peninsula, and opened the copper mines of the Wady Magara. The 4th dynasty, also of Memphites, had an existence of 284 years. The cele brated canon of Turin contains fragments of the duration of the reigns and lives of the monarchs of this line, some of which were prolonged to upwards of 90 years. Monumental remains are found of Soris. The two Khufus built the two great Pyramids of Gizeh, and held the Arabian peninsula in subjection. Cheops, or the elder of the two Khufus, constructed the largest of this group of the pyramids by means of a forced conscription, and was regarded as a detestable and impious tyrant. Subsequently, he repented, and wrote a book in honour of the gods, which enjoyed a great reputation. Khafren, his successor, built the second of the great pyramids, and Mencheres, or Mycerinus, the third pyramid. The so-called book of the Ritual, which dates from this period, and the high civilisation which Memphis had then attained, mark an epoch in Egyptian civilisation, and the numerous tombs, in the vicinity of the pyramid, constructed during this and the subsequent dynasty, exhibit a highly progressing state of civilisation; the cultivation of farms, the chase, the arts, enjoyed a great deal of the attention of the Egyptians; but horses and wheel-carriages were alike unknown, although the simpler mechanical instruments and manufactured articles had been invented.

The 4th dynasty began, according to Lepsius, 3427 B.C. The 5th, which monumentally appears a continuation of the 4th, terminates with Annos or Onnos, who was killed by his guards. His sepulchre was the pyramid of the Mastabat-elFaraoun, near Saqqarah. This 5th dynasty was, however, from Elephantine, and appears to have ruled in Upper as well as Lower Egypt, monuments of it being found in the Thebaid. Considerable difference, however, exists between Lepsius and Bunsen in the assignment of the royal cartouches of this period, Lepsius assigning them to the 5th, and Bunsen to the 3d dynasty. The group of the Abooseer Pyramids is of this age. The next dynasty, the 6th, a Memphite, was more remarkable, and tombs and numerous small objects of the period are found in Upper and Central Egypt, and in the valley of Hamamat, leading from Coptos to the Red Sea. The principal monarchs of this line were Othoes, killed by his guards; Phiops or Apappus, whose reign extended to 100 years; and Nitocris, whom the legends represent as drowning the murderers of her brother, and constructing the third Gizeh Pyramid, in which she was buried, and which she perhaps enlarged from the old original sepulchre of Mycerinus, having added to it the revetment of red syenitic granite. Of the 7th dynasty, two names, An and Assa, are supposed to have been found; but the monumental connection between the close of the 6th and 11th dynasties, has not been even conjecturally restored, from the conflicting tablets of Karnak and Abydos, and the mutilated papyrus of Turin. It is not possible to follow the order of the succession till the 11th dynasty, nor are there monuments either of a public or sepulchral nature to shew the existence of the intermediate period, rendered more unintelligible by the contemptuous silence of the lists of Manetho, one tyrant, Achthoes, being alone mentioned in them. Considerable discrepancy exists between the canon of Turin and the lists of Manetho relative to this period, the canon making two dynasties-one of six, the other of seventeen kings between the 6th and the 12th dynasty; Manetho, forty-six kings, and about five hundred years. The impossibility of reconciling these statements has given rise to the idea that the lists were respectively Memphite and

