Chapter V: Part 5

Thus, in the work entitled “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” the first volume of which was published in 1845, before Lepsius’ return from Egypt, the whole historical statement, which takes the loftiest point of view and is rich in novel and suggestive ideas, is entirely Bunsen’s own work. His young friend only placed at his disposal much historical and chronological information, which he had happened upon in the course of his researches among the monuments.

It is unquestionable that if the fellow-laborers had adhered to their original plan, and had not separated, Bunsen’s work would have gained a more stable foundation and assumed a much calmer and more succinct shape than it actually had. The stream of Bunsen’s eloquence, which was often too glittering and too diffuse, would have been confined within bounds by the conciseness and severity of Lepsius. His aspirations after grandeur and breath, would have been kept down to earth by Lepsius’ fidelity and care for the smallest detail.

The candor of the letter in which Lepsius abandons the enterprise, and the manner in which Bunsen took the withdrawal of his protégé, do them both the highest honor, and this incident never in the least disturbed the friendly relation between them.[44] Lepsius, when he could finally leave Berlin, went by way of London, was received there in the most affectionate manner by Bunsen, and accompanied by him to Southampton, where on the first of September, 1842, the young Egyptologist embarked for Alexandria. Together they had thoroughly talked over all that might be attained and all that might be gained, before the steamship weighed anchor.

THE PRUSSIAN EXPEDITION TO EGYPT, UNDER THE DIRECTION OF LEPSIUS.

On the eighteenth of September, 1842, after a stormy passage through the Bay of Biscay and a short stay in Gibraltar and Malta, Lepsius, who was proof against sea-sickness, and had been perfectly well throughout the voyage, first set his foot upon Egyptian soil at Alexandria.

The choice of his companions had been fortunate, and answered perfectly to the needs of the expedition. We will first mention Erbkam, an excellently trained young architect, distantly related to Lepsius, who was to make surveys, and draw maps and sketches. He showed himself so entirely equal to the task that the architectural and topographical drawings executed by him under the direction of Lepsius have long been acknowledged to be model productions and faultlessly correct.[45] We have already said all that is necessary of Lepsius’ Naumberg fellow-countrymen, the brothers Weidenbach, and their work as hierogrammatists. Lepsius had made the acquaintance of the painter Frey, from Basle, when in Rome. In the book on monuments, which will be described hereafter, many of the beautiful colored landscapes and architectural pictures from lower Egypt are by him; others are by the Dresden painter, George, a jovial and talented artist, who joined the expedition after Frey had become seriously ill, and been sent home.

The moulder, Franke, at first rendered excellent service by making casts of such monuments as could not be brought away, and by preparing the many thousands of paper impressions which it was necessary to take of the inscriptions and bas reliefs. But subsequently he had to be dismissed and sent home on account of inadmissible conduct.

The expedition was also accompanied by H. Abeken of Osnabrück, who had been with Bunsen, first at Rome and then at London, as chaplain of the Prussian Embassy. He had made the acquaintance of the leader of the expedition on the Tiber, and was closely associated with him during the remainder of his life. Under the guidance of Lepsius he occupied himself with Egyptological studies, even after he had relinquished theology and entered the diplomatic service. This is the same Abeken, diplomatic Privy Counsellor and Acting Counsellor, who afterwards accompanied Prince Bismarck to France during the war of 1870-1, and proved of great service there. On the tenth of December, 1842, he joined the expedition in which he served incidentally as chaplain. He was the most agreeable companion to Lepsius, “with his invariably cheerful temper,” and his “witty and learned conversation.”[46]

With these Germans were associated two Englishmen. The first was the sculptor Bonomi, who at that time had already won celebrity as a traveler in Egypt and Ethiopia, and of whom Lepsius himself said: “he is not only full of practical knowledge about the life there, but he is also a connoisseur in Egyptian art, and a master of Egyptian drawing.”[47] The second was the young and “genial” architect Wild, who was of great assistance to Erbkam.

The leader of the expedition had himself scarcely passed his thirty-first year, and was so young and vigorous, that when he desired to hire a kavass, that is, a Turkish constable, to superintend the servants, the intercourse with the authorities, etc., he wrote home: “In Europe I should have felt more than sufficient confidence in my own ability to manage the entire practical conduct of the expedition.” He had, besides, sovereign command of the most thorough scholarship in all those departments wherein the expedition was intended to add to existing knowledge.

He had garnered the whole harvest to be reaped in Europe from every field of Egyptian archaeology, and all that could be gathered anew from the banks of the Nile only needed to be stored in the receptacles which, already set apart and half-filled, stood ready for the expected gains.

The conditions under which he traveled, and studied the localities of the monuments, were such as to fill us later investigators with envy. For in 1842, there was no museum of Boulak, which now lawfully claims all antiquities from Egyptian soil as soon as they are brought to the light of day. At that time there existed only the first beginnings of a collection of Egyptian monuments, and these had no supervisor nor director.

