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36 actual artifacts have been found belonging to archaic kings bearing such names as "Scorpion," Ka, Zeser, Narmer, and Sma. Sir Flin- ders Petrie, the noted Egyptologist, claimed in his The Royal Tombs of the First Dynasty and other writings that these names correspond to names given by Manetho in the list often human rulers who reigned at Tanis during the chaotic centuries. Petrie suggested that this group, which preceded the First Dynasty, be called "Dynasty O." A major archaeological document dealing with Egyptian kingship, the so-called Turin Papyrus, begins with a dynasty of gods that lists Ra, Geb, Osiris, Seth, and Horns, then Thoth, Maat, and others, and assigns to Horus—just as Manetho did—a reign of 300 years. This papyrus, which dates from the time of Ramses II, lists after the divine tulers thirty-eight semidivine rulers: "Nineteen Chiefs of the White Wall and nineteen Venerables of the North." Between them and Menes, the Turin Papyrus states, there ruled human kings under the patronage of Horus; their epithet was Shamsu-Hor! Addressing the Royal Society of Literature in London in 1843, the curator of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum, Dr. Samuel Birch, announced that he had counted on the papyrus and its fragments a total of 330 names—a number that "coincided with the 330 kings mentioned by Herodotus." Even if they disagree among themselves on details, Egyptolo- gists now agree that the archaeological discoveries sustain the information provided by the ancient historians concerning the dy- nasties begun by Menes, following a chaotic period of about ten tulers in a disunited Egypt; and that there had been a prior period when Egypt was united under rulers whose names could have been none other than Horus, Osiris, and so on. However, scholars who find it difficult to accept that these rulers were "gods" suggest that they were only "deified" human beings. To throw more light on the subject, we can start with the very place chosen by Menes for the capital of the reunified Egypt. The location of Memphis, we find, was not a matter of chance; it was related to cer- tain events pertaining to the gods. Nor was the manner in which Memphis was built unsymbolic: Menes built the city on an artificial mound, created through the diversion of the Nile at that spot and other extensive damming, dyking, and land-reclamation works. This he did in emulation of the manner in which Egypt itself had been created. The Egyptians believed that "a very great god who came forth in the earliest times" arrived in the land and found it lying under water and mud. He undertook great works of dyking and land rec- lamation, literally raising Egypt out of the waters—thus explaining THE WARS OF GODS AND MEN