Theban, each having contemporary kings. The existence, however, of the 11th dynasty, consisting of a line of monarchs called Hantefs and Mentuhetps, has been proved by the discoveries of their coffins in the tombs at Gournah and the El Assasifs, and the tablets of the island of Konosso and others, referring to the construction of the fortress of Coptos and in honour of the local god. The successive reigns and monarchs of the 12th dynasty are fixed by numerous monuments. Amenemha I., the founder of the line, opened the quarries of Tourah, embel lished An or Heliopolis, and founded the temple of Amen at Thebes, reigning nine years alone, and seven with Osirtesen I., his successor. A historical papyrus recording his dreams and other facts of this reign remains. The monuments of Osirtesen I. exist in the Faioum at Benihassan and Heliopolis; he subjected some of the Ethiopian tribes. During his reign there occurred a famine; and in the 38th year of his reign, he associated Amenemha II. into the government for four years. Little of historical import is known of his successors, Amenemha II. and Osirtesen II., except their conquest of Kash or Ethiopia, and the arrival of a tribe of 36 Amu or Semitics in the sixth year of Osirtesen II. These resemble, in their costume and physiognomy, the Hebrews, and have been supposed to represent the arrival of Jacob in Egypt. Osirtesen III., his successor, established the southern frontier at Samneh, which he fortified; and was subsequently deified in Nubia, and received, in the reign of Thothmes III., a worship in that region, and fortified Coptos. His successor, Amenemha III., excavated the Birket-el-Keroun or Moeris lake; con. structed the Labyrinth, composed of 6000 rooms; the Pyramid of Crocedilopolis, in its vicinity; and the temple of the goddess Athor at the Sarabout-el-Khadem. His successors, Amenemha IV. and the queen Sebeknefru, are only known from the remains of the Labyrinth, and some inferior monuments. The same difficulty of tracing the succession which exists between the 6th and 12th, occurs again between the 12th and 15th. The most plausible conjecture, however, is that the 13th (Diospolite) and the 14th Xoite dynasty, in Lower Egypt, were contemporaneous, and that the 15th and 16th Theban and Diospolitan had for their contemporaries the 17th Hykshos or Shepherd dynasty in Lower Egypt. The monarchs of the 14th dynasty appear from the monuments to have been occupied in regulating the course of the Nile at Samueh, while their power reached from the isle of Argo to El Hamamat, and they engaged in traffic with the Phoenicians. About 2000 B. C., the advance of the Assyrians in Asia, or some internal revolution, precipitated the socalled Hykshos or Shepherd Kings, who appear to have been Arabs or Phoenicians, on Lower Egypt. These invaders overthrew the Xoite dynasty of Lower Egypt, took Memphis by assault, and established themselves in the city of Haouar or Avaris, subsequently called Tanis, where their monuments still exist. But the Egyptian rules of Upper Egypt overthrew their rule, and under Ra-skenen, the last king of the 16th dynasty, Avaris was invested, while his successor, Aahmes I., of the 17th, took it by assault, besieged Sarahan or Sharon, and attacked the mountaineers of Nubia. The Hykshos endeavoured to substitute the worship of Sut or Set for Ra or the Sun, but Aahmes I. restored the ancient temples, and opened the quarries of Tourah. Amenophis I., his son and successor, who reigned under the tutelage of his mother, continued the Ethiopian campaigns, and embellished Thebes. Thothmes I. carried his arms to Tombos, in the heart of Nubia, and into

pinnacle of glory; and by the victory of Megiddo, in his 23d year, subjected the whole of Syria and part of Mesopotamia to his arms, receiving immense tributes from Kash and the Ethiopian races of the south, the islands of the sea, and Assyria, Babylon, Phoenicia, and Central Asia, and endowing the Temple of Thebes with the revenues of tributary cities. A calendar preserved at Elephantine recording the heliacal rise of the Dog-star on the 28th Epiphi, shews that the year 1444 B.C. fell in his reign. Thothmes III. recovered the copper mines of Magarah, and decorated all Egypt. Amenophis II. continued the conquests of the Ruten, took Nineveh by assault, and vanquished the Ethiopians. Thothmes IV. is supposed to have erected the Great Sphinx. Amenophis III. maintained the frontiers of the empire. At this period, a heresy became introduced into E., favoured by the queen Taia. Amenophis IV. became a worshipper of the Aten or solar orb, to the exclusion of the other deities of E., especially of Amen Ra. The capital was removed to Tel-el-Amarna or Alabastron; the king changed his name to Akhuenatnen, and a succession of three heretic monarchs ruled E. for about 33 years, till Haremhebi or Horus restored the orthodox faith and the limits of empire.

Head of Thothmes III.