The subsisting law against the exportation of antiquities was set aside in favor of Lepsius, compulsory labor was not yet abolished, and Muhamed ‘Ali, who governed in his viceroyalty with the irresponsible power of an absolute despot, wished to extend every assistance to the expedition. He caused a firman to be issued for Lepsius, which gave him unconditional permission to make any excavations which he might consider desirable. All the local authorities were charged to assist him in his undertakings, and Lepsius said that by means of the kavasses who had been assigned to him by the government, and on the strength of the firman, they obtained from the sheiks of the nearest villages and the mudirs of the provinces all the workmen and appliances needed for making and transporting his collection of antiquities. The necessary payments had of course to be made, but they never met with a refusal. At Fayoum, for instance, he employed a hundred and eight workmen in the excavation of the building which he considered to be the Labyrinth. Each man received two copper piasters a day (about twenty pfennige) and each child ten pfennige, or, if it was very industrious, fifteen pfennige, a day. Besides this some bread was given them. Under such conditions great things may be accomplished with comparatively small means.

Nowadays it is only under exceptional circumstances, and within carefully prescribed limits, that a European is permitted to make excavations. The laborers ask quite a high price,--in Thebes I had to pay each man six full piasters (one mark, twenty pfennige)--and, if one disinters any monuments, even under the most favorable circumstances, only such single specimens are permitted to leave the country as the vice-regal museum is already rich in. Lepsius was more fortunately situated. The monuments which he found in Ethiopia and wished to add to his collection were brought from Mount Barcal to Alexandria on government vessels, and to these were also added three tombs, from the neighborhood of the pyramids of Ghizeh, which had been carefully taken to pieces with the help of four workmen sent expressly for the purpose from Berlin. On his departure from Egypt he received a special written permit for the removal of the collection, and the objects obtained were themselves presented to King Frederick William IV. of Prussia, by Muhamed ‘Ali.

With full authority to take possession of all that might embellish the Berlin collection, Lepsius appropriated what was most desirable and most interesting wherever he found it, and ventured, as we have seen, to remove whole tombs from the necropolis of ancient Memphis to the Spree. This could not be done without injury to the adjoining tombs, as they had consisted of a number of rooms collectively, and envy, ill-will and stupidity were quickly at hand to accuse the Prussian expedition of having, like impious Vandals, plundered and injured the monuments in pursuit of their own purposes. But this accusation was entirely unfounded, and any one who knows the condition of Egypt at that time can only rejoice that so many treasures, which were neglected and exposed to wanton destruction in their native country, were at a favorable moment removed to Europe and preserved in a fine public museum.

No farther assurance is needed that Lepsius and his companions neither laid hands upon nor destroyed a single stone unnecessarily, but it will be expedient to mention here that since the French expedition and the completion of the great work on monuments prepared by it, a series of ancient edifices portrayed therein have vanished from the earth.

Between our first and second visit to the Nile an interesting little temple at Erment had been turned into a sugar factory, and in the same space of time the fine remains of a Grecian portico of white marble, which had adorned the old Bes-Antinoopolis, had found their way to the lime-kiln. This could occur at a time when the monuments were lovingly and jealously guarded by the vigilant eye of Mariette, and hence it is easy to conjecture what dangers threatened them as long as they were left entirely at the mercy of every encroachment of the fellahin.

In a letter from the necropolis of Memphis, long before the above-mentioned accusations were brought against him, Lepsius wrote: “It is really shocking to see how every day whole trains of camels come here from the neighboring villages, and march back again in long files, laden with building stones. Fortunately,--for everything is fortunate under some circumstances,--the lazy fellahin are more attracted by the Psamatik tombs than by those of the oldest dynasties, whose big blocks are too unwieldly for them.”

Therefore we may confidently designate the removal to Berlin, just at that time, of the three tombs from Memphis and the other monuments, as an act of protection. Only the pillar which Lepsius removed from the perfectly preserved tomb of Seti I. at Thebes, should have been left in its place.

The travellers, filled with enthusiasm for their task, had a long and difficult journey to take in the course of their investigations and search for spoils. It led them all, by ships, upon the backs of camels, and on foot, with many delays and digressions, into the heart of the African continent, as far as Khartoum at the junction of the two sources of the Nile. Then, alone except for the company of Abeken, Lepsius sailed on up the Blue River as far as the village of Romali, between Sennar, the celebrated ancient capital of the Sudan, which he visited, and Fazokl.

The last letter from our wayfarer is dated from Smyrna, and was written on the seventh of December, 1845, much more than three years after his arrival at Alexandria. From the very first, a long period of traveling had been contemplated, and the leader had taken pains to establish his own position with regard to the whole party, and the rights and duties of each individual member of it, as well as to provide for “suitable intellectual diet.” The commanding nature of his distinguished and imposing personality had, if we except the excesses of the moulder Franke, obviated throughout the whole time any illegitimate opposition to, or rebellion against, his position as chief. How justly, kindly and wisely this was maintained may best be shown by the friendship and attachment manifested towards him till death by Abeken, Erbkam, the Weidenbachs, and all the other members of the expedition, with the exception of Franke.

And this is no light matter, for nowhere do disagreements of every kind occur more readily than among a small party, who, separated from their native civilization, have to endure, in addition to many deprivations, the burden of an enervating climate; and who, tormented by discomforts, fatigue, and homesickness, yield only too easily to gloomy and discontented moods, beneath whose spell it is hard to be just and to submit cheerfully to the will of another. Lepsius himself says that from the beginning he tried to diversify the life of his party, and especially the irksome and very monotonous work of his artists, not only by the weekly holiday of Sunday, but also, as often as an opportunity offered, by cheerful merry-makings and pleasant diversions.

