ABSTRACT
THE work at Sinai has brought to light one monument of chronological importance, and has called attention to another such record; and as no account of the present knowledge of Egyptian chronology is generally available, it seems well to give here an outline of the materials before us, the mode of applying them to the question, and the main results for the history of Egypt. As this is a subject which involves some things not commonly known, it is but natural that many people-even of those acquainted with Egyptian matters-should set it aside as being too intricate or too uncertain to be profitably considered. Yet everyone has some interest in the whole question of whether Menes founded the kingdom of all Egypt five thousand years before Herodotos, or at only half that distance of time; and anyone who has to deal at all with history requires some workable series of dates for reference. Though some details are intricate, and have never yet been properly worked out by astronomers, yet the main facts of the scale of the whole time are very simple, and easily followed by any reader of this volume. It is desirable to put an end to the blind negation with which almost everyone treats the subject, as at present authors and curators of museums throw themselves entirely upon some of the most uncritical and obsolete guides. Where I here give facts or conclusions without reservation, they are matters generally accepted and undisputed; where there is a
164 THE REVISION OF CHRONOLOGY difference of opinion worth any notice it is stated, with the reasons on both sides. To save needless complication I shall here describe all celestial movements as they appear to us, and appeared to the Egyptians; the purely astronomical reality is a theoretical view which we need not touch here.
