2. Private and Tuscan-Prussian Work, 1832-50

The object of the building of the pyramids was discovered largely through the investigations of Perring and Vyee. In 1841 Alexander von Humboldt and Karl Josias von Bunsen induced Frederick William IV. of Prussia to send an expedition headed by Karl Richard Lepsius and a strong staff, which carried on work from 1842 into the sixties. Investigation was begun at the pyramids near Memphis and the conclusion was reached that these structures vary in size approximately in proportion to the length of the reign of the king for whose tomb each was prepared; that the tomb was begun at the beginning of the reign and increased in size by symmetrical outside casings as long as the king lived, when a final casing was added. This theory is denied by Petrie (Ten Years' Digging in Egypt, New York, n.d., pp. 141-142) but pronounced substantially correct by Steindorff (H. V. Hilprecht, Explorations in Bible Lands, Philadelphia, 1903, p. 633). Over 130 other tombs were discovered and the materials from them collected, including the inscriptions, for an outline history of Egypt. Explorations were extended southward up the Blue Nile past Khartum, where attention was paid to Ethiopian civilization, and eastward to the ancient mines of Sinai. Among individual achievements was the recovery at Tanis of a trilingual stele carrying the decree of Ptolemy III. Euergetea in hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek, confirming in general the decipherment begun with the Rosetta Stone. Results were published by Lepsius (12 vols., Berlin, 1849 sqq.). The arrangement was not geographical, as had been the case with previous publications, but historical in the sequence of development as then understood. Thus the outlines of a new treatment were struck out which subsequent work has followed, amended, and filled out.

With Augusts Mariette a new period began, and by the discovery near Memphis in Nov., 1851, of the Serapeum or cemetery of the sacred Apis-bulls intense interest was created. Sixty-four of these tombs were found with a vast amount S. )sari- of cultic, memorial, ornamental, and ette, historical material, useful in construct- 1861-81. ins a picture of life, history, and belief.

In 1857 Mariette was made director of the new museum at Cairo, and when permits already issued for excavations expired, he would not have them renewed and permitted no one but himself to dig for antiquities. His own activities were feverish and his excavations so extensive and so scattered that they could not be under his personal supervision. Moreover, the strictly scientific methods of the present had not come into existence, consequently through the carelessness or incapacity of his workmen many objects were irretrievably lost or ruined. No systematic account of the excavations was kept, and a record of work done by Mariette is consequently a desideratum which can never be supplied. His chief aim was to collect fine specimens for his museum, and the accom- plishment of thorough work was a secondary end. Yet some of his discoveries were notable: as the statues of the seated scribe, now in the Louvre, and the Sheikh al-Beled (" village chief "), in the Cairo museum; at Abydos the temple of Seti I. and the Seti list of seventy-six royal ancestors with their names and titles; at Denderah, the temple of Hathor; at Edfu, the fine temple of Horus; and under his direction many volumes of the inscriptions recovered and copied were issued.

After hlariette's death in 1881 the direction remained in the hands of the French, but under competent and more generous management such as that of G. Masp6ro, E. Grebaut, J. de Morgan,

and Victor Loret. Permits to exca 4. The vats were once more granted to repre B.ecent sentatives of other nations and interests,

Period, while for the Egyptian government since 1881. researches were conducted at Luxor, Ombos, and in the Valley of the Kings, in which last place a notable fund of know ledge was accumulated, as it proved to be the hiding-place of the mummies of the kings of the seventeenth and eighteenth dynasties. Since 1883 the Egypt Exploration Fund and since 1893 the Egyptian Research Account (qq.v.) have been con tinuously at work; both have been favored agencies and their progress has been one of repeated triumphs under such brilliant workers as Edouard Naville, W. M. Flinders Petrie, F. Ll. Griffiths and E. A. Gardner. In 1894 the Swiss scholars F. J. Gautier and J. Jdquier entered upon work on the pyramids near Dahshur, and the tombs of Amen ophis I. and Uaerteaen I. were recovered. Am6li neau's work since 1895 has been momentous, in cluding the recovery of a famous tomb of Osiris and the royal tombs of part of the first dynasty near Abydos. Meanwhile M. Gayet had begun work for the Muse Guimet. M. de Morgan's labor for the Cairo Museum at Abydos, Dah shur, Sakkareh and elsewhere has been con tinuous and important, especially in the investi gation of neolithic interments and the discovery of the tomb of Menes near Nakada. Professor Spiegelberg has carried on a private enterprise for Lord Newberry at Memphis and elsewhere. More recent work has been done for the Germans by H. Schäfer, e.g., at Abusir, where a sun temple of the fifth dynasty was discovered.

The attempt to state the results of all these efforts has already filled hundreds of volumes. Here only the moat general or most significant conequences can be given. The general course and extent of Egyptian history have been determined,