One must himself have lived and worked in the Orient, far from the bustle of cities, to appreciate what it is to pass on from days to weeks and from weeks to months as on a monotonous road without stopping-places. In such a place and at such times one feels the blessing of our Sunday holiday, and Lepsius’ fellow-travellers would certainly have fallen a prey to fatigue and disgust during their long period of traveling and working together, if their chief had not observed the feasts and holidays peculiar to their own country, and had not kindly and judiciously taken account of their spiritual needs. One of the most beautiful memories of our own life is that of the moment when, after many months of wandering through Moslem lands, we unexpectedly heard a church bell ring on Christmas day. It was long, long since we had listened to the sound, and for the first time we fully appreciated its elevating loveliness, when standing in front of the little Protestant church in Upper Egypt from whose modest tower it resounded.

Like a thirsty man after a cool drink, we returned to our labors with fresh pleasure and fresh enthusiasm. The Sunday holiday of the Prussian expedition not only recompensed and blessed them with the necessary rest, but kept them in communion with the life of their dear ones at home.

It would exceed the limits prescribed for this biography if we should follow from spot to spot the travels, excavations, researches and collections of the party led by Lepsius. He has himself relieved us of this very tempting task, for his “Letters from Egypt, Ethiopia and the Peninsula of Sinai,”[48] is a book which can and should be read with pleasure and profit even by the general reader. It is by no means confined to the results of his scientific investigations, but makes the reader familiar also with the personal experiences of the author, and is distinguished by a clear, concise, vivid and often charming style. It is in many respects a book of importance for his fellow laborers in the same department, since it places them in living contact with the sources whence sprang many of the most important discoveries and works of the author.

During his long stay at the necropolis of Memphis he succeeded in elucidating the details of the history of the “Old Empire.” The intuition by which he separated the twelfth dynasty from the eighteenth,[49] assigned its correct place to the incursion of the Hyksos, and even anticipated all that afterwards received documentary corroboration by Dümichen’s discovery of the great Tablet of the Kings at Abydos, will ever remain an intellectual feat worthy of admiration.

From Memphis he undertook, with the assistance of Erbkam’s technical knowledge, to investigate the architectural system employed in the construction of the pyramids. The results were recorded, even before the close of the journey, in a dissertation in which the subject was treated in the most fundamental manner.[50] These conclusions have been maintained against all attacks, and even against the attempt to modify them made by the excellent Perrot. In this work Lepsius confirms and explains the statement of Herodotus that the pyramids were completed from above downwards, and were built “in successive steps.” The work cited also contains a well considered and convincing answer to that other question which presents itself to the thoughtful observer of these remarkable monuments. As soon as a Pharaoh ascended the throne he began the construction of his mausoleum. It was at first of modest dimensions, since he erected, as a nucleus of the whole, a truncated pyramid with steep sides, and in doing so often took advantage of the natural rocks. When he was overtaken by death, the pinnacle was first placed upon this nucleus, and its inclined sides were then continued to the ground. If time and power were still left after the completion of the first nucleus and before the pinnacle was set on, the truncated pyramid was invested with a new outer layer in the form of steps, and so it was continued until a point was reached where each new addition constituted of itself a gigantic labor. Whenever the time came to bring the monument to completion it was always necessary first to set on the pinnacle; the steps lying nearest to it were then filled out, and finally those at the bottom. There are pyramids of all sizes, and what we have said explains how it came to pass that one king erected for himself a monument of prodigious dimensions, while another was contented with one much smaller; why we can only point to two unfinished pyramids, and how Cheops, the builder of the largest pyramid, found courage to undertake a work for the execution of which the average duration of a reign would in no wise suffice, while yet the completion of it could not be exacted of his successors, who would have their own mausoleums to provide for. Everything is made clear, if we assume with Lepsius that the size of the pyramid was regulated by the duration of its builder’s life, and that the latter had it in his power at any time to complete the work.

Lepsius believed that he had found the Labyrinth at Fayoum, and he was perhaps right in so thinking. But, even if this remarkable ancient building should be re-discovered on some other site of the old “lake country,” yet to Lepsius would still belong the credit of having determined the position of Lake Moeris, first indicated by Linant de Bellefonds, and of having proved that the Pharaoh Amenemha III., of the twelfth dynasty, was the Moeris of the Greeks.[51] He also was the first to investigate and make known all that was accomplished by this prince in regulating the inundation of the Nile.

We know that his researches in Egypt and Ethiopia extended even beyond the limits of the region of monuments. Within that zone he has, if we may be allowed the expression, left no corner unexplored. He met with the most abundant returns at Beni Hassan, Thebes, (especially upon the return journey) Gebel Silsile, the island of Philae, Abu Simbel on the second cataract, among the ruins of Ethiopian Meroë far in the South, and also on the peninsula of Sinai.

