alue of the hieroglyphic signs, which were followed up and
carried out by Champollion.

Another important and much more ancient inscription is the tablet of
Abydos in the British Museum. It was discovered by Mr. Banks in a
chamber of the temple of Abydos, in 1818. It is now greatly
disfigured, but when perfect it represented an offering made by
Remeses II., of the nineteenth dynasty, to his predecessors on the
throne of Egypt. The tablet is of fine limestone, and originally
contained the names of fifty-two Kings disposed in the two upper
lines, twenty-six in each line, and a third or lower line with the
name and praenomen of Remeses II. or III. repeated twenty-six times. On
the upper line, beginning from the right hand, are the names of
monarchs anterior to the twelfth dynasty. The names in the second line
are those of monarchs of the twelfth and the eighteenth or nineteenth
dynasties. The King Remeses II. probably stood on the right hand of
the tablet, and on the other is the lower part of a figure of Osiris.
The lateral inscription is the speech of the deceased King to "their
son" Remeses II.

The tablet of Karnac, now in one of the halls of the Bibliotheque at
Paris, was discovered by Burton in a chamber situated in the southeast
angle of the temple-palace of Thebes, and was published by its
discoverer in his "Excerpta Hieroglyphica." The chamber itself was
fully described by Rosellini in his "Monumenti Storici." The Kings are
in two rows, overlooked each of them by a large figure of Thothmes
III., the fifth King of the eighteenth dynasty. In the row to the left
of the entrance are thirty-one names, and in that to the right are
thirty, all of them predecessors of Thothmes. The Theban Kings who
ruled in Upper Egypt during the usurpation of the Hyksos invaders are
also exhibited among the lists. Over the head of each King is his
oval, containing his royal titles.

A most valuable tablet of Kings has been lately discovered by M.
Mariette in a tomb near Memphis, that of a priest who lived under
Remeses II., and was called Tunar-i. It contains two rows of Kings'
names, each twenty-nine in number. Six have been wholly obliterated
out of the upper row, and five out of the lower row. The upper row
contains the names of Remeses II. and his predecessors, who seem all
meant for Kings of Upper Egypt, or Kings of Memphis who ruled over
Upper Egypt, while the names in the lower row seem meant for
contemporaneous High Priests o