the monument which records the conquest does not say ; besides, the epoch of Rehoboam is no longer a fixed point, or nearly so, for all chronologists. * In dyns. xx., xxi., is another gap, at present not to be bridged over. The seven named Tanites of xxi. (Afr. 13o, Eus. 121 years) seem to have been military priest-kings ; and that they were partly contemporaneous with xx. and xxii. may appear from the absence of apis-stelae, of which xx. has nine, xxii. seven. Dyn. xx., for which the list gives no names, consisted of some ten or more kings, all bearing the name Rameses, beginning with R. III., and five of them his sons, probably joint kings. The apis-inscriptions furnish no connected dates, nor can any inference be drawn from their number, since Mariette reports no less than five in the first reign. For dyn. xix. (Sethos), xviii. (Amosis), the materials, written and monumental, are most copious ; yet even here the means of an exact de termination are wanting : indeed, if further proof were needed that the Manethonic Lists are not to be implicitly trusted, it is furnished by the monu mental evidence here of contemporary reigns which in the lists are successive. It is certain, and will at last be owned by all competent inquirers, that in the part of the succession for which the evidence is clearest and most ample, it is impossible to assign the year at which any king, from Amosis to Tir haka, began to reign. No ingenuity of calculation and conjecture can make amends for the capital defects—the want of an era, the inadequacy of the materials. The brilliant light shed on this point or that, does but make the surrounding darkness more palpable. Analysis of the lists may enable the inquirer, at most, to divine the intentions of their authors ; which is but a small step gained towards the truth of facts.
But it has been supposed that certain fixed points may be got by means of astronomical conjunctures assigned to certain dates of the vague year on the monuments :—(i.) Thus, A fragmentary inscription of Takelut II., 6th king of dyn. xxii., purports that on the 25th Mesori of the 15th year of his father' (Sesonk II. according to Lepsius, Age of XXII. Dyn., but Osorkon II. according to Brugsch, Dr. Hincks, and v. Gumpach), the heavens were in visible, the moon struggling . . . .' Hence Mr. Cooper (At/unarm, II May '61) gathers, that on the day named, in the given year of Sesonk II., there was a lunar eclipse, which he considers must be that of 16th March Si5 B.c. Dr. Hincks, who at first also made the eclipse lunar, and its date 4th April 945 B. C., now contends that it was solar, and the only possible date 1st April 927 B. C. (Journal of Sacred Lit., Jan. '63, p. 333.376; comp. Id., Jan. 64, p. 459, ff.) In making it solar, he follows M.
v. Gumpach (Hist. Antiq. of the People of Egypt, '63, p. 29), who finds its date firth March 841 B.C. Unfortunately the 25th Mesori of that year was loth March. This is the only monumental notice sup posed to refer to an eclipse : not worth much at the best ; the record, even if its meaning were certain, is not contemporary.
(ii.) In several inscriptions certain dates are given to the ' manifestation of Sothis,' assumed to mean the heliacal rising of Sirius, which, for 2000 years before our era, for the latitude of Heliopolis, fell on loth July. (Biot, indeed, Re cherches de quelques dates absolues, etc., 1853, con
tends that the calculation must be made for the place at which the inscription is dated—each day of difference, of course, making a difference of four years in the date B.c.) The dates of these ' manifestations' are—(1) x Tybi of t r Takelut II.' (Brugsch) : the quaternion of years in which 1 Tybi would coincide with loth July is 845-42 B.c. (2) 15 Thoth in a year, not named, of Rameses VI., at Thebes' (Biot, U. S. ; De Rouge, Memoiresurquelques phenomines celestes, etc., in Revue Archiol. ix. 686). The date impliedis loth July 1265-62 (Biot, 14th July 1241-38). (3) Thoth in some year of Rameses III. at Thebes' (Biot and De Rouge, u.s., from a festival-calendar). The date implied is of course 1325-22 (Biot, 14th July 1301-1298). (4) Epiphi in some year of Thothmes III.' (Biot, etc., a festival-calendar at Elephantine)." This implies B.C. (Biot, 12 July 1445-42 B.c.) (5) 12 Mesori in 33 Thothmes III.' (Mr. S. Poole in Trans. R. S. Lit., v. 340). This implies 1421 18 B.C. These dates would make the interval from Rameses III. to Takelut II. 480 years, greatly in excess even of Manetho's numbers, and more so of Lepsius's arrangement, in which, from the ist of Rameses III. to the nth of Takelut II. are little more than 40o years. Again, the interval of only 152 years, implied in (3) and (4), is unquestionably too little : from the last year of Thothmes III. to the first of Rameses III., Lepsius reckons 296, Bunsen 225 years. Lastly, in (4) (5) the dates imply an interval of 56 years, which is plainly absurd. The fact must be, that these inscriptions are not rightly understood. We need to be informed what the Egyptians meant by the manifestation of Sothis ;' what method they followed in assigning it to a particular day ; especially when, as in Biot's three instances, the date occurs in a calendar, and is marked as a ' festival,' we ask, were these calendars calculated only for four years ? when a new one was set up, were the astronomical notices duly corrected, or were they merely copied from the preceding calendar ? (iii.) ' At Semneh in 2 Thothmes III., one of the 3 feasts of the Commencement of the Seasons is noted on 21 Pharmuthi.' Blot, u.s., supposes the vernal equinox to be meant, and assigns tl is to 6th April in the quaternion 1445-42 (as above), in which 6th April was 21 Pharmuthi. But the vernal equinox is not the commencement of one of the three seasons of the Egyptian year ; these start either from the rising of Sirius, loth July, or, more probably, from the summer solstice : as this, in the 14th century, usually fell on 6th July, the two other tetramenies or seasons would commence dr. 5th Nov. and 6th March. Now, 6th March did coincide with 21 Pharmuthi in 32 r- r 8 B.C., at which time it also occupied precisely the place which Mr. Stuart Poole assigns to ' the Great Rukh' (Leps., 'the greater Heat'), just one zodiacal month before the little Rukh or vernal equinox (Horn 2Egypt., p. 15, ff.) (iv.) On r Athyr of rr Amenophis III., the king ordered an immense basin to be dug, and on the i6th s. m., celebrated a great panegyry of the waters.' (Dr. Hincks, On the Age of Dyn. XVIII., Trans. R. Irish Aced., vol. xxi. pt. 1 ; comp. Mr. S. Poole, Trans. R. S. Lit., v. 340.) If the waters were let in when the Nile had reached its highest point---which, as it is from 90 to too days after the summer solstice, in the t4th century would be at 4-14 Oct —the month-date indicates one of the years from 1369-1326 B. C. But if (which is cer tainly more likely) the time chosen was some weeks earlier, the year indicated would be after 1300 B. C. So this and the preceding indication may agree, and so far there is some evidence for the supposition that the sothiac epochal year 1322 B. c. lies in the reign of Thothmes III. (See Dr. Hincks, u. s., and in Dublin Univ. Illagazine, 1846. p. 187.) (v.) An astronomical representation on the ceil ing of the Rameseum (the work of Rameses II.) has been supposed to yield the year 1322 as its date (Bishop Tomlinson, Trans. R. S. Lit., 1839 ; Sir G. Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, etc., 2 ser., p. 377) ; while Mr. Cullimore, from the same, gets 1138 B.C. The truth is, these astro nomical configurations, in the present state of our knowledge, are an unsolved riddle. Lepsius's in ferences (Chron. der Aeg.) from the same represen tations in the reigns of Rameses IV. and VI. are little more than guesses, too vague and precarious to satisfy any man who knows what evidence means.