Within the bounds of the temple of Isis, on the lovely island beyond the first cataract, he made a succession of discoveries, upon which he afterwards based great and original works. He first found here an ecclesiastical ordinance,[52] similar to the decree of Rosetta, drawn up in two languages, that is in hieroglyphics, and also in the demotic (popular) writing and language. The numerous names of the Ptolemies, which occurred in the inscriptions of the temple of Isis, also impelled him to study more thoroughly the succession of the Egyptian kings of the house of the Lagidae and to determine finally the order of this series of rulers, of such great importance for the history of other countries.[53] Here, as everywhere, he paid special attention to the Greek inscriptions, which are very numerous on Philae. By his sagacity and quick insight great additions were made to the Egypto-Grecian inscriptions previously collected by Letronne and others. Those which had been previously known received manifold corrections and additions owing to the extreme accuracy peculiar to him. He afterwards devoted a special treatise to the hieroglyphic form of the name of the Ionians.[54]

On the return journey he was not able to stop for as long a time as he had desired in the well-preserved Ptolemaic temples of Denderah and Edfu. These are thickly covered with inscriptions, and therefore he left behind him at those places, for Dümichen, Mariette, Naville, Brugsch and other Egyptologists, not only rich gleanings, but really the greater part of the substantial work still to be accomplished. But his attention was especially attracted in Edfu by an inscription which was afterwards to be of great service to him. In it were recorded the possessions in landed property of this temple during the reign of Ptolemy XI. (Alexander I.)[55] The surface measures which occurred in it he was afterwards able to use to advantage in his studies on the linear and square measures of the ancient Egyptians.

After the expedition had passed the first cataract and entered the Nubian dominion the leader not only turned his attention to the remains of the temples there, which had as yet been examined in a very insufficient manner, but he also, with indefatigable industry, devoted himself to studying the languages of all the tribes on whose territories he touched. The description which he gives of the Nubian language, in a letter from Korusko, dated the thirtieth of November, 1843, presents with extreme conciseness the essential characteristics of this remarkable idiom. In his farther travels towards the south he afterwards investigated all the dialects of this same group of languages, and acquired such an excellent knowledge of it that he could venture, at a later date, to publish a translation of the Gospel according to St. Mark in Nubian.[56] In publishing this translation he made use of the standard alphabet which he had himself invented and which has been previously mentioned. Indeed it was on this account that he first began the difficult task of preparing the universal alphabet, which he was afterwards asked to extend to a great number of languages for various special purposes. During the journey he prepared a grammar and dictionary of three dialects; the Nuba language spoken by the Nuba or Berber tribe, the Kungara language of the negroes of Dar-Fur, and the Béga language of the Bischarin inhabiting the eastern Sudan. This he did so perfectly that he himself hoped that the publication of these works would at least afford a clear idea of the languages mentioned. After his return home he continued to pursue these studies unremittingly, and thus obtained that profound insight into all the idioms of the African continent, which gives its great and permanent importance to his last long work, the Nubian Grammar, to which we shall again refer. Lepsius at first devoted himself with special ardor to the study of those languages which in his own day still flourished on the domain of the ancient Ethiopians, because he cherished a firm hope of finding in them the key, by which to decipher the popular writing of the Ethiopians, many examples of which he had discovered on the site of ancient Meroë. This writing is intended to be read from right to left, and the words are always separated by two points. But its significance is unsolved up to the present time. In deciphering the demotic-Ethiopian inscriptions little assistance is to be looked for from the Ethiopian-hieroglyphic as, whatever strange variations these may contain, they correspond almost entirely to the Egyptian, in form as well as in the language which underlies them. Like our own Latin inscriptions, they are composed in the writing and language of an alien people. As we shall see, Lepsius afterwards became convinced that the key to the Ethiopian-demotic inscriptions of which we speak was not to be sought in the Nubian, but in the Cushite Bischariba language.

On the domain of ancient Meroë everything was still to be done, for Cailliaud, through whom the monuments there had first become known, had seen and described them without technical knowledge of the subject. It was, therefore, reserved for Lepsius to dissipate, once for all, the popular conjectures of a “splendid primeval Meroë,” whose inhabitants had been the predecessors of the Egyptians and their instructors in civilization. He proved that all the native monuments which had been preserved there dated from a relatively late period, which should not be fixed before the time of the Ethiopian Pharaohs of the twenty-fifth dynasty. The majority, he considered, could be assigned to a much later period and had scarcely originated previous to the first century before Christ. The little to be found dating from an earlier age owed its existence to the Pharaohs and their artists.

The fine granite rams which bear the name of Amenophis III., (eighteenth dynasty), and one of which at present adorns the Berlin museum, were transported thither at a later period. They came, probably, from Soleb. Ninety-two fellahin spent three sultry days in dragging down to the Nile on rollers the “fat sheep” which weighed one hundred and fifty hundred weight, and was to be transported to the Spree.

Lepsius advised the purchase for the Berlin museum of the gold and silver ornaments discovered in 1834, by the Italian Romali. They were found in a pyramid at Meroë which had a Roman vaulted antechamber. This advice Lepsius gave after he recognized that they had probably belonged to a specially powerful and warlike Ethiopian queen, whose image has been preserved at El-Naga in rich attire, and with pointed finger nails, nearly an inch long. At present the ornaments mentioned form one of the embellishments of the Egyptian collection at Berlin.