The link which connects the last monarchs of the 18th to the monarchs of the 19th dynasty has been lost; but Horus was succeeded by Rameses I. -the first of a long line of monarchs-who appears to have formed a treaty with the Khita or Hittites, and to have advanced the conquests of E. to the Wady Halfa. He was succeeded by Seti I. or Sethos, who attacked the Remenu or Armenians, the Rutennu, and the Shasu or Shepherds, who had again advanced to the Pa-khetem or Pithoum, on the confines of Egypt. Naharaina or Mesopotamia, and Sharu or Syria, Pânt or Phoenicia, had also been invaded by his arms. The city of Atsh or Katsh, the supposed Cadytis, was also besieged by Sethos, whose Asiatic victories introduced into E. the worship of Baal and Ashtaroth. Tyre, Avathus, and Bethanath in Canaan, were garrisoned by his forces. E. was also embellished with many noble monuments in his reign. He was buried in a deep excavated rock-tomb in the Biban-el-Molook -the kings of the 18th and 19th dynasties having austituted long excavated tunnels or syringes, in the mountains of the Arabian chain of Western Thebes, for the ostentatious pyramids in use from the 4th to the 12th dynasty, which attracted the cupidity of the invaders of Egypt. Rameses II., the son of Seti I., seems to have succeeded him at the very youthful age of seven. In his fifth year, he defeated the Khita and their Syrian confederates at the battle of Katsh, in which many of the princes and officers of the Khita were drowned in the river Arunata, or Orontes. The battle endured two days, and the panegyric of an Egyptian scribe, Pentaur, has invested Rameses with the power of a god. The war lasted till his ninth year, and the king took Shaluma or Salem, the ancient site of

married a princess of this nation. It is the tablet of this monarch which is found at the Nahr-elKelb, or Passes of the Lycus, near Beyrout. This monarch subjected Ethiopia, which had revolted, to his arms, reimposed the tribute, and placed the country again under the government of the princes of Ethiopia, or Egyptian viceroys. He also established a fleet on the Mediterranean. His name and reputation formed the basis of the legendary Sesostris; the exploits of the monarchs of the 18th dynasty, and probably of his successors, being united with his fame. The reign of Rameses, although it exhibits a decline of art, yet demon. strates E. to have been in the height of its glory; and his epoch appears to have been about 1322 B. C., a special calendar having been sculptured to record the coincidence of the heliacal rising of the Dogstar and 1st Thoth, or commencement of the fixed and canicular year. His place of burial is uncertain-perhaps in the vaults of the Ramesseum. His thirteenth son, Merienptah or Menephthes, succeeded him upon the throne, transferred the capital to Memphis, successfully contended with the Tamahu or Libyans and the Rabu, and appears to be the Amenophis of Manetho, and the Pharaoh of the Exodus. He introduced the heretical worship of Sut, Seth, or Typhon, and was succeeded by Setnos II., Amenmes, Sipthah, Tausri, and Setinekht, whose inglorious reigns close the 19th dynasty. The connection of Rameses III. with the previous dynasty is obscure. This monarch was chiefly at war with the Philistines, and the other maritime tribes of Greece and Asia Minor, and gained naval victories in the Mediterranean, and repeated the conquest of Ethiopia. He was followed by the splendid but inglorious line of the Ramessids, the sixth of whom gained victories in Ethiopia; and the twelfth of whom, having married a princess of the land of Bakhten, sent the ark of the god Khous to Bakhten, at the request of the monarch of that country, for the cure of the queen's sister. The fall of this dynasty appears to have been owing to internal revolution, as their Tanite successors held the office of high priests of Amen Ra at Thebes. They held the government for 130 years, and entertained foreign relations, one of the monarchs having married a princess of the Rutenu. The 22d dynasty, the monumental, is rather confused. They were also high priests of Amen Ra. Shashank I. is the Biblical Shishak. His invasion

