ABSTRACT
A careful study should be made of a number of interesting documents of the Middle Empire: the tombs of the nomarchs or provincial governors in Upper Egypt, the most remarkable of which are at Beni Hasan. Manetho of Sebennytos, an Egyptian priest who was contemporary with the first two Ptolemies, wrote a history of Egypt, in compiling which he drew upon Egyptian sources of information. Manetho had classified all the kings of Egypt into a number of dynasties, but the conception of the dynasties lacks precision. The division of the country into Upper and Lower Egypt is an important one from the point of view of the preservation of works of art. The mastabas, which are massive rectangular piles, appear too as architectural complexes containing in embryo all the fundamental parts of the sacred edifice of Egypt. Sometimes the Egyptian texts furnish astronomical dates calculated by the rising of Sirius.
