DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9059#0052
CHKONOLOGY.
■17
It is true, Manetho's figures have undoubtedly
suffered serious alterations. But if we consider
that they have come down to us through Chris-
tian writers, who had an evident interest in
curtailing them, we shall see that, as a matter
of fact, far from ascribing too wide a range to
those figures, we are bound, as fair critics, to
accept them as having been systematically
reduced in their total amount.
The authority, then, of Manetho as a chronol-
ogist remains unshaken, but on condition that
we only take the dates which he gives us as
approximate. Certain as it is that those dates
are not absolutely exact, yet it is difficult to
believe that they have been so radically altered
as not in any degree to come near to the truth.
Anyhow, the nearer we approach the source of
those alterations, the more we shall feel com-
pelled to admit that if the lists could have
reached us intact from the hand of Manetho, we
would find them extending over a still wider
range of time.
From these remarks it will be understood that
the following table of Egyptian dynasties is
presented to the reader under all reserve; and
it is almost superfluous to add that the simulta-
■17
It is true, Manetho's figures have undoubtedly
suffered serious alterations. But if we consider
that they have come down to us through Chris-
tian writers, who had an evident interest in
curtailing them, we shall see that, as a matter
of fact, far from ascribing too wide a range to
those figures, we are bound, as fair critics, to
accept them as having been systematically
reduced in their total amount.
The authority, then, of Manetho as a chronol-
ogist remains unshaken, but on condition that
we only take the dates which he gives us as
approximate. Certain as it is that those dates
are not absolutely exact, yet it is difficult to
believe that they have been so radically altered
as not in any degree to come near to the truth.
Anyhow, the nearer we approach the source of
those alterations, the more we shall feel com-
pelled to admit that if the lists could have
reached us intact from the hand of Manetho, we
would find them extending over a still wider
range of time.
From these remarks it will be understood that
the following table of Egyptian dynasties is
presented to the reader under all reserve; and
it is almost superfluous to add that the simulta-