ABSTRACT

In recent years a number of excavations which have been productive of important results have been carried on near Abydos. In 1896 M. de Morgan discovered a number of remarkable tombs of the Neolithic Period at Al-'Amrah, about three miles to the east of Abydos, and in 1895, 1896, and 1897 M. Amelineau excavated the tombs of a number of kings of the first three dynasties at Umm al-I}.a'ab, which lies to the west of the necropolis of the Middle Empire; and in the course of his work at Abydos he also discovered a shrine which the ancient Egyptians placed on a spot where they seem to have believed that the god Osiris was buried, or at any rate where some traditions declared he was laid. In the winter of 1899-00 Professor Petrie also carried on excavations on M. Amelineau's old sites at Abydos, and recovered a number of objects of the same dass as those found by M. Amelineau_ The true value and general historical position of the antiquities which were found at Abydos by M. Amelineau and M. de Morgan, as well as of those which were found by M_ de Morgan at Nal).ada and Abydos, and by Professor Petrie at Ballas and Tukh, were first indicated by M. de Morgan himself in his volumes of Recherches sur les Origines de l' Egypte, Paris, 1896 and 1897. The royal names TEN, ATCHAB, and SMERKHAT, discovered by M. de Morgan, were correctly identified with the kings of the 1St Dynasty who are usually called l;Iesepti, Merbapen, and Semen-Ptal}, by Herr Sethe in the Aegyptische Zeitschnjt, Bd. 35, p. I, ff. 1897. M. Jequier rightly identified PERABSEN with Neter-baiu, a king of the 2nd dynasty, and Prof.:ssor Petrie has c0rrectly

NAG' ~AMADt AND ~ENElt. idehlilieJ QA with the king of the 1St dynasty who is usually called Qebl;. The identifications of AI:IA with l\1enes, and NARMEK with Teb, and TCHA with Ateth, and MER-NIT with Ala, kings of the 1st dynasty, at present need further evidence. Some of these are more probably pre-dynastic kings.