Chapter XXXI: Appendix: V (1)

CONTEMPORARY CHRONOLOGY OF EGYPT, MESOPOTAMIA, AND BABYLON.

A very important addition to our chronological information with regard to the synchronous history of Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia and Babylonia has been brought to light during this present year (1888) by the great discovery of cuneiform tablets at Tel-el-Amarna in Upper Egypt. These tablets consist for the most part of letters and dispatches sent to Amenhotep III and Amenhotep IV by the kings of Babylonia and the princes and governors of Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia; some being addressed to Amenhotep IV (Khu-en-Aten) by Burna-Buryas, King of Babylonia, who lived about B.C. 1430. This gives us the date of the life and reign of Amenhotep IV, and consequently the approximate date of the foundation of the city known to us as Tel-el-Amarna, and of the establishment of the new religion of the Disk-worship; and it is the earliest synchronism yet established between the history of ancient Egypt and that of her contemporaries.

From these tablets we also learn that the consort of Amenhotep IV was a Syrian princess and daughter of Duschratta, King of Naharina (called in the tablets “the land of Mitanni”) on the Upper Euphrates. For a full and learned description of some of the most interesting of these newly discovered documents, see Dr. Erman’s paper, entitled _Der Thontafelfund von Tell Amarna_, read before the Berlin Academy on 3d May, 1888.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] For the benefit of any who desire more exact information, I may add that a table of average temperatures, carefully registered day by day and week by week, is to be found at the end of Mr. H. Villiers Stuart’s “Nile Gleanings.” [Note to second edition.]

[2] These dates, it is to be remembered, refer to the year 1877, when the first edition of this book was published. [Note to second edition.]

[3] Since the first edition of this book was issued, the publication of Mr. W. M. Flinders Petrie’s standard work, entitled “The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh,” has for the first time placed a thoroughly accurate and scientific description of the great pyramid at the disposal of students. Calculating from the rock-cut sockets at the four corners, and from the true level of the pavement, Mr. Petrie finds that the square of the original base of the structure, in inches, is of these dimensions:

-------------------------------------------------------
| Length. | Difference | Azimuth. | Difference
| | from Mean. | | from Mean.
-------|----------|------------|----------|------------
N. | 9069.4 | + .6 | - 3’ 20” | + 23”
E. | 9067.7 | - 1.1 | - 3’ 57” | - 14”
S. | 9069.5 | + .7 | - 3’ 41” | + 2”
W. | 9068.6 | - .2 | - 3’ 54” | - 11”
-------|----------|------------|----------|------------
Mean. | 9068.8 | .65 | - 3’ 43” | 12”
-------------------------------------------------------

For the height, Mr. Petrie, after duly weighing all data, such as the thickness of the three casing-stones yet _in situ_, and the presumed thickness of those which formerly faced the upper courses of the masonry, gives from his observations of the mean angle of the pyramid, a height from base to apex of 5776.0 ± 7.0 inches. See “The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh,” chap. vi. pp. 37-43. [Note to the second edition.]

[4] Now, seventy-seven years ago; the first edition of this book having been published thirteen years ago. [Note to second edition.]

[5] One only is said to have escaped--a certain Emin Bey, who leaped his horse over a gap in the wall, alighted safely in the piazza below, and galloped away into the desert. The place of this famous leap continued to be shown for many years, but there are no gaps in the wall now, the citadel being the only place in Cairo which is kept in thorough repair.

[6] “It is related that the Sultan Ez-Zahir Beybars, King of Egypt, was the first who sent a mahmal with the caravan of pilgrims to Mecca, in the year of the flight 670 (A.D. 1272) or 675; but this custom, it is generally said, had its origin a few years before his accession to the throne. Shegered-Durr, a beautiul Turkish female slave who became the favorite wife of the Sultan Es-Sáleh Negm-ed-Deen, and on the death of his son (with whom terminated the dynasty of the house of the Eiyoob) caused herself to be acknowledged as Queen of Egypt, performed the pilgrimage in a magnificent ‘hódag,’ or covered litter, borne by a camel; and for several successive years her empty ‘hódag’ was sent with the caravan, merely for the sake of state. Hence, succeeding princes of Egypt sent with each year’s caravan of pilgrims a kind of ‘hódag’ (which received the name of mahmal) as an emblem of royalty.”--“The Modern Egyptians,” by E. W. Lane, chap. xxiv, London, 1860.

