m::^l ^;';^ ^<««^^".- ^ Libris C. K. OGDEN THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. ANT) THEIR VESTIGES OF tSatnard&al Cratiition^ : THE SECOND PAET •'THE ONE PRIMEVAL LANGUAGE." BY THE KEY. CHARLES FORSTER, B.D. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTOX STREET. 1853. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER. The general interest in the subject of the present work, manifested by the favourable reception of its First Part, has more than justified the reliance there expressed, " that the English Public would grant that fair and impartial hearing, and exer- cise that wise suspense of judgment, by which alone knowledge is enlarged, and without which it is impossible that justice can be done to the treatment of any subject, on a new principle, or in an untrodden way." In entering upon the Second Part of this Inquiry, the author has only to repeat the ex- pression of tlie same calm reliance, while he invites his readers to accompany him from Sinai to Egypt ; from the scenes of the wanderings of God's ancient people, to the imperial seats of their alternate protectors and persecutors, the Pharaohs. A 2 IV ADVEIiTISEMENT. The attempts formerly made to convert Egypt and her monuments into the stronghold of infi- delity, and recently renewed, in a less daring indeed, but not less dangerous form, seem to call upon all who take a serious interest in the cause of revealed truth, to enter, with the author, upon an inquiry into the real state and merits of the case: an inquiry based, not on theory, but on experiment, and aiming only to ascertain whether the Avitness really borne by heathen Egypt be not, like that borne by every other heathen land, a witness to the literal truth, and historical fidelity, of the Books of Moses, and of the whole Word of God. When the literal sense of the Mosaic records has been questioned, and the historical authority even of the Gospel history impugned, on the evidence of the broken or pseudo-dynasties of Manetho, on the one hand, and of the supposed discoveries of self-denominated " Egyptologers," on the other, inquiry into the phenomena really presented by the monuments of Egypt is no longer a subject of learned curiosity — it becomes a matter of Christian duty. On this high ground ADVERTISEMENT. V it is that the appeal is now made, both to the English Public, and to the Christian world. AVe have lived to see the received Biblical chronology assailed, and the Gospel genealogies themselves set aside, by rationalizing theories built solely on the authority of the fragmental history of Manetho, interpreted by alleged disco- veries on the monuments. To question, upon grounds like these, the received scriptural chro- nology, is alone a serious inroad on the credibility of the Sacred History itself. But to question, on any grounds whatsoever, the historical authority, the literal fidelity, the infallible exactness, of the Gospel genealogies, is to strike at the root of Christianity and Revelation. If the names in those genealogies, if any of those names from Adam to Christ Jesus, be names, not of indivi- duals, but of families or nations, if a single link in the heraldic series of generations be thus broken, we lose all note of time. And every wild theorist, from the savans of the French ex- pedition to the savans of the present day, may set up his own chronology, and make the world, at will, 70U0, or 70,000, years old. VI ADVERTISEMENT. Now, as the new and anti-Biblical chronology above noticed is the result of what is termed by its professors, " Egyptology;" and is founded, avowedly, upon the system and conceived disco- veries of Champollion and his school, is it not high time, and is there not a serious call on all who would " zealously contend for the faith once delivered to the saints," to examine into the grounds of that system of Egyptian philology, and into its claims to acceptance ? since if the system itself rests not upon sound foundations, the rationalizing theories erected on it must fall together with it to the ground. With this aim I ask my readers to accompany me into Egypt ; under the moral conviction that to a Christian Public the appeal will not be made in vain. PART 11. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT, THEIE YESTIGES PATRIARCHAL TRADITION. ERRATA. Page 14. line 22. for «' egyptien " read " ugyptienne." 50. line 21. for "i" read " r." 72. line 7. from bottom, for " Egyptians " read " Egyptian." 79. line 4. for (.Jl^^^i^Jl read LZ-^^i^l. 80. line 7. for " Tat." read " Taf." 108. line 5. put a full stop after " dicitur." 121. line 5. from bottom, for " or" read " on." 149. line 17. for jj read 'J. 184. line 16. for " man" read "woman." 195. line 4. before "Leo" read *w3. 196. line 16, for aJ read .ij. 209. line 2. for " in Pararboris adiso " read " arboris in Para- diso." DIRECTIONS TO THE BINDER. Plate I. II. - - - III. IV. - - - IV. A. (Egyptian Fig Garden) V. VI. VII. VII. A. VIII. IX. ' X., XL, XII., XU to face page 46 - 57 - 103 - 104 - 110 - 137 - 156 - 184 - 196 - 235 - 257 , XIV., XV. to be placed at the end. THE MONUMENTS OP EGYPT. Philo, a noble Jew of Egypt, and (like Cosmas Indicopleustes) a native of Alexandria, the most learned of his countrymen in their learned age, in his treatise on the Confusion of Tongues, ex- plains the dispensation recorded in the eleventh chapter of Genesis, upon the principle about to be unfolded experimentally in the present work. The principle is simply this : that the change miraculously wrought at Babel, was not radical, but dialectic. It is thus enunciated by Philo Jud^us : "(Mankind) paid the fit penalty for their daring, for they presently became many- tongued; so that, from that time forth, they could no longer understand each other, by reason of the diversity in the dialects, into which the one tongue, once common to all, was divided."* * A'lKTjv jjLiVTOi Tov ToXixrjfiaTOS e5wK6 TTii' Trpua'i^KOVffav • irepoyXcoTra yap eu6vs iyifero, ws e'l eKeivov, firjKir' aXXriXcav iiraKovaai Suvr]6rivat, X'^P"' TTJs, iv Ta7s SiaXsKTOis, (is &s r] /ala Kal KOivri TtavToov iT/j.-i)dr], 5ia(popas. — Philo Judmis De Confus. Ling. p. S21. ed. fol. Lut. Par. 1640. B 2 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. This view of the subject rests, indeed, upon considerations inherent in the case ; it is founded upon a known law of Providence, the economy of miracle ; and may be sustained by a clear in- duction of facts, commensurate with the history and phenomena of language. * In the First Part of this work, the original unity of speech or language, affirmed by Moses, and the dialectic character of the confusion of tongues at Babel, have been investigated in the quarter, whence, in such an inquiry, light ought, in the first instance, to be sought ; in the line of Abraham, and the "local habitation," in their tran- sition state, of God's chosen people. In the voice of Israel from the rocks of Sinai, we seem to catch the echo of a still more distant voice, that of the "one language and one speech," by which "the whole earth was once overspread." f * " Any two barbarous languages, or any two wbich are higbly culti- vated, are so pervaded by a sameness of cbaracter, as to bear witness to the identity of their internal source." — British and Foreign Medical Review, No. xlviii. p. 479. f This one primeval language has been identified, at Sinai, as to its vo- cabulary at least, with the old Arabic. In passing from Sinai to Egypt, I would now premise, that the old Arabic stands identified historically, as well as philologically, with the ancient Egyptian. A writer of great authority among the ancients, Juba, in his History of Arabia, as cited by Pliny, states, that Egypt was originally peopled from Arabia: that the banks of the Nile, from Syene to Meroe, were first colonized by Arab tribes: "Juba tradit — accolas Nili, a Syene, non iEthiopum populos, sed Arahum esse dixit, usque Meroe." — Hist. Nat. But if the people of Egypt, or any considerable part of tiicm, were THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 3 The transition from Sinai and its inscriptions to Egypt and her monuments is natural and ob- vious. For " Israel came out of Egypt," after a sojourn of two hundred and fifteen years: a period of international intercourse, in the una- voidably close relations, first, of protectors and dependents, and, afterwards, of masters and slaves, in which the language of Egypt must have long become the .spoken language of the Israel- ites*, and the written characters of Egypt, pre- primltively Arabs, the language of Egypt, it follows, wholly or in part, was primitively Arabic. A consideration which tells with great force in two ways : 1 . as corroborating all internal