An entertaining anecdote is connected with the so-called Ferlini discovery at Meroë, and with the recollection of the sojourn of the expedition and their labors there. The natives, naturally, could only regard as treasure-seekers the strange men who busied themselves so indefatigably among the old monuments, who applied measuring line and rule to them, covered them with wet paper, poured plaster over them, gazed at them, note book and pen in hand, and penetrated into their innermost recesses.

When one of our colleagues afterwards visited this neighborhood, an old sheik told him that he knew well that the King of the Germans had only acquired the resources to vanquish the French, through the treasures which the Howadji Lepsius had found at Meroë and sent back to his native land.

Lepsius’ sojourn in Ethiopia led him to the conviction, only confirmed by all subsequent investigations, that there could have been no ancient and original Ethiopian civilization and culture. In respect to this, all the reports of the ancients which do not rest upon a pure misunderstanding refer only to _Egyptian_ culture and art, which, during the dominion of the Hyksos, had taken refuge in Ethiopia. The outbreak of the Egyptian power from Ethiopia at the founding of the New Egyptian Kingdom, and its advance even far into Asia, was transferred from the Ethiopian _country_ to the Ethiopian _people_, first in the Asiatic and afterwards in the Greek traditions respecting this event; for no knowledge had penetrated to the northern peoples of a still older Egyptian Kingdom, and its proud but peaceful prime.

During the long journey which led the expedition once more northward, and towards home, and which was now uninterrupted by side excursions, a number of short inscriptions on the rock were discovered at Semneh[57] and Kummeh. These yielded important historical information, for they proved that the solicitude of Amenemha III. (the Moeris of the Greeks, twelfth dynasty), for the regulation of the inundation of the Nile had extended to this point; that the Sebekhotep must be added, as the thirteenth dynasty, to the twelfth, and that four thousand years ago the river rose higher by twenty-four feet than it does in our day.

The principal purpose of the expedition, the one which Lepsius ever kept in view, and which decided the choice of the monuments to be copied, was historical. When he could believe that he had achieved everything possible in pursuance of this object, he felt that he might consider himself satisfied. If we remember this we can easily understand how he was almost wearied by the examination of those temples belonging to the Ptolemaic and Roman periods which he inspected cursorily before coming to Thebes; these were Philae, Kom Ombos, Edfu, Esneh, Erment. We can see especially that the inexhaustible but more lately built temple of Edfu could detain him but for a disproportionately short time. But in Thebes, which he reached more than two years after leaving Europe, he found once more the old delight in, and impulse for, research, and he could therefore write, in a letter dated November twenty-fourth, 1844; “Here, where the Homeric figures of the mighty Pharaohs of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties meet me in all their splendor and magnificence, I feel once more as fresh as at the beginning of the journey.” And one must credit his assurance, and profoundly admire the man’s elasticity and enthusiasm for his task, when one surveys the great treasure of inscriptions which he and his assistants amassed there, and the wealth of admirable surveys, maps, sketches, and pictures, which the expedition found time to execute. Five and a half months he devoted to Thebes, and did not leave off until there, too, he had attained his purpose, although he was already on his homeward way and surrounded by unspeakable difficulties and privations, while before him, on the contrary, beckoned with outstretched hands everything to which his heart clung, and which could bring him peace, recreation, honor and spiritual refreshment.

His friend Abeken had been forced to leave him at Philae, and although there was no lack of occasional European visitors in Thebes, yet it would have been natural if his taste for travel had by this time abated. But, on the contrary, his passion for research seems just then to have gained a new impetus, and the trip which he undertook from Thebes to the Peninsula of Sinai, after indicating the course to be followed during his absence by the members of the expedition in their various labors, was begun and carried through as though he had just quitted his native land, with an immense surplus stock of energy and enthusiasm.

Accompanied only by the younger Weidenbach and the necessary servants, he chose to proceed from Keneh to the Red Sea, not by the usual caravan route, but by the road through the midst of the mountains to Gebel-es-Set. This promised to save time, and he hoped to find on it something interesting and new.

In the Wadi Hammamat the Arabs refused to follow him upon this route, which was destitute of water, little known, and not free from danger. But he succeeded in inducing them to consent, and came within a hair’s-breadth of losing his life when, in his search for the porphyry quarries, he went astray on Gebel Dukhan, the _Mons porphyrites_ of the ancients. But he was not the man to resign easily a scientific prize when he beheld it before him, and therefore we see him, though scarcely escaped from destruction, begin his search anew, and once more attain his aim.

He had ordered a ship to be ready at Gebel-es-Set, and thence he went across the Red Sea to Tur. His companion, Weidenbach, is now living in Australia, in easy circumstances, and we can readily understand the sigh with which he declared that this was the most fatiguing part of all the journey, when we consider that Lepsius was obliged to limit his whole sojourn upon the Peninsula of Sinai to the time between the twenty-first of March and the sixth of April, and observe, from his other writings,[58] as well as the great work on monuments, all that he accomplished in that period. With this must be included, too, all the inscriptions and designs which he copied. The days began at sunrise, and before the travellers lay down to their brief sleep in the evening all that had been discovered through the day had to be reduced to order and set down in writing.