[7] The hereditary prince, it need scarcely be said, is the present khedive, Tewfik Pasha. [Note to second edition.]

[8] Arabic--_Kemengeh_.

[9] The goolah, or kulleh, is a porous water-jar of sun-dried Nile mud. These jars are made of all sizes and in a variety of remarkably graceful forms, and cost from about one farthing to two-pence apiece.

[10] Some of these tiles are to be seen in the Egyptian department of the British Museum. They are not blue, but of a bluish green. For a view of the sepulchral chamber, see Maspero’s “Archéologie Egyptienne,” fig. 230, p. 256. [Note to second edition.]

[11] Nectanebo I and Nectanebo II were the last native Pharaohs of ancient Egypt, and flourished between B.C. 378 and B.C. 340. An earlier temple must have preceded the Serapeum built by Nectanebo I.

[12] For an excellent and exact account of the Serapeum and the monuments there discovered, see M. Arthur Rhoné’s “L’Egypte en Petites Journées.” [Note to second edition.]

[13] These objects, known as “The Miramar Collection,” and catalogued by Professor Reinisch, are now removed to Vienna. [Note to second edition.]

[14] A more exhaustive study of the funerary texts has of late revolutionized our interpretation of these and similar sepulchral tableaux. The scenes they represent are not, as was supposed when this book was first written, mere episodes in the daily life of the deceased; but are links in the elaborate story of his burial and his ghostly existence after death. The corn is sown, reaped, and gathered in order that it may be ground and made into funerary cakes; the oxen, goats, gazelles, geese and other live stock are destined for sacrificial offerings; the pots, and furniture, and household goods are for burying with the mummy in his tomb; and it is his “Ka,” or ghostly double, that takes part in these various scenes, and not the living man. [Note to second edition.]

[15] These statues were not mere portrait-statues; but were designed as bodily habitations for the incorporeal ghost, or “Ka,” which it was supposed needed a body, food and drink, and must perish everlastingly if not duly supplied with these necessaries. Hence the whole system of burying food-offerings, furniture, stuffs, etc., in ancient Egyptian sepulchers. [Note to second edition.]

[16] The actual tomb of Prince Kha-em-nas has been found at Memphis by M. Maspero within the last three or four years. [Note to second edition.]

[17] The date is Mariette’s.

[18] There was no worship of Apis in the days of King Ouenephes, nor, indeed, until the reign of Kaiechos, more than one hundred and twenty years after his time. But at some subsequent period of the ancient empire his pyramid was appropriated by the priests of Memphis for the mummies of the sacred bulls. This, of course, was done before any of the known Apis catacombs were excavated. There are doubtless many more of these catacombs yet undiscovered, nothing prior to the eighteenth dynasty having yet been found.

[19] This colossus is now raised upon a brick pedestal. [Note to second edition.]

[20] _Tell_: Arabic for mound. Many of the mounds preserve the ancient names of the cities they entomb; as Tell Basta (Bubastis); Kóm Ombo (Ombos); etc., etc. _Tell_ and _Kóm_ are synonymous terms.

[21] _Sorghum vulgare._

[22] The shâdûf has been so well described by the Rev. F. B. Zincke that I cannot do better than quote him verbatim: “Mechanically, the shadoof is an application of the lever. In no machine which the wit of man, aided by the accumulation of science, has since invented, is the result produced so great in proportion to the degree of power employed. The level of the shadoof is a long stout pole poised on a prop. The pole is at right angles to the river. A large lump of clay from the spot is appended to the inland end. To the river end is suspended a goat-skin bucket. This is the whole apparatus. The man who is working it stands on the edge of the river. Before him is a hole full of water fed from the passing stream. When working the machine he takes hold of the cord by which the empty bucket is suspended, and, bending down, by the mere weight of his shoulders dips it in the water. His effort to rise gives the bucket full of water an upward cant, which, with the aid of the equipoising lump of clay at the other end of the pole, lifts it to a trough into which, as it tilts on one side, it empties its contents. What he has done has raised the water six or seven feet above the level of the river. But if the river has subsided twelve or fourteen feet, it will require another shadoof to be worked in the trough into which the water of the first has been brought. If the river has sunk still more, a third will be required before it can be lifted to the top of the bank, so as to enable it to flow off to the fields that require irrigation.”--“Egypt of the Pharaohs and the Khedive,” p. 445 _et seq._

