Poole, Reginald S.: Horae Aegypticae: or, the chronology of ancient Egypt: discovered from astronomical and hieroglyphic records upon its monuments, including many dates found in coeval inscriptions from the period of the building of the Great Pyramid to the times of the Persians ; and illustrations of the history of the first nineteen dynasties, shewing the order of their succession, from the monuments (London, 1851)

Sect. VI.]

AGE OF THE SUPHISES.

61

commenced with the manifestation of the Decan of
the G. P. Y. #; and that the Division of the Great
Panegyrical Month contained one Julian year and a
half, and commenced alternately with the manifesta-
tion of the Decan of the G. P. M., and that of the
opposite Decan. It now remains to apply this explana-
tion of the periods of Panegyries to dates found upon
the monuments.

The first date which I have found accompanied by a
King's name is in a tomb in that part of the great
Memphite burial-ground which is adjacent to the Great
Pyramid and to the Second Pyramid. This date I give
in Plate III., No. 12, omitting the usual mention of
offerings which precedes it.

I have already, in speaking of the Tropical Cycle
(Sect. 2), had occasion to prove that the dagger and
palm-branch signify " First Year;" and I gave what I
think to be the reason for the deviation from general
usage in the disposition of these characters. The same
is the case with two other groups in this passage,
which I read " First G. P. M.," and " First Division
of the G. P. M.," the interpretation of which is quite
certain.

The inscription which I am now considering relates
that a certain person made offerings in the commence-
ment of the First Year of the First G. P. M., and the
First Division of the G. P. M.; that is, in the com-
mencement of a Great Panegyrical Year; and that he
lived in the time of King Num-Shufu. In a similar
inscription, on the outside of the tomb, evidently re-

* For an example of the mention of the Decan of the G. P. M.
see Plate III., No. 10, " The G. P. M. (of) Smat," from an inscrip-
tion in a tomb near the Pyramids of El-Geezeh.