Note 75 — Chapter XV · RAMESES THE GREAT.

In the present state of Egyptian chronology it is hazardous to assign even an approximate date to events which happened before the conquest of Cambyses. The Egyptians, in fact, had no chronology in the strict sense of the word. Being without any fixed point of departure, such as the birth of Christ, they counted the events of each reign from the accession of the sovereign. Under such a system error and confusion were inevitable. To say when Rameses II was born and when he died is impossible. The very century in which he flourished is uncertain. Mariette, taking the historical lists of Manetho for his basis, supposes the nineteenth dynasty to have occupied the interval comprised within B.C. 1462 and 1288; according to which computation (allowing fifty-seven years for the reigns of Rameses I and Seti I) the reign of Rameses II would date from B.C. 1405. Brugsch gives him from B.C. 1407 to B.C. 1341; and Lepsius places his reign in the sixty-six years lying between B.C. 1388 and B.C. 1322; these calculations being both made before the discovery of the stella of Abydos. Bunsen dates his accession from B.C. 1352. Between the highest and the lowest of these calculations there is, as shown by the following table, a difference of fifty-five years:

Rameses II began to reignB.C.

Brugsch1407

According toMariette1405

Lepsius1388

Bunsen1352