proofs of identity between the Egyptian and the Arabic ; and 2. as confirming, from such internal marks, the testimony of King Juba. That testimony, in truth, is upheld by actual experience. The fact, that the banks of the Nile are now fre- quented by Arab tribes, is strong presumptive evidence that they were always so frequented ; in other words, that they were originally colo- nized by them. Even as a probability, this reflection gives great weight to coincidences of vocabulary between the old Arabic and the old Egyptian. • " JO pro no, est ^gyptiorum ut nctat Hiskuni. Ex eo sermone multa adhiie retinebant Hehrcei." GrotUis in Exod. xvi. 15. "Hiskuni observat }0, in lingua .Si^gyptiorum, idem esse quod HO, in lingua HebraBorum. Nihil porro absurdi, si Israelitas, qui tot annos in vEgypto triverant, usos fuisse particula ejus linguje." — Drusius in loc. citat. ap. Crit Sacr. " Linguam iEgyptiacam Ebraas matris Dialectum fuisse [statuunt Amama, et Gregorius Gregorii Francus in Lexico suo], admodumque ei adfinem. Loquuntur autem de Antiqua ^gyptiaca, non recentiore ilia Kircherii, de qua testatur Doctiss. Hottinger. distare earn Sis Sia iraaSiv, et vocibus, et formationibus, ab Ebrtea." — M. M. Liehentaniz, Dissert, de Facie Mosis, Thess. Vet. Theol Philol V. T. torn. i. p. 313. " Quaestio inter philologos agitatur de vocula JO, ex qua nomen Manna est confectum, unde sell, deducatur. R. Chiskia, in Com. Lib. sup. Pent, qui Chastenui inscribitur, deducit ex idiomate M^ypXi&co B 2 4 THE ISIONUMENTS OF EGYPT. sented on all sides to the eye by her countless monuments, must have been familiarized to them in ways without example in any other land.* The inferences inevitable in this state of things are so simply just, that they might safely be stated and received as axioms. And as, when Hebrews conversed with Egyptians, they would converse in the tongue of Egypt, so, when they wrote, if they wrote at all, they would use " the characters of the countr3^" Xo tables of com- mandments, "written and engraven in stones," no copies of the Law, recorded upon pillars, then existed, to consecrate in the eyes of Israel any idiom as exclusive, or any characters as sacred. From the nature and reason of the case, there- fore, it may most justly be required, as a main link in the proof of the Israelitish origin of the Sinaitic inscriptions, that the rocks of Sinai, and affirnians, iEgyptiorum labra |0 idem esse, quod HO in idiomate Ebrajorum. — Verum enim vero, quum iEgyptiorum lingua (pura scil. ac vetus, — quas enim hodic superat, confusum quoddam chaos, et recens est inventum, eaque maximam partem cum Graca, ex qua videtur esse deducta, et peculiariter Coptica vocatur) jam tum dim a-tate hujus Al- bonis esse desierit, satis certo hoc dici nequit." — JI. F. Stapelen, Z)iss. de Vocula Man. ad Exod. xvi. 15. ap. Thes. Vet. torn. i. p. 308. * Their necessary familiarity with everything Egyptian, is well brought out, in a different connection, by Sir Gardner Wilkinson ; " The bul- warks used by the Jews (Deut. xx. 20.) on their march to the promised land, were doubtless liorrowed from those of Egypt, where they last lived until they became a nation ; and from ichence thty derived the greater part of their hnou-ledr/e upon evert/ subject." — Mann, and Cunt, of the Ancient Egypiiuvs, vol. i. p. 3G3. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 5 the monuments of Egypt, shall exhibit the same characters : that the alphabets shall be substan- tially identical. It was under this conviction that 1 was first led, in the year 1845, when far advanced in the study and experimental decypherment of the Si- naitic inscriptions, to compare the written cha- racters of Sinai and Egypt. The plates of the Rosetta Stone, with its harmonized triple inscrip- tion, as prepared by the late Dr. Thomas Young, and published by the Egyptian Society, placed, in the course of that year, unexpectedly in my hands by the kindness of a friend, supplied ready means for instituting the proposed compa- rison. The result more than met my just expec- tations. A slight inspection of the Rosetta en- chorial inscription disclosed, not similarity only, but absolute sameness between several of the characters. A more full investigation not only enlarged the proof, but brought to light charac- ters so identical in form, that (had the chronology tallied) they might have been written by the same hand. The strictly alphabetic character of the enchorial inscription was what first forced itself upon my attention at this stage. For the strictly alphabetic character of the Sina'itic in- scriptions being universally admitted, it was only common sense to conclude that Egyptian cha- B 3 h THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. racters, absolutely identical with those of Sinai, must, also, be strictly alphabetical.* At this early stage of the comparison, however, I suspended further inquiry, in order to resume my interrupted Sinaitic researches. I had now- ascertained, at least to my own conviction, that, with respect to the nature of the enchorial cha- racters of the Rosetta Stone, Young and Cham- pollion were alike in error ; and that Akerblad alone was right. For that eminent Swede lived maintaining, and died affirming, that the enchorial characters of Egypt were purely alphabetical. But still, sameness of form in the characters was, so far, my only ground of conviction. For, • " Les tc-moignages les jiliis imposans de I'antiquite classique con- courent a atttribuer aux Egyptiens rinvention de recriture alphahetique ; et le docte Georges Zoega, qui, le premier parmi les savans modernes a profess<5 hautement cette opinion, indique (Z)e Origine et Usu Obelis- corum, pp. 556, 557, et 558.) les divers passages de Platon, de Tacite, de Pline, de Plutarque, de Diodore de Sicile, et de Varron, sur lesquels elle est fondu." — ChampoUion, Precis, pp. 557, 558. " Herodotus says plainly, • that the alphabet brought by Cadmus into Greece, was Egyptian ,-' and yet, speaking of the three most ancient in- scriptions in Greece, he says, 'they were in Phcenician characters, which very much resembled the Ionic' ^' — Divine Legation, vol. iv. p. 164. Herodotus, doubtless, was correct in all three statements. What is the proper inference? Plainly, not only that the Egyptian characters, imported by Cadmus, were alphabetical in the strictest sense, but that the Egyptian, tlie Phoenician, and the Ionic characters, were alike letters from the one font, the one primeval alphabet of the one j)rinieval lan- guage. " All languages were derived from one ; and it is but reasonable to think the same of all alphabets." — Some Inquiries into first Inhab. Lang, arid Lett, of Europe, p. 124. Oxford, ed. Qto. mdcclvhi. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 7 as yet, I had not attempted tlie decypherment of a single word, excepting the proper name Ptolemy, which seemed to provoke examination by its in- cessant recurrence. The enchorial group, justly assumed by Dr. Young and others to represent this name, I did accordingly examine ; and found its characters, though extremely rude^ substan- tially identical with some of those in Mr. Gray's Sina'itic collection. But, instead of the Greek name itself, read by so many of my predecessors, I could discover, in the Egyptian words, only a paraphrastic translation of it in the true Eastern style. Thus matters rested, until, shortly after, a fresh impulse was given to inquiry, by the visit of a learned friend ; who found me too deeply interested in the Sina'itic monuments, to allow of my turning aside, beyond a passing allusion, to those of heathen Egypt. I communicated, however, the fact of the discovery of characters of the same forms, and, as I believed, of the same powers, in Mr. Gray's Sinaitic inscriptions, and on the Rosetta Stone ; inquired of my fellow student whether he had seen Dr. Young's plates ; and, on his replying in the negative, placed them in his hands, as a specimen of the happy union of skilful arrangement with learned labour, sure to interest him. He had not been long engaged b THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. upon the plates, when he summoned me to his side. I found that he had covered with paper the Greek, and the Latin translation of Dr. Young, in a line of the plate (21.), leaving the unknown enchorial characters alone visible. He pointed to a small W^^mm& mm Lycopoliiii. group of three characters, observing " I give you fair notice, I have a particular reason for asking you what is that word ? " I told him it was adr or air. "Surprizing," was the answer; "it is the very word I want. And now, (he pro- ceeded) I give you warning that I have a still more special reason for asking you (pointing to the next group, also of three characters) what is that word ? " I replied, that it was kud^ or kud. To his inquiry after the meaning, I answered I did not knoAv it ; but that Golius would soon tell us. On opening the lexicon at the word, I read aloud the definition, c^J kudw, Lupus vociferans. "Lupus, a wolf! (exclaimed my friend Avith great surprise) : It is the name of the city.''