ed the pioneer of modern Egyptology. While much of
his work has been superseded by more recent investigations, he was so
imbued with the scientific spirit that he was enabled securely to lay
the foundation of all the work which followed.

[Illustration: 321.jpg THE GREAT HALL OF ABYDOS]

The distinguished French savant, Augustus Mariette, (1821-1881) began
his remarkable excavations in Egypt in the year 1850. The series of
discoveries inaugurated by him lasted until the year 1880. Mariette made
an ever-memorable discovery when he unearthed the famous Serapeum which
had once been the burial-place of the sacred bulls of Memphis, which the
geographer Strabo records had been covered over by the drifting sands of
the desert even in the days of Augustus.

[Illustration: 322.jpg PROPYLON AT DENDERAH]

The Serapeum was in the neighbourhood of the Sphinx, and, on account of
its great height, remained in part above the ground, and was visible to
all passers-by; while everything else in the neighbourhood except the
great Pyramid of Khufui was totally buried under the sand. Mariette
worked his way along the passage between the Great Sphinx and the other
lesser sphinxes which lay concealed in the vicinity, and thus gradually
came to the opening of the Serapeum. In November, 1850, his labours were
crowned with brilliant success. He discovered sixty-four tombs of
Apis, dating from the eighteenth dynasty until as late as the reign of
Cleopatra. He likewise found here many figures, images, ancient Egyptian
ornaments and amulets, and memorial stones erected by the devout
worshippers of antiquity. Fortunately for Egyptian archaeology and
history, nearly all the monuments here discovered were dated, and were
thus of the highest value in settling the dates of dynasties and of the
reigns of individual monarchs. Mariette afterwards discovered a splendid
temple in the same place, which he proved to have been the famous shrine
of the god Sokar-Osiris. He was soon appointed by the Egyptian Viceroy,
Said Pasha, as director of the new museum of antiquities which was then
placed at Bulak, in the vicinity of Cairo, awaiting the completion of
a more substantial building at Gizeh. He obtained permission to make
researches in every part of Egypt; and with varying success he excavated
in as many as thirty-seven localities. In some of the researches
undertaken by his direction, it is to be feared that many invaluable
relics of antiquity may have been