Lepsius visited only a small portion of the Peninsula of Sinai, but with the exception of the neighborhood of Petra, it was the most interesting part, and he explored it in every direction with diligence and sagacity. He copied or took home with him in the shape of casts whatever Egyptian inscriptions or paintings of interest he found there, and he afterwards published, from his excellent paper casts, many of those incisions upon the rocks of the Peninsula of Sinai which are known by the name of the Nabathean Inscriptions. The most important elevations in that locality were all ascended by him, and he took from their summits the points of the compass, for the cartographic works to be undertaken in the future. His sagacity and erudition established that which the king of Oriental travellers, Burckhardt, had suspected before him, namely, that the mountain from which the Law was given was not the Gebel-Musa group, which is at present held to be the Sinai of the Scriptures, but the magnificent Serbal. The author of this biography, during his own journey to Sinai, was also obliged to adopt the view of Lepsius; he furnished fresh arguments to confirm it,[59] and is of the opinion that sooner or later it must be generally accepted as correct, in spite of the opposition which it still encounters on many sides.

After Lepsius had returned to Thebes from this excursion, he wrote to Bunsen: “Fortunately the journey to Sinai now lies behind us, and in truth I am heartily glad of it, not only because it was the hardest and most dangerous part of our whole pilgrimage, but also because it presented the most important and difficult problems which still remained to be solved on our return journey. Now nothing remains but the departure from Thebes and from Cairo; and, this, too, is only a question of getting ready to leave, there is nothing more of importance to be undertaken. When I consider all the material which we have collected in the three years it almost terrifies me, for I shall never be in a position to work it up, even if we succeed in bringing it home.”

Nevertheless, he was afterwards able, as we shall see, to make the whole of it accessible to science.

From the Peninsula of Sinai Lepsius went back to Thebes, where he found that his instructions had been excellently carried out. Thence he returned to Cairo, making only short stops in the places where the most important monuments were to be found. On the way he met Dr. Bethmann[60] an old university friend, who had come over from Italy, in order to make the return journey through Palestine with him. Before his departure to the Promised Land, Lepsius superintended the despatching of the treasures which he had collected, and the taking apart of the tombs from the pyramids to be transported to Berlin. Lastly he visited the localities containing the most important monuments in the Delta.

In a letter of the eleventh of July, 1845, he stated the plan according to which he hoped to see the Egyptian antiquities arranged in the new museum at Berlin. This was to be on an historical basis, and was afterwards executed in the manner proposed. He had heard at Cairo, much to his delight, that they had not yet begun to build the halls intended for the Egyptian department of the new museum at Berlin, and that his desire to see every part constructed in the Egyptian style of architecture might yet be carried out from the very foundation.

“I think,” he wrote, “that to produce a generally harmonious impression, we must preserve the characteristic styles of building of the different periods, and especially the order of the pillars, in their historical sequence, and also with all their rich colored decoration.”

Lepsius still kept his attention fixed upon Egyptian antiquity even during his rapid journey through Palestine, and he was afterwards able to publish,[61] and also to incorporate in his great work on monuments, the best copy of the celebrated tablet chiselled on the living rock, which commemorates the victory of Rameses II. on the Dog river (Nahr-el-Kelb). This is the Lycos of the ancients, and lies north of Berytos (Beirut).

When Lepsius finally turned homewards from Smyrna, (he had chosen the route through Constantinople), much more than three years had passed since he first set out upon his journey, and these years had been employed in a manner which far exceeded all the expectations and hopes of his monarch, his patrons and his friends. Not only had the tasks imposed upon him been perfectly fulfilled, but the emissary had bethought him upon the way of imposing new ones upon himself, and now returned home with an unprecedented number of acquisitions in the way of inscriptions, maps, works of art and notes on language. The really enthusiastic reception which he met with everywhere, and especially in Berlin at the beginning of 1846, was well deserved. All the newspapers lauded the brilliant achievements of the returning expedition. The name of the leader became famous in all countries; it spread far beyond the circle of his professional collaborators and countrymen, and won that world-wide celebrity which it will retain as long as historical and philological research exist.

His King, Frederick William IV., was the man to recognize the value of his acquisitions, and his friend and fellow-workman, Bunsen, his patron, A. v. Humboldt, the Director of the museum, v. Olfers, and others, did not grudge due appreciation to the great services of the returned traveller. They were able to induce their monarch to grant him the means of turning to good account the abundance of treasures which he had sent home, and of placing them at the disposal of the learned world in the best and most appropriate manner. Thus, without regard to the enormous expenses which must be entailed by such an undertaking, Lepsius was able to set to work at the preparation of the great book on monuments which was to make his name immortal, and to give renown to his native land and his royal patron.

As far as his expenses upon the journey were concerned, he had not exceeded his estimates, and these funds had paid for all excavations and purchases. Humboldt considered the journey “cheap beyond measure.” It had cost altogether thirty-four thousand, six hundred thalers.

Humboldt estimated the expenses for the publication of the store of inscriptions and monuments collected, as well as the maps and pictures prepared upon the journey, at sixty to eighty thousand thalers. Lepsius thought at the time that he had rated it too high, but it afterwards proved that it could not be completed even for this large sum. The King had received Lepsius most graciously, and never wearied of hearing his accounts of his journey and his acquisitions. This is confirmed by v. Reumont, and the following extract is taken from his book, “The Days of King William in Sickness and Health:” “After Lepsius’ return (from Egypt) in 1846, the importance of the results which he had achieved and the beautiful things which he had sent home, procured him the most gracious reception at court, and he was a frequent and welcome guest there, animated and suggestive, clever in relating his many experiences, etc.” It was therefore natural that the king should immediately grant him the fifteen thousand thalers, which according to Humboldt’s estimate was the first instalment necessary for the preparation of the work on monuments.

