"In spite of all defects, this division into dynasties has taken so firm a root in the literature of Egyptology that there is little chance of its ever being abandoned. In the forms in which the book has reached us, there are inaccuracies of the most glaring kind…Africanus and Eusabius often do not agree; for example Africanus assigns nine kings to Dyn. XXII, while Eusabius only has three. Sometimes all that is vouchsafed to us is the number of kings in a dynasty and their city of origin…the lengths of reigns frequently differ in the two versions…the reconstructed Manetho remains full of imperfections…. Nonetheless, [it]still dominates our studies.... We are dealing with a civilisation thousands of years old and of which only tiny fragments have survived."

Quote Details

Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Added on April 10, 2026
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English

Sources

Sir Alan Gardiner’s 1961 Egypt of the Pharaohs

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Chronology_of_the_ancient_Near_East