These are the bare historical results that have been attained with
regard to the names, identity, and order of the kings. The smaller
memorials that have been found with them, especially the ivory plaques,
have told us of events that took place during their reigns; but, with
the exception of the constantly recurring references to the conquest of
the North, there is little that can be considered of historical interest
or importance. We will take one as an example. This is the tablet No.
32,650 of the British Museum, illustrated by Prof. Petrie, _Royal Tombs_
i (Egypt Exploration Fund), pi. xi, 14, xv, 16. This is the record of
a single year, the first in the reign of Semti, King of Upper and Lower
Egypt. On it we see a picture of a king performing a religious dance
before the god Osiris, who is seated in a shrine placed on a dais. This
religious dance was performed by all the kings in later times. Below we
find hieroglyphic (ideographic) records of a river expedition to fight
the Northerners and of the capture of a fortified town called An. The
capture of the town is indicated by a broken line of fortification,
half-encircling the name, and the hoe with which the emblematic hawks
on the slate reliefs already described are armed; this signifies the
opening and breaking down of the wall.

On the other half of the tablet we find the viceroy of Lower Egypt,
Hemaka, mentioned; also "the Hawk (i. e. the king) seizes the seat of
the Libyans," and some unintelligible record of a jeweller of the palace
and a king's carpenter. On a similar tablet (of Sen) we find the words
"the king's carpenter made this record." All these little tablets are
then the records of single years of a king's life, and others like them,
preserved no doubt in royal archives, formed the base of regular annals,
which were occasionally carved upon stone. We have an example of one of
these in the "Stele of Palermo," a fragment of black granite, inscribed
with the annals of the kings up to the time of the Vth Dynasty, when