THE MASTER WORKMAN.

On the twenty-third of August, 1846, Lepsius was appointed a regular professor at the Berlin University. This was followed, in 1850, by his election as member of the Academy of Sciences, and in 1855 by his appointment as co-director of the Egyptian museum, in conjunction with Passalacqua, who, although a person of superficial education, was a good man, and could not be set aside. Lepsius thus obtained the necessary leisure to devote himself uninterruptedly to the great and varied labors which awaited him.

Now that his probation as a journeyman was completed, he established a home of his own, and on the fifth of July, 1846, was married to Elizabeth Klein. The lovely bride, then eighteen years old, was an orphan, the child of the celebrated musician and composer of the same name.

In 1856 were completed the twelve volumes of the great work on monuments which Lepsius had been commissioned by his king to prepare. At the time that he left Egypt he had thought that it would exceed his powers. It was published in sixty-two numbers, and the eight hundred and ninety-four plates which compose them are in folio form, and exceed in size all previous works of the kind. The size interferes with the convenience of the book for handling, and is the sole point to be found fault with in what is otherwise a model production. The late Mariette once said to us in jest: “One needs a corporal and four soldiers to use your Lepsius’ ‘Monuments,’” and it is true that these twelve gigantic volumes demand too much physical strength, and too much space on the study-table, when one is obliged to consult them one after another. Yet the labor is substantially lessened by the incomparable order in which the author has arranged them. “The Monuments of Egypt and Ethiopia”[62] embrace all the archaeological, palaeographic and historical acquisitions of the expedition. They contain the prodigious wealth of hieroglyphic, Greek and other written records which the travellers collected on the way, in addition to maps, sketches, landscapes and architectural pictures, many of which are finely executed in colors.

The thousands of sheets of paper containing the impressions taken in Egypt, from which the majority of the inscriptions were copied and transferred to the lithographic stone, are preserved in the Egyptian museum as valuable documents. Let it be noted here that Lepsius was the first to apply successfully and efficiently this excellent method of copying by means of paper impressions. It is now, however, only on rare occasions of minor importance that the investigator finds it necessary to refer to the original impressions of the expedition, so wonderfully accurate are the reproductions of them. In the great publications of Champollion and Rosellini, (page 78) we frequently find alterations and inaccuracies on comparing them with the monuments, but in the “Monuments” of Lepsius such defects are almost unknown. Yet still greater commendation is due to the classification of the immense material comprised in this inexhaustible mine. There is scarcely the least change to be made in the historical sequence of these hundreds of closely filled plates, although later researches and excavations have furnished much that is new, and many details have been elucidated by the monographic works of Egyptologists since 1850. Before his departure for the Orient Lepsius had already examined the succession of the Egyptian dynasties. Amidst the monuments of the Nile he succeeded in finding answers to all that had appeared questionable to him while in Europe, and in thus bringing light into darkness. While carrying forward his work on the “Monuments” he also established a scientific groundwork for all the knowledge which he had previously accumulated, and was thus able to assign their correct places to the ruling families or dynasties, and to the several Pharaohs among them. It was easy to give their proper positions to the latter, as in the historical inscriptions are recorded the names of the Pharaohs under whom they were made. For such as were not dated the ingenuity and experience of the savant fixed their correct places according to the indications of style, or on palaeographic or other grounds.

To the inquiry which of the achievements of Lepsius we consider the greatest, we do not hesitate to answer, the classification of his “Monuments,” when we consider the lamentable condition of Egyptian historical research at the time when it was produced, and the prodigious amount of new information to be reduced to order. In this work we see him surmount the mass of material which had been collected by his own energy, and transform the chaotic whole into a beautiful and faultlessly-proportioned organism. He never loses his broad outlook over the entire field, and nevertheless he gives the smallest detail its due with painstaking consciousness. We discern the divine likeness most clearly in a great man when he keeps in view the great whole, and yet does not disdain to give heed to small things; like the eternal and mysterious power which prescribes their wide and immutable orbits to the stars, and yet forgets not to give its antennae to the tiny insect.

This colossal work is accompanied by no explanatory text,[63] and the excellence of the classification makes it easy to dispense with one. Each separate inscription can only be sought for in the place where it occurs, and the marginal notes inform us as to the locality whence it came, and the ruler under whom it originated. Whoever wishes to know to what period the Pharaoh in question should be assigned, must consult the Book of Kings, which was begun by Lepsius at an early date, and completed in 1859. He will there find the desired information.

In the middle of the fiftieth year of this century, the time had not yet come for giving continuous and exact translations of great hieroglyphic texts, and therefore the editor of the “Monuments” wisely abstained from doing so. Such an undertaking would also have far exceeded the powers of one person. Even now an abundance of difficult problems are still presented to Egyptian philology, great as are the advances which that has made, by this unparalleled _corpus inscriptionum_. It contains the most important Egyptian inscriptions, from the most ancient times up to the period of the Roman emperors, classified in the most rigorously systematic manner.

