ACCORDING TO MANETHO AND THE MONUMENTS.
| OLD KINGDOM OF PYRAMID BUILDERS. | |||||||
| Years. | B.C. | ||||||
| 1st | dynasty | Thinite | 252 | Accession of Menes, 1st king. | 3906 | ||
| 2nd | dynasty | Thinite | 302 | ||||
| 3rd | dynasty | Memphite | 214 | Ten dynasties of kings, reigning sometimes contemporaneously in Upper and in Lower Egypt; at other times both divisions were united under one king. The total duration of their reigns, as nearly as can be estimated, was 1335 years. | |||
| 4th | dynasty | Memphite | 284 | ||||
| 5th | dynasty | Elephantine | 248 | ||||
| 6th | dynasty | Memphite | 203 | ||||
| 7th | dynasty | Memphite 70 days? | |||||
| 8th | dynasty | Memphite | 146 | ||||
| 9th | dynasty | Heracleapolite | 100 | ? | |||
| 10th | dynasty | Heracleapolite | 185 | ||||
| FIRST THEBAN KINGDOM. | |||||||
| 11th | dynasty | Thebans | 43 | Commenced | 2571 | ||
| 12th | dynasty | Thebans | 246 | over Upper, 188 over Lower Egypt. | |||
| SHEPHERD INVASION. | 2340 | ||||||
| 13th | dynasty | Diospolites | 453 | Five dynasties of Shepherd or native kings reigning or existing contemporaneously in four series in different parts of Egypt during 511 years. | |||
| 14th | dynasty | Xoite | 484 | ||||
| 15th | dynasty | Shepherds | 284 | ||||
| 16th | dynasty | Hellenes | 518 | ||||
| 17th | dynasty | Shepherds | 151 | ||||
| 435 | |||||||
| GREAT THEBAN KINGDOM. | |||||||
| 18th | dynasty | Theban | 393 | Over all Egypt | 1829 | ||
| 19th | dynasty | Theban | 194 | 1436 | |||
| Exode of Jews, 1312. | |||||||
| 20th | dynasty | Theban | 135 | 1242 | |||
| 21st | dynasty | Tanite | 130 | 1107 | |||
| 22nd | dynasty | Bubastite | 120 | 977 | |||
| Temple of Jerusalem plundered, 972. | |||||||
| 23rd | dynasty | Tanite | 89 | 857 | |||
| 24th | dynasty | Saïte | 44 | 768 | |||
| 25th | dynasty | Ethiopian | 44 | 724 | |||
| 26th | dynasty | Saïte | 155 | 680 | |||
| Persian Invasion under Cambyses | 526 | [[23]] | |||||
BOOK I.
EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
In any consecutive narrative of the architectural undertakings of mankind the description of what was done in Egypt necessarily commences the series, not only because the records of authentic history are found in the Valley of the Nile long before the traditions of other nations had assumed anything like tangible consistency, but because, from the earliest dawn down to the time when Christianity struck down the old idolatry, the inhabitants of that mysterious land were essentially and pre-eminently a building race. Were it not for this we should be left with the dry bones of the skeleton of her history, which is all that is left us of the dynasties of Manetho; or with the fables in which ignorant and credulous European travellers expressed their wonder at a civilisation they could not comprehend.
As the case now stands, the monuments of Egypt give life and reality to their whole history. It is impossible for any educated man capable of judging of the value of evidence to wander among the Pyramids and tombs of Memphis, the Temples of Thebes, or the vast structures erected by the Ptolemys or Cæsars, and not to feel that he has before him a chapter of history more authentic than we possess of any nation at all approaching it in antiquity, and a picture of men and manners more vivid and more ample than remains to us of any other people who have passed away.
As we wander among the tombs or temples of Egypt we see the very chisel-marks of the mason, and the actual colours of the painter which were ordered by a Khufu, or a Rameses, and we stand face to face with works the progress of which they watched, and which they designed in order to convey to posterity what their thoughts and feelings were, and what they desired to record for the instruction of future generations. All is there now, and all who care may learn what these old kings intended should be known by their remotest posterity.
Immense progress has been made in unravelling the intricacies of Egyptian history since the time when Champollion, profiting by the discovery of Young, first translated the hieroglyphical inscriptions that cover the walls of Egyptian buildings. Of late years it has been too frequently assumed that his works, with those of Rosellini, of Wilkinson, and Lepsius, and the numerous other authors who have applied themselves to Egyptology, had told us all we are ever likely to know of her history. In so far as the epochs of the great Pharaonic dynasties of Thebes are concerned this may be partially true, but it is only since M. Mariette undertook the systematic exploration of the great Necropolis of Memphis that we have been enabled to realise the importance of the older dynasties, and become aware of the completeness of the records they have left behind them. Much as we have learned during the last fifty years, the recent explorations of Maspero, W. M. Flinders Petrie and others have taught us that the soil of Egypt is not half exhausted yet; and every day our knowledge is assuming a consistency and completeness as satisfactory as it is wonderful.