of Israel, with 12,000 chariots and 60,000 cavalry, and the capture of Jerusalem, is recorded on the portico of the Bubastites at Karnak. The other monarchs of this line, Osorkon I., Takelot I., and the successors, have left no remarkable records; and the dynasty, which appears of foreign origin, is more chronologically than historically important, the taking of Jerusalem falling between 989 and 959 B. C. The 23d Tanite dynasty, which succeeded it, exhibits a decadence in E., and was succeeded by the 24th dynasty, of a single monarch, the celebrated Bekenrenf or Bocchoris, who reformed the laws; but having been taken prisoner by the Ethiopian Sabaco, of the 25th dynasty, was burned alive. From this period, the history of E. becomes involved with that of Judæa and Greece. Tirhaka came to the assistance of Hezekiah against Sennacherib, and built the temple of Gebel Barkal. According to this Assyrian cuneiform inscription, the Ethiopians were expelled by the Assyrians, and the country placed under various monarchs. This state of affairs was closed by the rise of Psammitichus I. of the 26th dynasty, who, by the aid of Greek mercenaries, overthrew the other petty princes. His age marks a revival in art, and restoration of the old constitution of the empire. His successor, Nekao or Nechos II., planned the canal across the isthmus of Suez, from which he desisted, warned by the advice of an oracle, after having lost 120,000 men in the attempt. Under his reign, the Phoenician navigators first passed the line. After defeating Josiah, king of Judah, and conquering Palestine, he was himself defeated by Nebuchadnezzar at Karkemish. Psammitichus II. carried his arms into Ethiopia. Apries, his successor, having lost all the conquests, was deposed by Amasis, his successor, and strangled. Amasis favoured in different ways the Greek colonies in E., and married a Cyrenæan wife, and conquered Cyprus, but incurred the enmity of Cambyses, who overthrew his son and successor at the battle of Pelusium (526–527 B. C.). Cambyses treated E. with considerable moderation, but after an unsuccessful expedition against the Ethiopians, lost his reason, stabbed the bull Apis, and committed various atrocities. His successor, Darius I., governed E. with more prudence; but Xerxes I. and Artaxerxes I. had successively to reduce it to subjection, which they did in spite of assistance rendered to it by the Athenians. The 27th dynasty of Persians was followed by the Saite line, the 28th, Amyrtæus and Pausiris, who still held ground against the Persians; the 29th, Mendesian dynasty of Nepherches and Achoreus, maintained a Greek alliance; and the 30th, Sebennytic, consisted of Nectanebes I., who successfully resisted Pharnabazus and the Iphicrates; of Teos, who employed Agesilaus; and Nectanebes II., who fled into Ethiopia before the Persians (340 B. C.).

From this time, E. remained a province of Persia till its conquest by Alexander the Great, who founded Alexandria. Subsequently, E. passed under the Greek rule, and the language of the government, and the administration and philo. sophy, became essentially Greek. The court of the Ptolemies bocaine the centre of learning and philosophy; and Ptolemy Philadelphus, successful in his external wars, built the Museum, founded the library of Alexandria, purchased the most valuable of manuscripts, engaged the most celebrated professors, and had the Septuagint translation made of the Hebrew Scriptures, and the Egyptian history of Manetho drawn up. His successor, Euergetes, pushed the southern limits of his empire to Axum. Philopator (221-204 B. C.) warred with Antiochus,

persecuted the Jews, and encouraged learning. Epiphanes (204-180 B. C.) encountered repeated rebellions, and was succeeded by Philometer (180145 B. C.) and Euergetes II. (145-116 B. C.), by Soter II. and Cleopatra till 106 B. C., and by Alexander (87 B. C.), under whom Thebes rebelled; then by Cleopatra Berenice, Alexander 11. (80 B. C.), and Neos Dionysus (51 B. C.), and finally by the celebrated Cleopatra; and after the battle of Actium (30) B. C.), E. passed into the condition of a province of Rome, governed always by a Roman governor of the equestrian, not senatorial rank.