[23] _Beled_--village.

[24] Miss Whately, whose evidence on this subject is peculiarly valuable, states that the majority of native children die off at, or under, two years of age (“Among the Huts,” p. 29); while M. About, who enjoyed unusual opportunities of inquiring into facts connected with the population and resources of the country, says that the nation loses three children out of every five. “L’ignorance publique, l’oubli des premiers éléments d’hygiène, la mauvaise alimentation, l’absence presque totale des soins médicaux, tarissent la nation dans sa source. Un peuple qui perd régulièrement trois enfants sur cinq ne saurait croître sans miracle.”--“Le Fellah,” p. 165.

[25] Arabic--_shoghool_: a rope by which the mainsail is regulated.

[26] The known inscriptions in the tomb of Haptefa have recently been recopied, and another long inscription, not previously transcribed, has been copied and translated, by Mr. F. Llewellyn Griffith, acting for the Egypt exploration fund. Mr. Griffith has for the first time fixed the date of this famous tomb, which was made during the reign of Usertesen I, of the twelfth dynasty. [Note to second edition.]

[27] See “Recueil des Monuments Egyptiens,” Brugsch. Part I. Planche xi. Published 1862.

[28] Some famous tombs of very early date, enriched with the same kind of inlaid decoration, are to be seen at Meydûm, near the base of Meydûm pyramid.

[29] “Voyage en Egypte et en Nubie,” by J. J. Ampère. The cartouche may perhaps be that of _Rakameri_, mentioned by Brugsch; “Histoire d’Egypte,” chap. vi., first edition.

[30] The Greeks translated the sacred names of Egyptian places; the Copts adopted the civil names.

[31] According to the account given in her letters by Lady Duff Gordon, this dervish, who had acquired a reputation for unusual sanctity by repeating the name of Allah three thousand times every night for three years, believed that he had by these means rendered himself invulnerable; and so, proclaiming himself the appointed slayer of Antichrist, he stirred up a revolt among the villages bordering Gebel Sheik Hereedee, instigated an attack on an English dahabeeyah, and brought down upon himself and all that country-side the swift and summary vengeance of the government. Steamers with troops commanded by Fadl Pasha were dispatched up the river; rebels were shot; villages sacked; crops and cattle confiscated. The women and children of the place were then distributed among the neighboring hamlets; and Gow, which was as large a village as Luxor, ceased to exist. The dervish’s fate remained uncertain. He was shot, according to some; and by others it was said that he had escaped into the desert under the protection of a tribe of Bedouins.

[32] Sir G. Wilkinson states the total length of the temple to be ninety three paces, or two hundred and twenty feet; and the width of the portico fifty paces. Murray gives no measurements; neither does Mariette Bey in his delightful little “Itineraire;” neither does Furgusson, nor Champollion, nor any other writer to whose works I have had access.