^ And throwing away the papers, he disclosed to mc the name Lycopolis^ " the city of wolves," THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 9 standing, where it had been placed by Dr. Young, under the two Egyptian words which had been just vivd voce decyphered, viz. dr or ciir kudw, " The city of wolves." * From this decisive test of the soundness of the decypherraent, and as decisive testimony to the inimitable accuracy of Dr. Young's mechanical distribution of the text, the querist presently passed on to a fresh experimentum crucis. Point- ing to another enchorial word, i V^l, similarly enclosed between papers, in a different plate (29.), he asked its pronunciation and sense. To my answer \y^ or c., wd or dua, a dog, or the bark of a dog, he replied, " You would have been right this time, too, had the name been Aniibis, but it is not: it is Thot/i.'^ On withdrawing the paper. * The Arabic ain, Cj occurring In both words, was the master key to this decj'pherment. This character is one of the most frequent on the Rosetta Stone. By Champollion, however, it is entitled M. And against the evidence of his senses, and in the face of his own admissions, 1. that the hieroglyphic alphabet had, in its constitution, «/we ressem- blance ties marquee avec Valphahet Hebreu ; and 2. that there were un nombre assez etendu de mots convmms a V Eyyptien et a V Hebreu, — he questions the existence of the ain in the Egyptian language : " Le y {ain') Hebreu n'eut probablement point d"equlvalent dans {'alphabet hieroglyphique ! " This one dictum is a flaw fatal to his system. For the am is the very life-blood of all the Semitic dialects. That it occurred in the Egyptian, is certain from Horapollo ; who has preserved two Egyptian words, aiia, Thrinder, and sebii. Satiety., having the same sound, and the same sense, in Egyptian, Hebrew, and Arabic ; and both words, in the Hebrew and Arabic, spelt with the am. 10 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. accordingly, the name Thoth stood over the word. ToYOAYo Thovth. ii3|. I observed to my friend, we must see what Thoth (the Egyptian Mercury) had to say for himself in this connection, as I was sure of my word; and turning to Lempriere, read as follows : " Thotii. — In Egypt, his statues represented him with tlie head of a dog, whence he was often confounded with Anubis." Verifications like these might safely be left to tell their own conclusiveness. But it is due only to the interest and importance of the subject, that the reflecting reader should pause here to estimate for himself, upon the doctrine of chances, the amount of the evidence in support of M. Aker- blad's principle of alphabetical decypherment, supplied by the single example of Lycopolis. That two unknown Egyptian words, standing in conjunction, should be successively and correctly interpreted, the interpreter himself being wholly unaware of the object of the querist, and of their compound import ; that these words should form together the proper name of an Egyptian city ; and that this compound name should stand in the same order — over them in the original Greek, THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 11. and immediately under tliem in the Latin, of Dr. Young's arrangement — presents a case of proof, in the face of antecedent improbabilities, which men of science are alone competent to calculate. Nor are the counterehances exhausted by this statement of the case. It must be remembered, not only that the component words of the proper name have been produced correctly, though un- consciously, but that they have been fixed on im- promptu, amidst the thousand roots of the Hebrew, and the ten thousand roots of the Arabic lexicon. Immediately upon obtaining results so satis- factory in themselves, and still more satisfactory because they came unsought, I felt the duty of relinquishing even Sinai for a season, and of de- voting my best attention to the study and de- cypherment of the Rosetta Stone. The precious Greek original, in this unique monument, fur- nished, at each point of progress, anchoring- grounds to the voyager through its "Ocean"* of unknown words. And, with even two points of the compass in our favour, the hope arose that this ocean might be traversed. The hope was rational, and it was not disappointed. Word after word of the enchorial inscription yielded up the sense required by the corresponding Greek word, to an alphabet formed on the * The expressive Title of the great Arabic lexicon of Firouzabadi, oi: "The Camous": from , wa^JJi Oceanus. 12 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. simple principle, that letters of the same known forms, are to be assumed to possess the same powers.* Upon this principle I proceeded, until I reached the first disjecta membra of the hieroglyphic text : when, to my great surprise, I found in it, intermingled with the pictures, as regular an alphabet as in the enchorial, or as in the Greek itself. In this alphabet, if some cha- racters were new, many were of known Greek, or Hebrew, or Ethiopic f , or Hamyaritic forms ; the * The identity of many of the characters on the Rosetta Stone with Arabic, or Hebrew characters, is so plain and perfect, as to require juxta- position only to satisfy the most inexperienced eye. But when, as in the enchorial text, the same forms can be proved (as is continually the case), by the evidence of the Greek text, to have the same powers, nothing seems wanting to the demonstration. f " No person who considers the complex and incondite system of the Ghuz alphabet, can, for a moment, entertain the idea that it was invented by Frumentius; or by any individual acquainted with Roman, or Greek, or even Coptic letters. 'Ihe comparison of the Gliuz alphabet with the different forms of the Samaritan and Phoenician letters, seems to decide this question ; so many of the Ethiopic letters coincide in shape with the characters of those alphabets, as to leave no room for doubt as to their real origin; and it is most probable, that the alphabetic system used by the Abyssins, was obtained by them through the medium of the Hamrjarites. If the use of letters had been introduced immediately by Jews, the arrangement of the Hebrew alphabet would most probably have been observed. If, on the other hand, letters had been invented for the Ethiopians, by Frumentius or liis followers, they would, as I have before hinted, liave contrived them on a simpler plan, and on one formed on the model of the more cultivated languages." — Prichard, Physical History of Manhind, vol ii. p. 169. The high antiquity of the Ethiopic language and letters seems, in point of fact, concluded by tlie following passage of Diodorus Siculus : 'iSiW yap AlyvTTTiois tJvTwv ypajx/xdrccv • Tci fiiy SrjfxiliSri irpoffayopivofieva, iracrdy fxavQavfiv, to. 5' Upa, KaXov/xeva, Trapa fj.\v roh Alyvirriois, /ulovovs yiviIxTKiiv Tovs Upui, Trapa tUv narepwv iv awop^rjTois fiavBdvovras' irapa Se To7s Aldioipiv, airavTas tovtoi^ xPVf'^OcLt to7s tvttois. — Died. Sic. Biblioth. lib. iii. § f5. