M. de Morgan early perceived the difference between the Neolithic antiquities and those of the later archaic period of Egyptian civilization, to which the tomb at Nakada belonged.  In the second volume of his great work on the primitive antiquities of Egypt (L’Age des Metaux et le Tombeau Royale de Negadeh), he described 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 Tukh, 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. Amelineau.  The excavations of M. Amelineau 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. Amelineau 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. Amelineau is rarely heard in connection with them.  As a matter of fact, however, M. Amelineau first excavated the necropolis of the early kings at Abydos, and discovered most of the tombs afterwards worked over by Prof.  Petrie and Mr. Mace.  Yet most of the important scientific results are due to the later explorers, who were the first to attempt a classification of them, though we must add that this classification has not been entirely accepted by the scientific world.

The necropolis of the earliest kings of Egypt is situated in the great bay in the hills which lies behind Abydos, to the southwest of the main necropolis.  Here, at holy Abydos, where every pious Egyptian wished to rest after death, the bodies of the most ancient kings were buried.  It is said by Manetho that the original seat of their dominion was This, a town in the vicinity of Abydos, now represented by the modern Grirga, which