[33] The names of Augustus, Caligula, Tiberius, Domitian, Claudius, and Nero are found in the royal ovals; the oldest being those of Ptolemy XI, the founder of the present edifice, which was, however, rebuilt upon the site of a succession of older buildings, of which the most ancient dated back as far as the reign of Khufu, the builder of the great pyramid. This fact, and the still more interesting fact that the oldest structure of all was believed to belong to the inconceivably remote period of the _Horshesu_, or “followers of Horus” (_i. e._ the petty chiefs, or princes, who ruled in Egypt before the foundation of the first monarchy), is recorded in the following remarkable inscription discovered by Mariette in one of the crypts constructed in the thickness of the walls of the present temple. The first text relates to certain festivals to be celebrated in honor of Hathor, and states that all the ordained ceremonies had been performed by King Thothmes III (eighteenth dynasty) “in memory of his mother, Hathor of Denderah. And they found the great fundamental rules of Denderah in ancient writing, written on goat-skin in the time of the followers of Horus. This was found in the inside of a brick wall during the reign of King Pepi (sixth dynasty).” In the same crypt, another and a more brief inscription runs thus: “Great fundamental rule of Denderah. Restorations done by Thothmes III, according to what was found in ancient writing of the time of King Khufu.” Hereupon Mariette remarks: “The temple of Denderah is not, then, one of the most modern in Egypt, except in so far as it was constructed by one of the later Lagidæ. Its origin is literally lost in the night of time.” See “Dendérah, Description Générale,” chap. i. pp. 55, 56.

[34] See Mariette’s “Denderah,” which contains the whole of these multitudinous inscriptions in one hundred and sixty-six plates; also a selection of some of the most interesting in Brugsch and Dümichen’s “Recueil de Monuments Egyptiens” and “Geographische Inschriften,” 1862, 1863, 1865 and 1866.

[35] Hathor (or more correctly Hat-hor, _i. e._ the abode of Horus), is not merely the Aphrodite of ancient Egypt; she is the pupil of the eye of the sun; she is goddess of that beneficent planet whose rising heralds the waters of the inundation; she represents the eternal youth of nature, and is the direct personification of the beautiful. She is also goddess of truth. “I offer the truth to thee, O Goddess of Denderah!” says the king, in one of the inscriptions of the sanctuary of the sistrum; “for truth is thy work, and thou thyself art truth.” Lastly, her emblem is the sistrum, and the sound of the sistrum, according to Plutarch, was supposed to terrify and expel Typhon (the evil principle); just as in mediæval times the ringing of church-bells was supposed to scare Beelzebub and his crew. From this point of view, the sistrum becomes typical of the triumph of good over evil. Mariette, in his analysis of the decorations and inscriptions of this temple, points out how the builders were influenced by the prevailing philosophy of the age, and how they veiled the Platonism of Alexandria beneath the symbolism of the ancient religion. The Hat-hor of Denderah was in fact worshiped in a sense unknown to the Egyptians of pre-Ptolemaic times.

[36] Arabic, “_kharûf_,” pronounced “_haroof_”--English, _sheep_.

[37] This famous building is supposed by some to be identical both with the Memnonium of Strabo and the tomb of Osymandias as described by Diodorus Siculus. Champollion, however, following the sense of the hieroglyphed legends, in which it is styled “The House of Rameses” (II), has given to it the more appropriate name of the Ramesseum.

[38] Translated into French by the late Vicomte de Rougé under the title of “Le Poëme de Pentaour,” 1856; into English by Mr. Goodwin, 1858; and again by Professor Lushington in 1874. See “Records of the Past,” vol. ii.

[39] According to the great inscription of Abydos translated by Professor Maspero, Rameses II would seem to have been in some sense king from his birth, as if the throne of Egypt came to him through his mother, and as if his father, Seti I, had reigned for him during his infancy as king-regent. Some inscriptions, indeed, show him to have received homage even _before_ his birth.