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 13 Greek letters, as of Phcrnieian origin, belonging, no less than the Hebrew and Hamyaritic, to the idioms of the East. * Proceeding experimentally, I quickly verified the known characters, and gra- dually recovered the true powers of the unknown. Words in the hieroglyphic text, wholly apart from the figures or pictorial adjuncts, now yielded senses in exact accordance with the corresponding words in the enchorial, and in the Greek. The double process was carried on, until the whole had been approximately decyphered, and the enchorial and hieroglyphic texts resolved into glossaries. The final experimental result was as unexpected by myself, as it was fatal to the hieroglyphic theories of Champollion and Dr. Young. For, instead of the figures of men, monsters, and animals, stand- ing as letters of a phonetic or pictorial alphabet, I found that they were merely, what they appeared Hence we learn, that the Ethiopians had the same alphabets as the Egyptians ; with this difference only, that, witli them, all the kinds of writing were open alike to all the people ; in other words, there was no mystery in the characters,. The passage is further and highly important, as throwing light upon the philological value of the Ethiopic alphabet, whose powers are all known ; while its corresponding characters have cer- tainly the same powers with the ancient Egyptian, and, therefore, become our key to them. * The genealogy of alphabets has been justly traced by Dr. Shuck- ford : " The characters which are now commonly used in Europe being derived from the ancient Latin ; the ancient Latin from the Greek ; the Greek letters from the ancient Phoenician ; and the Phoenician, Syrian, ancient Hebrew, and Assyrian, having been much alike." — Sacr. and Prof. Hist. Connected, vol. i. pp. 224, 225. ed. 8vo. 14 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. to be, pictorial repi^esentatiofis* -, and that they bore no other relation to the alphabetic characters by which they were accompanied, than the device bears to the legend of a medal or a coin, f In * The extent to which M. Champollion himself admits this to be the case, destroys all confidence in his hieroglyphic theory. For, once the principle of simple pictorial representation is conceded at all, it is in vain for modern philology to lay down the law, as to what is, or what is not, hieroglyphic. " Le premier pas a faire dans I'etude raisonn^e du systeme d'ecriture dont ces caracteres sont les elemens, etait sans contredit de distinguer d'abord les hieroglyphes, proprement dits, de toutes les autres representa- tions, qui couvrent les anciens momanens de travail egyptien. — La premiere distinction, si importante et si fondamentale, ayant ete negligee, on prit pendant long-temps les figures, et les divers objets, reproduits dans des peintures et des bas-reliefs egyptiens, qui representent simplement des scenes historiques, religieuses, civiles, ou militaires, pour de veritables hiero- glyphes; et Ton s'epuisa en vaines conjectures sur le sens de ces tableaux, rCexprimant, pour la phipart, que ce qu'ils montraient reellement mix yeux ; mais on s'obstinait a vouloir y reconnaitre un sens occult et profond, a y voir, sous des apparences pretendues all^goriques, les plus secretes spe- culations de la philosophie egyptien."- — Precis du Si/st. Hierogl. p. 306. f The true office of the pictorial figures in the hieroglyphic texts, is ascertainable from examples on the Rosetta Stone. These examples show that the figures, as in a pantomime, merely represent, what the alphabetic characters intermingled with them describe. By his arrangement in juxta- position of the hieroglyphic and enchorial texts, Dr. Young, it will pre- sently be seen, has unconsciously thrown new light upon the subject ; the hieroglyphic figures being found only to depict the objects or actions described in the enchorial words standing under or over them. These objects or actions arc in some instances, so peculiar, as to preclude all liability to accidental agreement. To arrive at the whole truth, we have only to generalize : since the phenomena of the Rosetta Stone certainly contain the principle of the hieroglyphics. One admission of Champollion's may here be noted, as containing a partial adumbration of the truth. "La plupart des figures qui com- posent les anaglyphes (bas-reliefs purement allegoriques ou symboliques), sont accompagnees de petiies legendes expUculives en veritable ecriture hiero- glyphique." — Precis, p. 349. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 15 other words, the far-famed hieroglyphic monu- ments of Egypt, so mysterious in the eyes of the Greeks and Komans as well as in our own, ap- peared to be nothing more than the most ancient form of our own modern "Illustrated News."* If exceptions occur, and they do occur, to this humiliating description, they appear, so far, at least, as can now be known, to be such only as occur equally in modern usage. If, for example, figures appear, not infrequently, unaccompanied by written characters, it is because those figures tell their story with a plainness, which no written characters (to the ancient Egyptians themselves at least) could make more plain. It was not, I will freely own, without a long * " Language of itself, however clear and forcible, must always fail to present the mind with the correct images of passing events ; and the de- ficiency can be supplied only by uniting literary power with graphic skill. So extensively is this now recognised, that Pictorial Papers are published in London, Paris, Leipsic, Madrid, Rome, New York, Mexico, and even in Canton." — Historic Times, Prospectus. Now to what does this statement amount, but to the confession, that the requisites for the communication of thought by writing, were better understood by the ancient Egyptians, and the other primitive nations of mankind, than by the boasted science and philosophy of Greece, of Rome, or of modern Europe ! The Greeks seem to have been partially aware of the simply illustrative character of the hieroglyphics. One painter, at least, Nealces, b. c. 248, manifestly borrowed a felicity of his art from Egypt ; and, in so doing, hit off the truth : " II se fit remarquer par les traits ingenieux et singu- liers dont il animait ses compositions. Ce fut ainsi qu'ayant a presenter un combat naval des Perses et des Egyptiens sur le Nil, il caracterisa le lieu de la scene, en plagant sur la rive un crocodile, pret a devorer une dne qui vient s'abreuver aw lord du fleuve." — Biographic Universelle, Art. Nealcis. 16 THE INIONUMENTS OF EGYPT. struggle against ray own preconceptions, which had paid ready tribute to the brilliant ingenuit}'^ of Champollion, and willing homage to the per- ceptive genius of Young, that I found myself compelled, by a force of experimental evidences neither to be resisted nor evaded, to come to this conclusion. Before, however, its matter-of-fact grounds can be availably submitted, it will be necessary, for the information of the general reader, briefly to state and explain the first principles of the theory of the late M. Champol- lion Figeac le jeune ; whose system of hierogiy- phical interpretation seems now the system gene- rally received and in use both in the Old and New World. This theory, like the Nile, has branched out through many mouths ; but they who would form a sound judgment of its real character must analyze it at the source. Now the Avhole first principles of his system, Champol- lion avowedly found (as Young had found before him) in the proper name of Ptolemy; justly as- sumed to be represented, in the enchorial text, by a group of characters, and in the hieroglyphic text, by a ring or cartouche, corresponding in position, and in the frequency of their recurrence, with the proper name IITOAEMAIOS {Pto- lemy) in the Greek text of the triple inscription. That the cartouche, and the group of characters. THE MONTOIENTS OF EGYPT. 17 in question stood as representatives of this proper name, had been originally pointed out by de Sacy, and was fully admitted by the consent of learned Europe. But Champollion, with the brilliant im- petuosity of his country, advancing upon an error into which Young himself had previously fallen, undertook to discover, not its Egyptian equiva- lent, but the Greek name itself, in Egyptian cha- racters, in the hieroglyphic cartouche. In pursu- ing this course, both philologists plainly overlooked a preliminary objection of the gravest and weightiest kind: namely, that their assumption supposes the Egyptians, contrary to the analogy of Eastern language and usage, to have adopted, instead of translating, Greek proper names. Not to confine ourselves to the East, the familiar ex- amples of Augustus translated into Ss^ao-ro^ ; of our '•''lion-hearted^^ Richard, into Cceur de Lion; of "the Black Prince," into Prince Noir ; and to come home to Egypt herself, of Octavius into Zminis (its Arabic equivalent) so felicitously de- tected by Dr. Young himself *; must shake to the base all gratuitous assumption of the adop- * " The character, wlilch is sometimes represented [in the Greek du- plicate?] by i, and sometimes by s, must, in all probability, be the Coptic sh ■ so that Zminis ought rather to be written Shminis, meaning Octa- vius, from Shmen, eight." — Young, Discoveries in H>er. Lit. p. 120, On reference to the enchorial characters, placed in Dr. Young's table of enchorial names opposite tlie name Zminis, as read by my previously- formed alphabet, instead of his Coptic version Shmins, I found two words C 18 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. tion, instead of translation, in any language, of foreign proper names. Yet, upon this unautho- (the first, pure Arabic), reading .'j ^^\5 Tsaman Tsaesar, Octavius CcGsar : the enchorial letters running sideways, thus — Zminis Ci^^ ,rthi J J- — - Cajsar This result, the fruit of Dr. Young's tact, in the mechanical arrangement of bilingual