NOTES FOR TRAVELLERS IN EGYPT.
 

EGYPTIAN   HISTORY,

The history of Egypt is the oldest history known to us.
It is true that the earliest of the Babylonian kings whose
names are known lived very little later than the earliest
kings of Egypt, nevertheless our knowledge of the early
Egyptian is greater than of the early Babylonian kings.,
A large portion of Egyptian history can be constructedi
from the native records of the Egyptians, and it is now
possible to correct and modify many of the statements,
upon this subject made by Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus
and other classical authors. The native and other docu¬
ments from which Egyptian history is obtained are :—

I. Lists of Kings found in the Turin Papyrus, the
Tablet of Abydos, the Tablet of Sakkara, and the
Tablet of Karnak. The Turin papyrus contained a
complete list of kings, beginning with the god-kings and
continuing down to the end of the rule of the Hyksos,
about B.C. 1700. The name of each king during this period,,
together with the length of his reign in years, months and
^ays, was given, and it would have been, beyond all doubt,
the most valuable of all documents for the chronology of the
oldest period of Egyptian history, if scholars had been able
to make use of it in the perfect condition in which it was

B