[40] The ruins of the great Temple of Luxor have undergone a complete transformation since the above description was written; Professor Maspero, during the two last years of his official rule as successor to the late Mariette Pasha, having done for this magnificent relic of Pharaonic times what his predecessor did for the more recent temple of Edfoo. The difficulties of carrying out this great undertaking were so great as to appear at the first sight almost insurmountable. The fellâheen refused at first to sell their houses; Mustapha Aga asked the exorbitant price of £3,000 for his consular residence, built as it was between the columns of Horemheb, facing the river; and for no pecuniary consideration whatever was it possible to purchase the right of pulling down the mosque in the first great court-yard of the temple. After twelve months of negotiation, the fellâheen were at last bought out on the fair terms, each proprietor receiving a stated price for his dwelling and a piece of land elsewhere upon which to build another. Some thirty families were thus got rid of, about eight or ten only refusing to leave at any price. The work of demolition was begun in 1885. In 1886, the few families yet lingering in the ruins followed the example of the rest; and in the course of that season the temple was cleared from end to end, only the little native mosque being left standing within the precincts, and Mustapha Aga’s house on the side next the landing-place. Professor Maspero’s resignation followed in 1887, since when the work has been carried on by his successor, M. Grébaut, with the result that in place of a crowded, sordid, unintelligible labyrinth of mud huts, yards, stables, alleys and dung-heaps, a noble temple, second only to that of Karnak for grandeur of design and beauty of proportion, now marshals its avenues of columns and uplifts its sculptured architraves along the crest of the ridge which here rises high above the eastern bank of the Nile. Some of those columns, now that they are cleared down to the level of the original pavement, measure fifty-seven feet in the shaft; and in the court-yard built by Rameses II, which measures one hundred and ninety feet by one hundred and seventy, a series of beautiful colossal statues of that Pharaoh in highly polished red granite have been discovered, some yet standing in situ, having been built into the walls of the mud structures and imbedded (for who shall say how many centuries?) in a sepulcher of ignoble clay. Last of all, Mustapha Aga, the kindly and popular old British consul, whose hospitality will long be remembered by English travelers, died about twelve months since, and the house in which he entertained so many English visitors, and upon which he set so high a value, is even now in course of demolition.

[41] The size of these stones not being given in any of our books, I paced the length of one of the shadows, and (allowing for so much more at each end as would be needed to reach to the centers of the two capitals on which it rested) found the block above must measure at least twenty five feet in length. The measurements of the great hall are, in plain figures, one hundred and seventy feet in length by three hundred and twenty-nine in breadth. It contains one hundred and thirty-four columns, of which the central twelve stand sixty-two feet high in the shaft (or about seventy with the plinth and abacus), and measure thirty-four feet six inches in circumference. The smaller columns stand forty-two feet five inches in the shaft, and measure twenty-eight feet in circumference. All are buried to a depth of between six and seven feet in the alluvial deposits of between three and four thousand annual inundations.

[42] It has been calculated that every stone of these huge Pharaonic temples cost at least one human life.

[43] _i. e._ _Per Amen_, or _Pa-Amen_; one of the ancient names of Thebes, which was the city especially dedicated to Amen. Also _Apt_, or _Abot_, or _Apetou_, by some ascribed to an Indo-Germanic root signifying abode. Another name for Thebes, and probably the one most in use, was _Uas_.

[44] Knum was one of the primordial gods of the Egyptian cosmogony; the divine potter; he who fashioned man from the clay and breathed into him the breath of life. He is sometimes represented in the act of fashioning the first man, or that mysterious egg from which not only man but the universe proceeded, by means of the ordinary potter’s wheel. Sometimes also he is depicted in his boat, moving upon the face of the waters at the dawn of creation. About the time of the twentieth dynasty, Knum became identified with Ra. He also was identified with Amen, and was worshiped in the great oasis in the Greek period as Amen-Knum. He is likewise known as “The Soul of the Gods,” and in this character, as well as in his solar character, he is represented with the head of a ram, or in the form of a ram. Another of his titles is “The Maker of Gods and Men.” Knum was also one of the gods of the cataract, and chief of the Triad worshipped at Elephantine. An inscription at Philæ styles him “Maker of all that is, Creator of all beings, First existent, the Father of fathers, the Mother of mothers.”

[45] _Bes._ “La culte de Bes parait être une importation Asiatique. Quelquefois le dieu est armé d’une épée qu’il brandit au-dessus de sa tête; dans ce rôle, il semble le dieu des combats. Plus souvent c’est le dieu ce la danse, de la musique, des plaisirs.”--_Mariette Bey._

[46] “At the cataracts of the great rivers Orinoco, Nile and Congo, the syenitic rocks are coated by a black substance, appearing as if they had been polished with plumbago. The layer is of extreme thinness; and on analysis by Berzelius it was found to consist of the oxides of manganese and iron.... The origin, however, of these coatings of metallic oxides, which seem as if cemented to the rocks, is not understood; and no reason, I believe, can be assigned for their thickness remaining the same.”--“Journal of Researches,” by Charles Darwin, chap. i, p. 12, ed. 1845.