texts, led me to examine other names, similarly adjusted, in the same table ; and, in several instances, with equal success. The names of Isis, HoRus, and Osiris may be adduced as specimens. Isis, according to Jablonski and other authorities, " in the Egyptian language, signified the cause of abundance ; " and, dropping the Greek termination, the name, accordingly, finds its equivalent in the Arabic J^. Washl, Abundantia : '' Plenty " ; a word similar, or rather identi- cal, in sound and sense. The enchorial name opposite Isis, in Dr. Young's table, however, was not ^,, washl, but i o> ., rif. Isis. *l The name reading l ot ., by the previously-formed alphabet, I examined this root, and found it to be the synonyme of ^,, or the very same definition with that of the Egyptian proper name Isis : viz, ^_pj ., rif, Proventu abundavit terra. Proventu abundans. " Abounding with produce. Abundant produce." The enchorial characters were as clear, as the sense was perfect: the Rosettar, (our Hebrew ■) sideways) and the Ethiopic/. I could no longer doubt that i o\ . was a second Egyptian name for Isis. Next beneath that of Isis, in Young's table, stood the name of Horus, represented, also, doubly, by two enchorial words, the first thrice repeated ; viz. — THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 19 risecl basis will be found wholly to rest, not the point at isue only, but the whole Champollion system. HORUS Read by my previously-formed alphabets, there could be no doubt as to the words. Their sense was the only question. Their definitions proved them synonymes ; and synonymes for the name Horus: viz. L ■' J i..j wakat, HoRA, i. e. Certum tempus, Katp6s. t,^- Ji\.-^,, mawakat, Statum tempus, " Time ; " and ^' J^^, madat, Spatium temporis, " A space of time, Time." Could this be fortuitous? The name Hor or Horus, therefore, in the Egyptian as well as in Greek, signified time, or the hours. The Greeks were right in their etymology ; and their censors. Paw and Jablonski, wrong. The latter would captiously have the Egyptian name to signify, not time, but light, in the face of the array of authorities, Greek, Roman, and Egyptian, which he has thus accumulated ; " Unum hoc superest, ut nomen .^gyp- tiacum, Hori, ex antique gentis illius sermone interpretemur ; nam et hoc novam, dictis supra, lucem inferet. Gracorum plurimi, nominis hujus originationem ex lingua sibi patria arcessunt. Ex eorum sententia scribit Macrobius, Sat. lib. i. e. sxi. ' Apud iEgyptios Apollo, qui est Sol, Horus vocatur, ex quo et hora viginti quatuor nomen acce- perunt : et quatuor tempera, quibus annuus orbis impletur, hora vo- cantur. Id Horavollo paucioribus sic complexus est, lib. i. c. xvii. "HAios Se 'n,pos, airh tov tuv 'Cipwv KpareTv. Sol iEgyptiis dicitur Horus, eo quod anni tempestates, et horus diei, moderatur.' One might suppose the Egyptian priest would know best. Jablonski, however, sets himself up against Horapollo ! " Verum recteet bene de hac Grjecorum origina- tione judicium tale tulit Joann. Corn, a Pauw, in notis ad hunc scriptorem, p. 310. 'Hebc GrJBCorum indolem aperte respirant. .32gyptii "npou etymon nunquam ab Sl>pais deduxissent.' Quibus non est quod addam ; idque tanto minus, cum plerique ex Graecis nomen Hori, non ex Grasco, sed JEgyptiaco explicandum esse, aperte et ultro fateantur. Recepta jam apud conditorum longe plurimos hasc est sententia, nomen Hori ^Egypti- This character, placed upright, is the Hebrew p, koph. c 2 20 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. The initiatory process, in tlie formation of this system, may be described in a few words. Start- acum, esse re ipsa Hebraeorutn "I^X, quae lucem significat. Si inter- pretatio haec, a qua paucos eruditos alienos esse novi, admitti posset, ilia profecto iis, quas hactenus adstruxi, pondus non spernendum adjiceret." — Jabhnski, Pan. JEgypt. torn. i. pp. 22], 222. Jablonski's case is pretty clear, lie had his theory to support; and, therefore, authorities went for nothing. The Greeks rightly appealed to the Egyptian for their etymology of the name Horus ; and the Egyptian, when really consulted, defines Horus as Time. This common sense of the same word, in Greek and in Egyptian, I need only observe, is one more added to the countless examples of the descent of languages from the one primeval tongue. The names of Is is and Horus are followed, in Young's table, by that of Osiris : three names so associated in Egyptian mythology, as to form what might be termed their triad. The name of Osiris, in Young's table, is written in enchorial characters, thus; Osiris r^ The characters, in my alphabet, were two rs, with a v or i between. The word I read rir. It is the form of an Arabic root, of which the fol- lowing is the primary definition — .^ , rlr, ubertate anni potitus fuit." — Reaping the fruits of the year. This name of Osiris, it will be observed, is synonymous with that of Isis, already noticed, viz. , « > ., rif. The coincidence of sense is confirmative of both words, because both are appropriate. Isis and Osiris alike owed their deification to the fertilization or culture of the earth ; they repre- sented the influences of the sun and moon ; and were themselves repre- sented by the kindred symbols of agriculture, the ox and the cow. It might be expected, therefore, antecedently, that their names would have corresponding senses. In the chief Egyptian name for Isis, supposed to be TJsl or Isi, I have already pointed out the agreement, in sound and sense, with the Arabic root ^,, JFashi, Abundavit opibus, S^c. Simi- lar agreement can now be sliown between the chief Egyptian name of Osiris, which would be Osir, and another Arabic root, viz. .-^r- Oslr, Abundavit opibus et annona. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 21 ing with the assumption that all foreign proper names were expressed (terminations only ex- cepted) letter for letter in Egyptian characters, both in the hieroglypliic and enchorial inscrip- tions, Champollion, like his predecessor Young, proceeds to find the Greek name Ptolemy, in the hieroglyphic characters of the corresponding car- touche of the Rosetta Stone : the only point of difference between the two philologists being, whether the hieroglyphic characters of the car- touche were altogether alphabetical, or partly alphabetic, and partly syllabic. Champollion, adopting the alphabetic principle, discovers the letter A, Z, in the figure of a re- cumbent lion, solely because this figure is the fourth hieroglyphic in the cartouche, and A, /, the fourth letter in the Greek name IITOAE- MAIOS. Having thus, to his own satisfaction, obtained his A, the French savant at once as- sumes that the three preceding unknown hiero- glyphics, viz., a semicircle, a square, and a nondescript character, which he denominates un puit recourbij must be IITO, or the three pre- ceding letters of the Greek proper name. Of the four remaining hieroglyphics, that under the lion (in form like the Greek n, or the old Syriac A, U ) he of course pronounces to be the M, as the letter next in order. The next two characters c 3 22 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. being identical in form, and styled by him leaves^ he fixes as the diphthong A I, or as the Greek H, or I, the long e, or i. The last hieroglyphic, a curved line, is, on the sole ground of its being the last, necessarily the S, or sigma, the final letter of the proper name.* Now every reader unbiassed by preconception, and unblinded by the scale of the dazzling struc- ture subsequently erected upon this foundation, must surely see that this whole decypherment hinges upon the figure of the lion, and its as- sumed office as the alphabetical representative of the Greek letter A (/).f For, however he may have unconsciously disguised the matter to others, or to himself, it is most clear that every other hieroglyphic of the cartouche receives its assumed power from its position with relation to the lion ; * Precis du Systeme Hieroglyphique. Introduction, conf. chapitres ill. et iv. f This alphabetic use of the lion for the letter I, rests upon an assump- tion contrary to the genius of all oriental languages, viz., that the old Egyptian, like the Greek and Latin, or like the dialects of modern Europe, had but one name for the lion. Now the Eastern idioms, gene- rally, abound with synonymes. In the Arabic, for example, all the 20 letters of the alphabet, successively stand as the initials of its 500 names for the lion. May not the Egyptian have equally abounded in syno- nymes ? and may not the 25 letters of its alphabet have stood succes- sively, as initials of the names of the lion ? Where, then, is the gua- rantee, that the lion which is to stand for the I, in the cartouche of Ptolemy, may not represent any one of those 25 letters, in other, and confessedly unknown cartouches? THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 23 the first hieroglyphic decyphered, and decyphered as A.