k
their lives in these well-guarded tombs. How many pyramids had been
already rifled at the beginning of the second Theban empire!

The IVth dynasty became extinct in the person of Shop-siskaf, the
successor and probably the son of Mykerinos.* The learned of the time of
Ramses II. regarded the family which replaced this dynasty as merely
a secondary branch of the line of Snofrui, raised to power by the
capricious laws which settled hereditary questions.**

* The series of kings beginning with Mykerinos was drawn up
for the first time in an accurate manner by E. de Rouge,
_recherches sur les Monu-mails qu'on peut attribuer aux six
premieres dynasties_, pp. 66-84, M. de Rouge's results have
been since adopted by all Egyptologists. The table of the
IVTH dynasty, restored as far as possible with the
approximate dates, is subjoined:--

[Illustration: 211.jpg TABLE OF THE IVTH DYNASTY]

** The fragments of the royal Turin Papyrus exhibit, in
fact, no separation between the kings which Manetho
attributes to the IVth dynasty and those which he ascribes
to the Vth, which seems to show that the Egyptian annalist
considered them all as belonging to one and the same family
of Pharaohs.

Nothing on the contemporary monuments, it is true, gives indication of a
violent change attended by civil war, or resulting from a revolution at
court: the construction and decoration of the tombs continued without
interruption and without indication of haste, the sons-in-law of
Shopsiskaf and of Mykerinos, their daughters and grandchildren, possess
under the new kings, the same favour, the same property, the same
privileges, which they had enjoyed previously. It was stated, however,
in the time of the Ptolemies, that the Vth dynasty had no connection
with the IVth; it was regarded at Memphis as an intruder, and it was
asserted that it came from Elephantine.* The tradition was a very old
one, and its influence is betrayed in a popular story, which was current
at Thebes in the first years of the New Empire. Kheops, while in search
of the mysterious books of Thot in order to transcribe from them the
text for his sepulchral chamber,** had asked the magician Didi to be
good enough to procure them for him; but the latter refused the perilous
task imposed upon him.

* Such is the tradition accepted by Manetho. Lepsius thinks
that the copyists of Manetho were under some dist