[71] The men hereabout can nearly all speak Arabic; but the women of Nubia know only the Kensee and Berberee tongues, the first of which is spoken as far as Korosko.
[72] Lepsius’ Letters from Egypt, Ethiopia, etc. Letter xviii, p. 184. Bohn’s ed., A.D. 1853.
[73] See the interesting account of funereal rites and ceremonies in Sir G. Wilkinson’s “Ancient Egyptians,” vol. ii, ch. x, Lond., 1871. Also wood-cuts Nos. 493 and 494 in the same chapter of the same work.
[74] Abshek: The hieroglyphic name of Abou Simbel. Gr. Aboccis.
[75] In the present state of Egyptian chronology it is hazardous to assign even an approximate date to events which happened before the conquest of Cambyses. The Egyptians, in fact, had no chronology in the strict sense of the word. Being without any fixed point of departure, such as the birth of Christ, they counted the events of each reign from the accession of the sovereign. Under such a system error and confusion were inevitable. To say when Rameses II was born and when he died is impossible. The very century in which he flourished is uncertain. Mariette, taking the historical lists of Manetho for his basis, supposes the nineteenth dynasty to have occupied the interval comprised within B.C. 1462 and 1288; according to which computation (allowing fifty-seven years for the reigns of Rameses I and Seti I) the reign of Rameses II would date from B.C. 1405. Brugsch gives him from B.C. 1407 to B.C. 1341; and Lepsius places his reign in the sixty-six years lying between B.C. 1388 and B.C. 1322; these calculations being both made before the discovery of the stella of Abydos. Bunsen dates his accession from B.C. 1352. Between the highest and the lowest of these calculations there is, as shown by the following table, a difference of fifty-five years:
| Rameses II began to reign | B.C. | |
| Brugsch | 1407 | |
| According to | Mariette | 1405 |
| Lepsius | 1388 | |
| Bunsen | 1352 | |
[76] See chap. viii, foot note, p. 126.
[77] See “Essai sur l’Inscription Dédicatoire du Temple d’Abydos et la Jeunesse de Sesotris.”—G. Maspero, Paris, 1867.
[78] See chap, viii, p. 125.
[79] i. e. Prince of the Hittites; the Kheta being now identified with that people.