* It is time now to examine the lion's claim f ; and it may be found, however high the just pre- tensions of this monarch of the forest, that he * This is the real state of the case. The Precis du Systeme Hiero- GLTPHiQUE, however, makes a show of inductive proof, by comparison of the ignotum with the ignotius. Finding only the cartouche of Ptolemy Epiphanes on the Rosetta Stone (" Le teste hieroglyphique, qui se serait prete si heureuseraent a cette recherche, ne presentait, a cause de ses fractures, que le seul nom de Ptolemee "), the author brings to his support, from Philoe, a second Ptolemaic cartouche, accompanied by a cartouche of purport unknown, which, from its juxta-position, he assumes, without any beyond presumptive proof, to contain, in Egyptian characters, the Greek proper name for Cleopatra. Conceiving himself, by this very dubious process, to have obtained his professed desideratum, viz., "deux noms propres de rois Grecs prealablement connus, et contenant plusieurs lettres employees a-la-fois dans I'un et dans I'autre, tels que Ptolemee et Cleopatre, he proceeds at once, by collation of the two cartouches, to fix no fewer than eleven characters of his hieroglyphic alphabet, " Les signes reunis de ces deux cartouches, analyses phonetiquement, nous donnaient deja douze signes, repondant a onze consonnes, et voyelles,oudiphthongues, de I'alphabet Grec : A, AI, E, K, A, O, n, P, 2T." — Precis, pp. 47 — 49, 2nd edit. This argument rests upon a double assumption : 1 , that the hiero?- glyphics of the cartouches represent the letters of the Greek proper names ; 2. that the second cartouche contains the name of Cleopatra. Unless both assumptions be correct, the theory is gone. Is this a foun- dation for the reconstruction of a lost language ? t This sign of the lion, which is ChampoUion's I in the name of Ptolemy, becomes metamorphosed into an r, in those of Xerxes and Alexander (pp. 60. 232.). In justification of this various reading of the same character, the author (p. 66.) enlarges upon the interchangeableness of the liquids I and r, and (a petitio principii) especially in ancient Egypt, Is there not a confusion of ideas here ? The question at issue is, not the indifferent use of / and r, but the use of the one character for both letters. But if the lion thus occurs in two names, and cannot be both I and r, where is the proof that he is either ? c 4 24 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. has here got more than " the lion's share." The assumption that the lion of the Rosetta cartouche represents the letter /, is plainly foimded on two previous assumptions more gratuitous than itself: namely, 1 . that the first letter in the name of each animal or object, in the hieroglyphic texts, stood to represent the letter of the alphabet with which the name commenced ; and 2. that the Egyptian word for lion^ employed in the cartouche, began, like the Greek and Latin words, with the letter I. Now the chances in favour of the latter suppo- sition may be brought to a very simple test. There are said to be, in the Arabic language, 500 names for the lion. Of these, about 200 are given in Richardson's Dictionary ; and, out of the 200, four only begin with L. But M. Champol- lion resorts to the Coptic, which is itself merely a corrupt medley of Greek and Arabic upon a sub- stratum of the old Arabic or Egyptian ; and, here, can discover only one example beginning with Z, and this example is i,"J, lebwat (also an Arabic word), which signifies, 7iot a lion^ but a lioness. Upon the doctrine of chances, therefore, the chances against the probability of the Egyptian word for the lion of the cartouche commencing with the letter A, are overwhelming. But this most dubious / is the sole entrance into the immensurable field of Champollion in- THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 25 terpretation. For upon this discovery alone it is, that he grounds his next gigantic stride; which is no less than the assumption, that all the animals and monsters, beasts, birds, and fishes, or, more properly, all substantive objects of what- ever description, who stand crowded together in the ten thousand hieroglyphic monuments of Egypt, stand also as representatives of that letter of the alphabet, with which each particular name happens to commence.* The result of this wild, though showy theory, if pressed to its inevit- able consequences, Avould be this, that all the living creatures (or rather all the objects) on our globe may stand as representatives of the letters of the Egyptian alphabet f ; that, subdivided into * "Je ne doute point, Monsieur, que si nous pouvions determiner d'une maniere certaine I'objet que figurent, ou expriraent, tous les autres hieroglyphes phonetiques compris dans notre alphabet, il ne me fut tres facile de montrer, dans les lexiques Egyptiens-Coptes, les noms de ces memes objets, commengant par la consonne ou les voyelles que leur image represente dans le systeme hieroglyphique phonetique." — Lettre a M. Dacier, Precis, p. 76. t The hieroglyphic alphabet of Champollion, we have seen, is confess- edly based altogether upon Greek proper names. By what philological alchymy an alphabet thus obtained, can be transferred to the decypher- ment of monuments of the Pharaohs, is a problem which might puzzle most comprehensions, and which certainly passes mine. Our author, however, does not shrink from the statement of it in terms the most un- qualified and unlimited. Thus in his introduction : " Le but principal est de demontrer, — 1. Q,ue mon alphabet hieroglyphique s'applique aux legendes royales hieroglyphiques de tovites les epoques ; 2. Queladecou- verte de I'alphabet phonetique des hieroglyphes est la veritable clef de tout le systeme hieroglyphique; 3. Que les anciens Egyptians I'employ- 26 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. their alphabetic classifications, each class repre- sents the letter with which its nomenclature be- gins; and lastly, that as, in Eastern dialects, there are often many names for the same animal, each animal may change his alphabetic character as the serpent changes his skin, and continue to represent successive letters of the alphabet, until the alphabet itself is exhausted ! The endless complexity implied, and the irretrievable confu- sion caused, by a system of writing such as this, might alone, one would think, have spared a primitive people like the ancient Egyptians the credit of being its inventors. Champollion's own hieroglyphic alphabet, indeed, in part illustrates the untenableness of his theory, since, in it we find several difi'erent animals, together with a erent d toutes les epoques, pour representer alphahetiquement les sens des mots de leur langue parlee ; 4. Que toutes les inscriptions hi^rogly- phiques sont, en tres-grande partie, composees de signes purement alpha- hitiques, et tels que je les ai determines." — p. l\. Again : " Tout dependait absolument de la plus ou moins grande application de mon alphabet ; et s'il pouvait se trouver qu'il servit a I'interpretation des inscriptions hieroglyphiques de toutes les epoques. — Le but de cet ouvrage est de dumontrer I'universalite de cet emploi de mon alphabet ; et celui de ce chapitre, de I'appliquer aux noms propres des Pharaons anterieurs a Cambyse ; et de cette application, il resultera tout-a-la-fois : 1. les preuves de la generality de mon alphabet, et de son existence a toutes les epoques connues de I'empire Egyptien ; 2 . la distinction meme des monumens anterieurs ou posterieurs au con- querant Persan ; distinction sur laquelle reposeront toutes les certi- tudes de I'histoire de I'art en Egypte. Ce dernier resultat de I'emploi de mon alphabet a la lecture des noms Pharaoniqucs sera I'objet d'un travail particulier." — Precis, p. 229. THE MONUIMENTS OF EGYPT. 27 number of arbitrary signs, placed as symbols of the same letter. In practice, however, we have a very limited application of his theory : in prin- ciple, it has no limits but the limits of animate, and inanimate, nature.