the antiquities of the Ist Dynasty which had been found at the time he
wrote. Antiquities of the same primitive period and even of an earlier
date had been discovered by Prof. Flinders Petrie, as has already been
said, at Koptos, at the mouth of the Wadi Hammamat. But though Prof.
Petrie correctly diagnosed the age of the great statues of the god
Min which he found, he was led, by his misdating of the "New Race"
antiquities from Ballas and Tûkh, also to misdate several of the
primitive antiquities,--the lions and hawks, for instance, found at
Koptos, he placed in the period between the VIIth and Xth Dynasties;
whereas they can now, in the light of further discoveries at Abydos, be
seen to date to the earlier part of the Ist Dynasty, the time of Narmer
and Aha.

It is these discoveries at Abydos, coupled with those (already
described) of Mr. Quibell at Hierakonpolis, which have told us most of
what we know with regard to the history of the first three dynasties.
At Abydos Prof. Petrie was not himself the first in the field, the site
having already been partially explored by a French Egyptologist, M.
Amélineau. The excavations of M. Amélineau were, however, perhaps
not conducted strictly on scientific lines, and his results have been
insufficiently published with very few photographs, so that with the
best will in the world we are unable to give M. Amélineau the full
credit which is, no doubt, due to him for his work. The system of Prof.
Petrie's publications has been often, and with justice, criticized, but
he at least tells us every year what he has been doing, and gives us
photographs of everything he has found. For this reason the epoch-making
discoveries at Abydos have been coupled chiefly with the name of Prof.
Petrie, while that of M. Amélineau is rarely heard in connection with
them. As a matter of fact, however, M. Amélineau first excavated the
necropolis of the early kings at Abydos, and discovered most of the