[47] _Keffiyeh_: A square head-shawl, made of silk or wollen. European travelers wear them as puggarees.

[48] _Mudîr_: Chief magistrate.

[49] _Kadi_: Judge.

[50] The results of Dr. Birch’s labors were given to the public in his “Guide to the First and Second Egyptian Rooms,” published by order of the trustees of the British Museum in May, 1874. Of the contents of case ninety-nine in the “second room,” he says: “The use of potsherds for documents received a great extension at the time of the Roman empire, when receipts for the taxes were given on these fragments by the collectors of revenue at Elephantine or Syene, on the frontier of Egypt. These receipts commenced in the reign of Vespasian, A.D. 77, and are found as late asM. Aurelius and L. Verus, A.D. 165. It appears from them that the capitation and trades tax, which was sixteen drams in A.D. 77, rose to twenty in A.D. 165, having steadily increased. The dues were paid in installments called _merismoi_, at three periods of the year. The taxes were farmed out to publicans (_misthotai_), who appear from their names to have been Greeks. At Elephantine the taxes were received by tax-gatherers (_prakteres_), who seem to have been appointed as early as the Ptolemies. Their clerks were Egyptians, and they had a chest and treasure (_phylax_).” See p. 109, _as above_; also Birch’s “History of Ancient Pottery,” chap. 1, p. 45.

These barren memoranda are not the only literary curiosities found at Elephantine. Among the Egyptian manuscripts of the Louvre may be seen some fragments of the eighteenth book of the “Iliad,” discovered in a tomb upon the island. How they came to be buried there no one knows. A lover of poetry would like to think, however, that some Greek or Roman officer, dying at his post upon this distant station, desired, perhaps, to have his Homer laid with him in his grave.

NOTE TO SECOND EDITION.--Other fragments of “Iliad” have been found from time to time in various parts of Egypt; some (now in the Louvre) being scrawled, like the above-mentioned tax-receipts, on mere potsherds. The finest specimen ever found in Egypt or elsewhere, and the earliest, has, however, been discovered this year, 1888, by Mr. Flinders Petrie in the grave of a woman at Hawara, in the Fayûm.

[51] These are the measurements given in Murray’s hand-book. The new English translation of Mariette’s “Itinéraire de la Haute Egypte” gives the obelisk of Hatshepsu one hundred and eight feet ten inches in height. See “The Monuments of Upper Egypt,” translated by Alphonse Marietta, London, 1877.

[52] For an account of the discovery of this enormous statue and the measurements of its various parts, see “Tanis,” Part I, by W. M. Flinders Petrie, chap, ii, pp. 22 _et seq._, published by the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1885. [Note to second edition.]

[53] The increase of steamer traffic has considerably altered the conditions of Nile traveling since this was written, and fewer dahabeeyahs are consequently employed. By those who can afford it, and who really desire to get the utmost pleasure, instruction, and interest from the trip, the dahabeeyah will, however, always be preferred. [Note to second edition.]

[54] “The most important discovery which we have made here, and which I shall only mention briefly, is a series of short rock inscriptions, which mark the highest rises of the Nile during a series of years under the government of Amenemhat III and of his immediate successors.... They proved that the river, above four thousand years ago, rose more than twenty-four feet higher than now, and thereby must have produced totally different conditions in the inundation and in the whole surface of the ground, both above and below this spot.”--_Lepsius’ Letters from Egypt, etc._ Letter xxvi.