* It is with unfeigned reluctance that I thus bring to the test of plain common sense, the first elements of a system, which, in its evolved pro- portions, and conceived results, has already gained such celebrity for its author ; and which, since his death, has employed the labours, and exercised the ingenuity, of many of the ablest and most learned philologists of Europe. Feel- ings of this nature, however, all who love the truth vnll agree, should never be allowed to check inquiry after it. And he who expressed this right sympathy with others under the familiar image of unwillingness " to pull down their castles in the air," was well reminded, for his consolation, by a witty friend, that " the fall of a castle in the air never hurt any body." In the present case, one thing, at least, is certain, that if the foundation be unsound, there can be no soundness in the superstructure erected on it: on the contrary, the loftier the superstructure, the more speedy and sure the downfall of the * " Cette methode suivie, pour la composition de I'alphabet phonetique Egyptien, fait pressentir jusqu'd quel point on pouvait mvltiplier, si on I'eut voulii, la nomhre des hieroglyphes pJionetiques." — Precis, p. 76 . 28 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. building. But to return to Egypt and Cham- pollion. Upon the crumMing foundation of al- phabets thus acquired, the ingenious author of the " Systeme Hieroglyphique," and the " Grammaire Egyptien," proceeds to the recovery and recon- struction of the lost language of Egypt. And, in this great undertaking, I am compelled to add, our auihor proceeds on principles diametrically opposed to the received first principle of all sound philological investigation. The well-known first principle in question is this, that the antiquity of a language is always to be ascertained, by the brevity of its alphabet, and the simplicity of its construction. The more primitive the alphabet, the fewer its characters ; the more primitive the idiom, the freer from what may be styled the accidents of speech; are rules, heretofore uni- versally admitted as philological axioms. " Rude societies (observes a contemporary historian) have language, and often copious and energetic language : but they have no scientific grammar ; no definitions of 7iouns and verbs ; no names for declensions, moods, tenses, and voices.^' * * The indeclinable words in Greek and Latin are so many vestiges and verifications of this primitive rudeness oi' language. But where, in the most cultivated of all idioms, there occur still so many indeclinables, why in the infancy of speech, might there not occur more, or all ? The Greek and Latin indeclinables merely escaped the process of accidents and augmentations. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 29 This statement is fully borne out by the monu- ments oi Sinai, and of Southern Arabia.* It is confirmed by the -emains of a pnmitive language in some remote districts of lialy, where the idiom still spoken is described as absolutely destitute of prepositions, particles, inflexions, and all the accidents of speech.! And, even apart from de- cypherment, its truth can be demonstrated from the Rosetta Stone itself; where the shortness of the enchorial lines, compared with their Gieek equivalents, in the distribution of Dr. Young, supplies mechanical proof of the absence of all needless adjuncts. Even in regularly constructed * " The source of the Arabic language lies far bcj'ond historic proof. Grammarians carry the older dialect to the family of Heber, the fourth in descent from Noah ; and the most modern, to Ishmael, the son of Abraham." — Richardson, Prelim. Diss. p. 2. The grammarians are, in all likeliliood. historically correct. The masim of Bochart applies as justly to languages as to nations: "Nisi aliud obstet, unicuique genti natales suas referentes credi par est." f A homely, but practical, exemplification in point, is recently supplied, by a correspondent of the (llustrated News, from the tent of a gipsy. " She had not the least notion of grammatical distinctions ; and generally used her words (as the Roum.anies all do) as roots, without inflection. Occa- sionally I could detect an inflection in the concrete of a sentence, and I was careful to note these. She racked her head in the vain effort to com- prehend my questions about nouns, and verbs, and prepositions.'" — /. N. for Nov. 29. 1851. The Roumany or Gipsy patois, is important in the present connec- tion, for it is certainly of Eastern origin. I shall mention ir proo'' an anecdote. A late eminent Director and Chairman of the East India Company, many years ago, in this country, fell in with ar encampment of the genuine? Gipsies. He addressed them in Hindostanee ; and was perfectly understood, and immediately answered in that dialect. 30 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. tongues, the same rule holds good ; the more ancient they are, the more simple.* Of this the Hebrew and the Chaldee are conclusive examples in point. While, in the Hebrew Scriptures, the oldest book, the Book of Job, is the simplest, also, in stylet; leaving more to be supplied than any other portion of the Old Testament. The Egyptian of ChampoUion is the very re- verse of all this. Prepositions, particles, in- flections, signs of number and gender, abound in it to overflowing. To judge by the scale of its folio grammar, the modern Arabic might hardly be supposed, antecedently, to contain * " Language, as appears from the nature of the thing, from the records of history, and from the remains of the most ancient languages yet remaining, was, at first, extremely rude, narrow, and equivocal : the art of enlarging languages by a scientific analogy being a late invention." — Divine Legation, B. iv. § iv. vol. iv. p. 133. ed. 8vo. " The languages of a more barbarous and less cultivated original, keep a nearer resemblance to the peculiar quality of the first tongue, and consist chiefly of short and simple words." — Shuckford, vol. i. B. ii. p. 120. + " One thing I would observe, that, how few, or how many soever, the languages were now become ; yet many of them, for some time, did not differ much from one another. For Abraham, a Hebrew, lived amongst the Chaldeans, travelled amongst the Canaanites, sojourned with the Philistines, and lived some time in Egypt ; yet we do not find he had any remarkable difficulty in conversing with them. But, though the difference of the tongues was small at first, yet every language, after the stability of speech was lost, varying, in time, from itself; the language of different nations, in a few ages, became vastly different, and unintel- ligible to one another. Thus the speech of the world, confounded first at Babel, received, in every age, new and many alterations ; until the languages of different nations came to be very distinct from one another, as we now find them." — Id. ib. pp. 120 — 121. THE MONUIilENTS OF EGYPT. 3L more rules. Yet is this complicate language, perhaps, the oldest in the world : certainly as old as any in use since the Flood ! The identity of form, in frequent examples, between the enchorial characters of the Eosetta Stone, and the characters of the Sina'itic inscrip- tions, first awakened the suspicion, that, if the one system of writing was purely alphabetical, so, by parity of reasoning, must be the other. The sameness of the characters, in two adjoining Eastern idioms, further plainly argued, that the same forms were likely to possess the same powers : in other words, that their alphabet was in common. The impromptu decypherment, upon this principle, of the compound name of an Egyptian city, Lycopolis, and of that of an Egyptian deity, Thoth, convinced me that it was the right one ; and determined me, at once, to enter upon the decypherment of the enchorial portion of the monument. The progress proved as successful as the commencement. But, on reaching the hieroglyphic part in Dr. Young's harmonized plates, I observed, to my surprise, Sinaitic, Old Syriac, Hebrew, Hamyaritic, Greek, and even common Arabic characters, inter- mingled with the unknown marks and hiero- glyphics. Upon this wholly unexpected phe- nomenon I paused ; and resolved to test the 32 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. kno"\vii characters, and to try the unknown, by comparison of detached groups with the corre- sponding part, of the enchorial, and of the Greek. A few tentative experiments sufficed to satisfy me that the known forms here, as well as in the enchorial, were* pure alphabetic letters; and that the unknown marks mingled with them were also letters, whose powers, by their position among the known characters, might possibly be recovered. Proceeding still experimentally, I was led, step by step, to infer, that the semicircle ^:^ '^', treated as p by Champollion, was the hieroglyphic mf ; that the form -o- - treated as r, was he n^ being ne^^rly the same form as the Hamyaritic lozenge A, or double V, nu7i; and that several other marks indicated, by their po- * Clemens Alexandrinus distinguishes two kinds of hieroglyphic writ- ing : the Curiological, consisting of alphabetic