AND PROSOPOGRAPHIC STUDY

The aim of this study is to investigate the origins of those commemorated at Abydos in the Late Period, in order to determine the extent to which it was a national, rather than a purely local, cemetery at that time. The basic source material consists of all the hieroglyphic inscriptions which are known or can be said to come from Abydos and,which can be dated to the period from c~750-100 B.C... Because the material has been dispersed throughout the ",orld, often without any racord of provenance, the first step is to establish the criteria by which to identify Abydene inscriptions., The second essential preliminary, is the dating of the corpus. As almost all the objects are undated, it is necessary to~stablish a relative chronological sequence which can be attached at crucial points to absolute dates, thus allowing inscriptions to be,dated wi th varying degrees of precision. This is done by using epi-graphic criteria, which are the only features common to all th