“The highest rise of the Nile in each year at Semneh was registered by a mark indicating the year of the king’s reign, cut in the granite, either on one of the blocks forming the foundation of the fortress or on the cliff, and particularly on the east or right bank, as best adapted for the purpose. Of these markings eighteen still remain, thirteen of them having been made in the reign of Mœris (Amenemhat III) and five in the time of his next two successors.... We have here presented to us the remarkable facts that the highest of the records now legible, viz: that of the thirtieth year of the reign of Amenemhat, according to exact measurements which I made, is 8.17 meters (twenty-six feet eight inches) higher than the highest level to which the Nile rises in years of the greatest floods; and, further, that the lowest mark, which is on the east bank, and indicated the fifteenth year of the same king, is still 4.14 meters (thirteen feet six and a half inches); and the single mark on the west bank, indicating the ninth year, is 2.77 meters (nine feet) above the highest level.”--_Lepsius’ Letter to Professor Ehrenburg._ See Appendix to the above.

[55] For copies and translations of a large number of the graffiti of Assûan, see Lepsius’ “Denkmäler;” also, for the most recent and the fullest collection of the rock-cut inscriptions of Assûan and its neighborhood, including the hitherto uncopied inscriptions of the Saba Rigaleh Valley, of Elephantine, of the rocks above Silsileh, etc., etc., see Mr. W. M. Flinders Petrie’s latest volume, entitled “A Season’s Work in Egypt, 1877,” published by Field & Tuer, 1888. [Note to second edition.]

[56] Mariette, at the end of his “Aperçu de l’histoire d’Egypte,” give the following succinct account of the Rosetta stone and the discovery of Champollion:

“Découverte, il y a 65 ans environ, par des soldats français qui creusaient un retranchement près d’une redoute située à Rosette, la pierre qui porte ce nom a joué le plus grand rôle dans l’archéologie Égyptienne. Sur la face principale sont gravées _trois_ inscriptions. Les deux premières sont en langue Égyptienne et écrites dans les deux écritures qui avaient cours à cette époque. L’une est en écriture hiéroglyphique réservée aux prêtres: elle ne compte plus que 14 lignes tronquées par la brisure de la pierre. L’autre est en une écriture cursive appliquée principalement aux usges du peuple et comprise par lui: celle-ci offre 32 lignes de texte. Enfin, la troisième inscription de la stèle est en langue grecque et comprend 54 lignes. C’est dans cette dernière partie que réside l’intérêt du monument trouvé à Rosette. Il résulte, en effet, de l’interprétation du texte grec de la stèle que ce texte n’est qu’une version de l’original transcrit plus haut dans les deux écritures Égyptiennes. La Pierre de Rosette nous donne donc, dans une langue parfaitement connue (le grec) la traduction d’un texte conçu dans une autre langue encore ignorée au moment où la stèle a été découverte. Qui ne voit l’utilité de cette mention? Remonter du connu à l’inconnu n’est pas une opération en dehors des moyens d’une critique prudente, et déjà l’on devine que si la Pierre de Rosette a acquis dans la science la célébrité dont elle jouit aujourd’hui, c’est qu’elle a fourni la vraie clef de cette mystérieuse écriture dont l’Egypté a si longtemps gardé le secret. Il ne faudrait pas croire cependant que le déchiffrement des hiéroglyphes au moyen de la Pierre de Rosette ait été obtenu du premier coup et sans tâtonnements. Bien au contraire, les savants s’y essayèrent sans succès pendant 20 ans. Entin, Champollion parut. Jusqu’à lui, on avait cru que chacune des lettres qui composent l’écriture hiéroglyphique etait un _symbole_: c’est à dire, que dans une seule de ces lettres était exprimée une _idée_ complète. Le mérite de Champollion été de prouver qu’au contraire l’écriture Égyptienne contient des signes qui expriment véritablement des _sons_. En d’autres termes qu’elle est _Alphabétique_. II remarqua, par exemple, que partout où dans le texte grec de Rosette se trouve le nom propre _Ptolémée_, on recontre à l’endroit correspondant du texte Égyptien un certain nombre de signes enfermés dans un encadrement elliptique. Il en conclut: 1, que les noms des rois étaient dans le systeme hiéroglyphique signalés à l’attention par une sorte d’écusson qu’il appela _cartouche_: 2, que les signes contenus dans cet écusson devaient être lettre pour lettre le nom de Ptolémée. Déjà donc en supposant les voyelles omises, Champollion était en possession de cinq lettres--P, T, L, M, S. D’un autre côté, Champollion savait, d’après une seconde inscription grecque gravée sur une obélisque de Philæ, que sur cet obélisque un cartouche hiéroglyphique qu’on y voit devait être celui de Cléopâtre. Si sa première lecture était juste, le P, le L, et le T, de Ptolémée devaient se retrouver dans le second nom propre; mais en même temps ce second nom propre fournissait un K et un R nouveaux. Enfin, appliqué à d’autres cartouches, l’alpbabet encore très imparfait révélé a Champollion par les noms de Cléopâtre et de Ptolémée le mit en possession d’à peu près toutes les autres consonnes. Comme _pronunciation_ des signes, Champollion n’avait donc pas à hésiter, et dès le jour où cette constatation eut lieu, il put certifier qu’il était en possession de l’alpbabet Égyptien. Mais restait la langue; car prononcer des mots n’est rien si l’on ne sait pas ce que ces mots veulent dire. Ici le génie de Champollion se donna libre cours. Il s’aperçut en effet que son alphabet tiré des noms propres et appliqué aux mots de la langue donnait tout simplement du _Copte_. Or, le Copte à son tour est une langue qui, sans être aussi explorée que le grec, n’en était pas moins depuis longtemps accessible. Cette fois le voileétait donc complétement levé. La langue Égyptienne n’est que du Copte écrit en hiéroglyphes; ou, pour parler plus exactement, le Copte n’est que la langue des anciens Pharaons, écrite, comme nous l’avons dit plus haut, en lettres grecques. Le reste se Devine. D’indices en indices, Champollion procéda véritablement du connu à l’inconnu, et bientôt l’illustre fondateur de l’Égyptologie put poser les fondements de cette belle science qui a pour objet l’interprétation des hiéroglyphes. Tel est la Pierre de Rosette.”--“Aperçu de l’Histoire d’Egypte:” Mariette Bey, p. 189 _et seq._: 1872.