The most important events in E. under the Roman rule were--the introduction of the Julian year by Augustus (24 B. C.), the visit of Vespasian to Alexandria (70 A.D.), and that of Hadrian (122 a. D.), the development of the Gnostic heresy, the visit of Caracalla (211 A. D.), the conquest of E. by Zenobia (270 A. D.), the revolt of Firmus (272 a. D.), the persecution of Diocletian (304 A.D.), and the rise of Manicheism, the great Arian controversy in the reign of Constantine, the rise of asceticism, magic, and astrology, and the final destruction of paganism (379 A. D.).

At the division of the empire (395 A. D.), E. fell to the Eastern Empire, and, at its fall, had become one of the Great Patriarchates of the Christian Church; but owing to the religious feuds of the Jacobites and Melchites, it became a province of Persia (616 A. D.) for 12 years. The Coptic governor Makaukas, who reigned in the name of Heraclius, endeavoured to make himself independent, and invited the arms of the Arabs, and Omar I. easily conquered Egypt, in the nineteenth year of the Hegira (640 A. D.). Although Alexandria was retaken by Constantine III., the Arabs drove him out, and main. tained their conquest, and E. remained an appanage of the califat. It afterwards passed into the dynasty of the Thonlounides ($68 A. D.), the second of whom extended his kingdom to the Euphrates; but a new dynasty, the Akshidide, succeeded in 935 A. D., to give way to the Fatimide in 969 A. D., under which Cairo was built. and Egypt regained some of its prosperity, although in 1118 A.D. Baldwin I. burned the maritime town of Faramah. Subsequently, it passed under the Ayoubites, and Saladin, who fortified Cairo, built the citadel, excavated the well, and erected the granaries of Jusuf. In 1218 A.D., the Crusaders took Damietta, but were subsequently driven back in 1221 A.D. One of the later princes, Saleh-Nedjim Eddin, built the castle of Rhodah, and created the order of Mamelukes; but Louis IX. of France (1248 A. D.) took Damietta and gained the battle of Mansourah. In 1254, the Ayoubites entirely fell, and E. became subject to the Baharite and Bordjite Mamelukes, under whose government it flourished, and even pushed its conquests to Cyprus and Asia Minor, till, in 1517, Touman Bey fell into the power of Selim I., and E. became a province of the Turks, and administered by pashas. In 1601, the use of tobacco was introduced. Constant rebellions of the Mamelukes, and the violence of contending factions, distracted the country. The most remarkable event of this period was the French invasion by Bonaparte in 1798 which, by the conquest of Alexandria, and the battle of the Pyramids against the Ma.nelukes, led to the entire subjection of the country, from which the French were finally expelled by the Turks and British in 1801, and the country restored to the Ottoman Porte. The rise of Mohammed Ali in 1806 imparted a galvanic prosperity to E., by the destruction of the Mamelukes, the formation of a regular army, the increase of security, the improvement of the irrigation, and the introduction of European civilisation. In 1816, Mohammed Ali rendered part

anaglyphs of the monuments. Bronze statues cast from moulds, and having a leaden or other core,

the jingling sistrum, in the 4th. Many of the instruments are of great size, and must have produced considerable effect. Nor was the art of song wanting, and measured recitations or songs occur on monuments of the 12th dynasty, while the lays of Maneros traditionally dated to a still earlier period. Poetry, indeed, was at all times in use, and the antithetic genius of .he language suggested the application of the strophe and antistrophe (see HIEROGLYPHICS), although it is not possible to define the metre. In the mechanical arts, many inventions had been made: the blow-pipe, used as a bellows, appears in the 5th

were first made in E., and subsequently introduced into Greece by Rhocus. This art flourished best under the earlier dynasties, and had much degenerated in the 19th and 20th, although subse

Bellows.

was

surfaces, although fresco occasionally used, and encaustic appears only under the Greeks and Romans. This art, of course, was freer than sculpture, but yet had a rigid architectural character, and followed the

same

saw,

the adze, the chisel, press, balance, and

Egyptian Glass-blowers,

the 4th, and heptachord and pentachord lyres as early as the 12th dynasty; besides which, drums, tambourines, flutes, cymbals, trumpets, and guitars, are seen in the 18th, and the national instrument,