Sect. VI.]

ERA OF MENES.

63

the time of the two Suphises, I shall show in Part II.,
from the approximative chronology of the interval from
the Suphises to Amenemha II., derived from Manetho
and the monuments.

The commencement of the Great Panegyrical Year
which preceded that of the Suphises I have already
shown to be in the year B.C. 2717. That this was the
First G. P. Y. is proved by the characteristics which it
possesses ; for it commenced in a year in which the
manifestation of Sothis fell in the first month of the
Vague Year, and was therefore celebrated on the first
day of that month. Further, if we made another such
period to have preceded this, we should refer its com-
mencement to an age far anterior to any indicated by
the monuments; for the interval from the accession of
Menes (the first King of Egypt) to the Suphises is un-
doubtedly very much less than two G. P. Y.s; and I
shall be able to show, in Part II., that the date of the
year B.C. 2717 is the Era of the commencement of the
Egyptian race, and that of Menes.

The date of the commencement of the First Great
Panegyrical Year, B.C. 2717, and that of the Second,
B.C. 2352, the first being the Era of Menes, and the
second in the time of the t wo Suphises, will be seen to
be perfectly agreeable with the records on the Egyp-
tian monuments.

The next date after that of the time of the Suphises
is that of the commencement of the Tropical Cycle,
in the reign of Amenemha II., the second King of the
Twelfth Dynasty, in the year B.C. 2005.

In treating of the Phoenix Cycle (Section IV.), I
have shown that the First Phoenix Cycle commenced
with the Third Great Panegyrical Year, B.C. 1986, in
the reign of Sesertesen III., whom Manetho makes the