In order to have done with this subject, it may be as well to mention that another trilingual tablet was found by Mariette while conducting his excavations at Sân (Tanis) in 1865. It dates from the ninth year of Ptolemy Euergetes, and the text ordains the deification of Berenice, a daughter of the king, then just dead (B.C. 254). This stone, preserved in the museum at Boulak, is known as the stone of Sân, or the decree of Canopus. Had the Rosetta stone never been discovered, we may fairly conclude that the Canopic degree would have furnished some later Champollion with the necessary key to hieroglyphic literature, and that the great discovery would only have been deferred till the present time.

NOTE TO SECOND EDITION.--A third copy of the decree of Canopus, the text engraved in hieroglyphs only, was found at Tell Nebireh in 1885, and conveyed to the Boulak Museum. The discoverer of this tablet, however, missed a much greater discovery, reserved, as it happened, for Mr. W. M. F. Petrie, who came to the spot a month or two later, and found that the mounds of Tell Nebireh entombed the remains of the famous and long-lost Greek city of Naukratis. See “Naukratis,” Part I. by W. M. F. Petrie, published by the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1886.

[57] The famous capitals are not the only specimens of admirable coloring in Philæ. Among the battered bas-reliefs of the great colonnade at the south end of the island there yet remain some isolated patches of uninjured and very lovely ornament. See, more particularly, the mosaic pattern upon the throne of a divinity just over the second doorway in the western wall; and the designs upon a series of other thrones a little farther along toward the north, all most delicately drawn in uniform compartments, picked out in the three primary colors, and laid on in flat tints of wonderful purity and delicacy. Among these a lotus between two buds, an exquisite little sphinx on a pale-red ground, and a series of sacred hawks, white upon red, alternating with white upon blue, all most exquisitely conventionalized, may be cited as examples of absolutely perfect treatment and design in polychrome decoration. A more instructive and delightful task than the copying of these precious fragments can hardly be commended to students and sketchers on the Nile.

[58] It has since been pointed out by a writer in _The Saturday Review_ that this credence-table was fashioned with part of a shrine destined for one of the captive hawks sacred to Horus. [Note to second edition.]