some discussion has arisen in our own time, in notes and queries,
and particularly in regard to Mr. Disraeli's references in the book
Alroy, concerning which the Westminster Chess papers in 1872,
instituted a criticism. Chapter 16 of Alroy begins "Two stout
soldiers were playing chess in a coffee house," and Mr. Disraeli
inserts on this the following note (80). "On the walls of the
palace of Amenoph II, called Medeenet Abuh, at Egyptian Thebes,
the King is represented playing chess with the Queen. This
monarch reigned long before the Trojan War."

A critic, calling himself the author of Fossil Chess adds "In
the same work may be found some account of the paintings on
the tombs at Beni Hassan, presumably the oldest in Egypt, dating
from the time of Osirtasen I, twenty centuries before the
Christian era, and eight hundred years anterior to the reign of
Rameses III, by whom the temple of Medeenet Abuh was commenced,
and who is the Rameses portrayed on its walls." An unaccountable
error on Mr. Disraeli's part in the same note assigns its
erection to Amenoph II, who lived 1414 B.C.

Closer investigators of the Hieroglyphics of Ancient Egypt, state
Rameses Merammun (15th King of the 18th dynasty and grandfather
of Sesostris), who reigned as Ramses IV from 1559 to 1493 B.C.,
is the name that appears on the great palace of Medinet Abu, and
some other buildings in the ruins of Thebes.

According to the tables of Egyptian Chronology most approved
in 1827 reviews Sethos or Sesostris reigned as Ramses VI from
1473 to 1418 B.C. The reviews observe that Herodotus thought
that Sesostris ascended the throne a few years later than