* The last date known is that of the year XXII. at Turah; Manetho’s lists give, in one place, twenty-five years and four months after the expulsion; in another, twenty-six years in round numbers, as the total duration of his reign, which has every appearance of probability.

** There is no direct evidence to prove that Amenothes I. was a minor when he came to the throne; still the presumptions in favour of this hypothesis, afforded by the monuments, are so strong that many historians of ancient Egypt have accepted it.  Queen Nofritari is represented as reigning, side by side with her reigning son, on some few Theban tombs which can be attributed to their epoch.

[Illustration:  136.jpg NOFRITARI, HIE BLACK-SKINNED GODDESS]

     Drawn by Bouclier, from the photograph by M. de Mertens
     taken in the Berlin Museum.

The aged Ahhotpu, who, like Nofritari, was of pure royal descent, and who might well have urged her superior rank, had been content to retire in favour of her children; she lived to the tenth year of her grandson’s reign, respected by all her family, but abstaining from all interference in political affairs.  When at length she passed away, full of days and honour, she was embalmed with special care, and her body was placed in a gilded mummy-case, the head of which presented a faithful copy of her features.  Beside her were piled the jewels she had received in her lifetime from her husband and son.  The majority of them a fan with a handle plated with gold, a mirror of gilt bronze with ebony handle, bracelets and ankle-rings, some of solid and some of hollow gold, edged with fine chains of plaited gold wire, others formed of beads of gold, lapis-lazuli, cornelian, and green felspar, many of them engraved with the cartouche of Ahmosis.  Belonging also to Ahmosis we have a beautiful quiver, in which figures of the king and the gods stand out in high relief on a gold plaque, delicately chased with a graving tool; the background is formed of small pieces of lapis and blue glass, cunningly cut to fit each other.  One bracelet in particular, found on the queen’s wrist, consisted of three parallel bands of solid gold set with turquoises, and having, a vulture with extended wings on the front.  The queen’s hair was held in place by a gold circlet, scarcely as large as a bracelet; a cartouche was affixed to the circlet, bearing the name of Ahmosis in blue paste, and flanked by small sphinxes, one on each side, as supporters.  A thick flexible chain of gold was passed several times round her neck, and attached to it as a pendant was a beautiful scarab, partly of gold and partly of blue porcelain striped with gold.  The breast ornament was completed by a necklace of several rows of twisted cords, from which depended antelopes pursued by tigers, sitting jackals, hawks, vultures, and the winged urasus, all attached to the winding-sheet by means of a small ring soldered on the back of each animal.  The