in which the supernatural played a predominant part.  They were able to estimate within a few ounces the heaps of gold and silver, the jewels and precious stones, which adorned the royal mummies or rilled the sepulchral chambers:  they were acquainted with every precaution taken by the architects to ensure the safety of all these riches from robbers, and were convinced that magic had added to such safeguards the more effective protection of talismans and genii.  There was no pyramid so insignificant that it had not its mysterious protectors, associated with some amulet—­in most cases with a statue, animated by the double of the founder.  The Arabs of to-day are still well acquainted with these protectors, and possess a traditional respect for them.  The great pyramid concealed a black and white image, seated on a throne and invested with the kingly sceptre.  He who looked upon the statue “heard a terrible noise proceeding from it which almost caused his heart to stop beating, and he who had heard this noise would die.”  An image of rose-coloured granite watched over the pyramid of Khephren, standing upright, a sceptre in its hand and the urous on its brow, “which serpent threw himself upon him who approached it, coiled itself around his neck, and killed him.”  A sorcerer had invested these protectors of the ancient Pharaohs with their powers, but another equally potent magician could elude their vigilance, paralyze their energies, if not for ever, at least for a sufficient length of time to ferret out the treasure and rifle the mummy.  The cupidity of the fellahin, highly inflamed by the stories which they were accustomed to hear, gained the mastery over their terror, and emboldened them to risk their lives in these well-guarded tombs.  How many pyramids had been already rifled at the beginning of the second Theban empire!

The IVth dynasty became extinct in the person of Shop-siskaf, the successor and probably the son of Mykerinos.* The learned of the time of Ramses II. regarded the family which replaced this dynasty as merely a secondary branch of the line of Snofrui, raised to power by the capricious laws which settled hereditary questions.**

* The series of kings beginning with Mykerinos was drawn up for the first time in an accurate manner by E. de Rouge, recherches sur les Monu-mails qu’on peut attribuer aux six premieres dynasties, pp. 66-84, M. de Rouge’s results have been since adopted by all Egyptologists.  The table of the IVTH dynasty, restored as far as possible with the approximate dates, is subjoined:—­

[Illustration:  211.jpg TABLE OF THE IVTH DYNASTY]