dynasty of Manetho, in which the same name is thrice repeated.[1]
Though seven dynasties and nearly 1500 years are interposed by this author between these two eras, we know, upon the far better authority of the styles of art that prevailed in both, that there cannot have been any very long interval between them; for in this particular they are identical. No monument, however, has yet been discovered whereon the two stand connected in the order of their succession.
Osortasen was a prosperous and successful monarch, who reigned over the whole of Egypt; but no remains of the works of his immediate successors have been discovered in Lower Egypt. They held their court at Abydos in Upper Egypt,[2] while another race of monarchs equally civilised with themselves had possession of Memphis, and probably, therefore, of Lower Egypt. This agrees well with Manetho's account of the invasion and conquest of Egypt by a race of people from Canaan, whom he calls shepherds or Ὑκσῶς which he interprets shepherd-kings. They reigned in Memphis, by his account, for 511 years. He gives us the names of six of them. The names of two of the Memphitic kings who reigned contemporaneously with the descendants of Osortasen at Abydos have been discovered in tombs in the burial
- ↑ The six immediate successors of Osortasen are all named either Ammenemes or Osortasen.
- ↑ This fact is recorded in a magnificent series of sculptured stelæa; or tombstones, discovered at Abydos by Athanasi, which are now in the British Museum. Mr. Birch has given a highly interesting memoir of one or two of them in "The Archæologia." Some account of others of them will also be found in "The Antiquities of Egypt," published by the Religious Tract Society.
