Page:The Religion of Ancient Egypt.djvu/54

 of it will ever be found more ancient than that of Rameses I., the grandfather of the great conqueror. Now if this tablet of Abydos is correct, seventy-six kings, that is, very many more kings than can be counted in English history, must have reigned over Egypt before the first books of the Bible were written. But if we go back in English history to Ethelred II. in 976, we shall find that not more than forty-four sovereigns have reigned during a thousand years, and the average length of an Egyptian king's reign cannot be shown to be shorter than that of an English sovereign.

Evidence of the Reality of Sovereigns named.

But are the names on the tablet of Abydos names of real personages, or are they (or at least some of them) as imaginary as the kings of Britain, beginning with Brutus, as reported by Geoffrey of Monmouth, or the kings of Scotland, beginning with Fergus I., whose portraits adorn the walls of Holyrood? There is but one way of settling the question, and that is by looking out for evidence which will confirm or contradict that given by these royal lists. As far as the test of verification has been applied to these lists, there is no reason whatever for distrusting them. Instead of admitting sovereigns who have never lived, they have for certain reasons omitted many, the existence of whom