Wilkinson, John Gardner: Topographie of Thebes, and general view of Egypt: being a short account of the principal objects worthy of notice in the valley of the Nile, to the second cataracte and Wadi Samneh, with the Fyoom, Oases and eastern desert, from Sooez to Bertenice (London, 1835)

Chap. VIII.] FIRST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 507

the average length of their ordinary duration, we
may arrive at a fair approximation; and the epoch
alluded to on the ceiling of the Memnonium, men-
tioned in the note on Remeses II.,* seems greatly
to confirm my opinion respecting the accession of
that prince, and, allowing for the reigns of the in-
tervening monarchs, his predecessors, to make the
Exodus of the Israelites agree with Manetho's de-
parture of the Pastors in the reign of Thothmes III.

But I offer this table with great deference, and
shall willingly yield to any opinion that may be
established on more positive and authentic grounds.

The government of Egypt appears first to have
been, as with the Jews, a hierarchy, which was
successively composed of the priests of one or other
of the principal deities ; but its duration is uncer-
tain. We then come to the Kings, the first of
whom by universal consent was Menes, and with
him I commence the following chronological table.

* Page 513.