The “Monuments” is, and must ever remain, the chief and most fundamental work for the study of Egyptology.

Its classification presupposes a deeper study into the history of the Pharaohs hitherto unheard of. We have seen how, when a journeyman, Lepsius devoted himself by preference to the study of historical monuments, and while in Egypt he everywhere laid the greatest stress upon this.

As a master workman too, after his return to Berlin in 1846, he remained faithful to his historical bias. He had at his disposal, in complete shape, all that was furnished by the monuments in the way of historical information. The systematic arrangement of the work on monuments which he had in view already imposed upon him the task of restoring in a critical manner the main skeleton of history, (chiefly Egyptian,) and of ascertaining the periods of time which separate the chief historical events from each other and from our own age. In other words, he was obliged to devote himself with all his energy to the study of Egyptian chronology.

As a matter of course the monuments were always the foundation from which he proceeded, but it was also necessary to consult and to fix the worth of such other historical records as were in existence.

Amongst these the highest rank was held by the Egyptian history of Manetho of Sebennytos. This had been written, or was said to have been written, for Ptolemy II. Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.) by Manetho, an Egyptian priest familiar with the Greek tongue. During the Christian era several other works, (the Book of Sothis and the Old Chronicle), were falsely attributed to this writer. The heathen Greeks had held the histories of the priestly scholar in little esteem, but, except by the Jew Flavius Josephus, they were diligently used by chronographers of the Christian era in their efforts to establish a chronological reckoning for the legendary and historical events in the Old Testament. Amongst these writers are found the lists of the Egyptian kings compiled by the Sebennite, with an estimate of the duration of their reigns. But there is a frequent disagreement in the facts as given by them, for each individual chronographer adapted the figures to his own system, and altered them arbitrarily to suit his special purposes. Therefore the fragmentary information gathered from Manetho as to the succession of rulers, can only be used with great prudence. Lepsius submitted these statements, as well as other accounts of Egyptian history occurring in the classics (Hecateus of Miletus, Herodotus, Hecateus of Abdera, Diodorus, etc.), to a severe criticism, in the attempt to separate the genuine work of Manetho from all that had been interpolated or perverted in his writings. As a result of Lepsius’ supposition that some of the ruling families enumerated in the lists did not reign successively, but contemporaneously, he arrived at the conclusion that Manetho would reckon the duration of Egyptian history, from the first King Menes to the end of the reign of Nectanebus II,[64] at three thousand five hundred and fifty-five years, and that the accession of Menes to the throne should therefore be fixed at 3892 B. C. On the correctness of this computation he insisted up to the time of his death, and by the aid of his innate fine mathematical sense he showed the connection between this and the other calculations, as subtle as they are clever, which lie at the basis of his system of reckoning.

Rosellini’s industrious attempt to compile an Egyptian history was of little service to him, but he found many fruitful ideas in Bunsen’s fine publication.[65] This had been meantime completed with the advisory aid of the able English Egyptologist S. Birch, and Lepsius himself had furnished many contributions to it. No less a man than Boeckh[66] had, a short time before, addressed himself to a criticism of Manetho, incited thereto partly by Champollion’s and partly by his own investigations. In France, also, Biot,[67] Lesueur and Nolan had published able works on Egyptian chronology. Ideler’s hand-book, which came out in 1825, was still highly esteemed, although this acute but far too versatile scholar was entirely ignorant of the monuments.

Lepsius had the advantage over his predecessors in his comprehensive knowledge of all the monuments, and his understanding of hieroglyphic writing. He took his stand upon the monuments, and on this foundation which at that time was a safe and favorable one for him alone, he labored with perfect independence, but without overlooking the prior works mentioned above. These, however, in most cases he was forced to controvert. As far as the chronology of Bunsen was concerned, he was obliged to shake it to the foundations, and he found himself forced to apply critical standards very different from those of his learned friend to the lists of Eratosthenes, the value of which, as we know, the latter had far over-estimated. Although on this account he naturally arrived at results which contradicted those of Bunsen, yet he dedicated to him the great work,[68] the first volume of which was published in 1849, in the midst of his arduous labors in editing the “Monuments.” The second and third volumes originally planned by him remained unwritten. While the first volume was mainly occupied with criticism of the authorities, the two latter were to have contained the applications and proofs in detail. All these are now to be found in the folio volume of text which accompanies the plates of the “Book of Kings”[69] previously mentioned. In the beautiful dedication of his chronology to Bunsen, he declared that he offered him this work as “a public token of gratitude.” Lepsius knew that Bunsen, like himself, had only the truth at heart, and agreed with him that the final truth could only be attained by a keen comparison of all possible differences of opinion. Such differences of opinion existed between Bunsen and Lepsius, but, however candidly they were expressed, they had no power to shake the real attachment of these two men.

Unlike Bunsen’s great book, Lepsius’ work was not intended to establish the place of Egypt in universal history, but only in the external frame thereof, the annals of time. It made no attempt to be a history, but was a chronology solely. The problem involved is solved in the first volume of which we speak, and is treated in an original and at the same time broad manner. Here, as elsewhere, Lepsius never loses cognizance of the general aspect of his subject, whilst always carefully and even lovingly considering the smallest detail and assigning it its place as a part and factor of the whole.