ANCIENT RECORDS OF EGYPT.
Ancient Records of Egypt. By James Henry Breasted, Ph.D. Vol. IV. (University of Chicago Press. 13s. 6d.)—Professor Breasted completes his Egyptian work with this volume. He has now given us a history, and four volumes of the documents, from .inscriptions and papyri, on which the history is founded. All that remains to make these labours generally available is the complete .index which is announced to be about to follow. Vol. IV. -contains the records of seven dynasties (XX.-XXVI.), a period of something more than six hundred years. The Twentieth Dynaaty may‘ be fixed, with approximate accuracy, as beginning about 1200 B.C. It is the Rameside dynasty, and though it covers not ,much more than a century, its records occupy considerably more than half of this volume. It is to this period that the famous "Papyrus Harris" belongs. This papyrus is the largest (133 ft. long) and the most sumptuous of all that have come down to us. It gives an elaborate account of the property and income of the gods as these were on the death of Rameses III. (1198-1167). It is almost needless to say that this record, which Professor Breasted has carefully translated, is of the greatest value ; the average reader, however, will find the concluding sections in which the King recounts the circumstances in which the dynasty rose into power most interesting. Another noteworthy document is the " Harem Conspiracy." This refers to the same reign. One of the Queens of Rameses III. sought to obtain the succession for her son. The story is one that occurs over and over again in Oriental records, and we are at once reminded of the intrigues which troubled the last days of David. That, too, is not a pleasing story; but the " Harem Conspiracy," so far as we are able to dis- cern its outlines, has a far worse appearance. In §499-556 we have legal documents relating to the tomb robberies. A list of the tombs, &c., inspected is given, beginning with that of Amenhotep I. This was found uninjured, and so were most of the others. The pyramid of King Sebekemsaf, a petty Sovereign of the sixteenth century, was found to have suffered most. The later Kings left few records behind them. For the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, the latest of the native Kings, though it lasted for nearly a century and a half, about forty pages suffice.
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