characters ; and the Sym- holical, consisting of pictorial representations. Of the former kind, his description is, rj (xiv eCn Sta rwv t. pair oil' ar oix^'i-oiv KvpioKoyLKT], Thus rendered by Champollion, " L'un, cyriologiqice, eniploie \&s premieres lettres alphahctiques." I believe the rendering to be correct. And, i'^ it be, the Curiologlc characters are not only letters; but, according to Clement, tlie letters of the first primeval alphabet of mankind. See Precis, p. 379. f Since the above passage was written, and five years after I had been led to determine the power of the ^a^ , or semicircle, to be m, proof, of a nature and conclusiveness which could not by possibility have been reckoned on, has presented itself in confirmation. It occurs 'n plate 77., part i., of Sir Gardner Wilkinson's Egypt, 2nd Series. In the place referred to, the reader will find the following double occurrence of a short inscription, facing opposite ways, in which the semicircle, M^ , employed THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 33 sition among known forms, their proper powers. Thus furnished with means of investigation, checked at each step by the corresponding texts of the Greek and enchorial inscriptions, on com- pleting the analysis of the latter, I passed to that twice ill the first example of this inscription, is replaced, in the second, at its last occurrence, by the final Arabic (Form of the decanter in the ^'^S, fN (1^°'™ of the decanter in Plate, over these inscriptions.) ,/wvVlvV" i^-utyi^M ^^^ Plate, over these in- *H,*j, kamkani, " A decanter shaped like a cuaanber." pi .111"'";) vwvv/v^ scriptions.) ^^K!i Jtamkam, *' A de- .iii'ijii LSV rem. hand." , rami, Abjecit e maim ' Throwing from the I ^~ canter shaped like a cu- ■^ cumber."'' _v- , rami, Abjecit e riianu rem. " Throwing from the hand." The word, repeated with this decisive variation in a single character, is the Arabic word ^iL^jj Urceus, cantharus, " A decanter, a vessel shaped like a cucumber, in which water is warmed ;" or (L^^iy^'i^ kamkamat, r " A jug, tankard, pitcher, of silver, brass, tin," &c. The vessel intro- duced determinatively in the cross of the X> i^ given, as above, in the original, in its proper shape, viz. that of a cucumber, in the hands of the two deities, who are in the act of pouring libations over the Pharaoh. a My friend Mr. Rowlands, Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, possesses one, picked up by himself at Thebes : only in miniature, for perfumes. D 34 TRK MONUMENTS OV F.GYri". of the liieroglypluo text. The lights of tlio throe texts now ivtioctod rooipi\x\illy upon one ano- ther. Thus the MKM^ i^ Memphis') of the Greek original, was ?>-^^ (the H^hv^w Xoph) in the enchorial, and ^ .;^> [^ (the Arabic ,^.c, Men/) in the hieroglvphie text. The step or stair, on which Ptolemy, in the act of entering the Temple of ^Memphis, is represented as about to place his right foot, is ^l\ (v.- raym^'m the enchorial, and also _ \ / I,*,;., raym) in the hieroglyphic text ; literally in both '* a stair- case." Gradus per quos ascenditur. A third example of double dec}*jiherment is of a character intrinsically so conclusive as to yield only to the example of Lycopolis. Having ob- served a group of three familiar characters, at the commencement of line xxiii of the enchorial text, viz. J^O' ^^^' ^^^^' Hebrew kaf r. the Greek mm V, and the Hebrew or Hamvaritic ain y, I treated the word as ^:j. Kana. and looked for it inGolius under that root. The Arabic lexicon gave as one definition of ^:j. '* Inter precandum, seu in c::^'^!'^ tnanus sitas inhn'ore jHirtc obvertit faciei\ " In the act of prayer, turning tlu- palm of fht hand foicards /At /(uv." I returned to the plate to proceed with TlIK MONUMENTS OF KCJVIT. 85 the dccy[)liermcnt, wlieu a phenomenon presented itself of the most unexpected nature : I found the figure of a worshipper seated on liis heels (to the present day the posture of reverence among the Copts of Egypt), with the palm of the upraised hand turned inwards toivards the face, in the singular attitude of devotion, expressed by the Arabic word -j.;. i f Such being the inimitable accuracy of Dr. Young's mechanical arrangement, that, although himself no believer in the al[)habetic character of the enchorial text, he had placed the enchorial word inunediately over the head of the corre- sponding hieroglyphic figure. The hieroglypliic Avord beside the iigure, however, is not -j, but ^Aj, nafih, viz. ^^^ three being synonymous for Prince, Ruler, or King : i. e. head, or royal shepherd, Sec. This change of words, and unity of sense, gives obviously great strength to the decypherment. 44 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. the very name of the king, viz. n.roX6y.aiog, Pto- lemy, from 7rr6xsf/.og, helium, war* The initial example indicates, what the whole Rosetta Stone confirms, that the Egyptians used two distinct vocabularies ; the one appropriated to their enchorial, the other consecrated to their hieroglyphic, writing. The proof of this will be amply brought out as we proceed. Antithetical Results of the Phonetic and Alphabetic Systems. The case of the proper name Ptolemy, though a single example, is of the last importance, since on its fate hinges the whole Champollion system. In justice to our argument, therefore, it will be necessary to enlarge the induction ; and, in so doing, to anticipate results arrived at in decy- phering, at subsequent periods, the monuments of the Pharaohs. Finding, in the old Pharaonic monuments themselves, a phenomenon precisely the same with that on the Rosetta Stone, viz. royal car- touches with the figure of a lion couchant, and one or other of his manifold Arabic names uni- * " Sicut vero metri causa, YlroXi^ios interdum iisurpant Poeta;, ita etiam nroAe^iXoD pro UoXijjii^w, turn quoque cum metrum id non requirit." Steph, Tlies. in voc. Hence, VloKe/xtcrTris might read IlToAejUKTTr/s, or noKffJLaios (if the word were used) Tlro\efxaios. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 45 formly accompanying ttie device, I was led to the conclusion, that these cartouches contained, not the proper names of the Egyptian kings, but their royal styles and titles. This conclusion, it mil be remembered, is sanctioned by the immemorial usage of the East, whose princes, in all ages, have delighted in the title, both personal and dynastic, of " the lion." The famous Alp Arslan, the Seljukian conqueror, is an instance in point ; and on his nom de guerre, .,ILj,U Arslan, "the lion," Mr. Richardson's remark is, *' This sur- name has been adopted by several kings of Persia.''^ It were easy to multiply examples, had not the universality of this Oriental usage, and the style or title of Sing, " the lion," been rendered only too notorious, to the inhabitants of the British islands at least, by our late bloody wars with the Sikhs, and their treacherous chiefs, the " Singhs," or lions of the Punjaub. Having come to the conclusion that this was, most probably, the true interpretation of the Egyptian cartouches ; and that they were shields, like our heraldic shields of arms, containing the styles and titles of the Egyptian kings, I resolved to test it by a very simple process, for which M. Champollion himself had furnished the ma- terials. In his Grammaire Egyptien (pp. 142, 143), this ingenious writer has published a series of royal cartouches, containing, according to his 46 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. decypherments, the proper names of Persian, Macedonian, and Roman, sovereigns of Egypt. These cartouches I examined, and the result of the examination was, that, instead of the alleged proper names, the ten rings contained as many couchant figures, and names, of the lion ; eight out of his ten names being cUfferent Arabic words. The result, so simple yet decisive, is submitted to the reader in the annexed plate ; in which he will see Champollion's phonetic decypherments on one side, and my alphabetical decypherments on the other, and will decide for himself where the common-sense preference lies. This proof, I shall only add, he can enlarge for himself to any ex- tent. For myself, it is my own full conviction, the result of similar experiments upon a great scale, that not a single name, whether of Egyp- tian, Persian, Greek, or Roman sovereigns, is to be found throughout the entire series of the royal cartouches of Egypt. If this be so, there is an end, at once, to those modern schemes of anti- scriptural chronology, manufactured out of the dubious dynasties of Manetho *, as expounded by the more than dubious lights of phonetic, syl- labic, and idiographic, interpretation.^ * A fragment of S. Tlicopliilus of Antiocli, in the 2n (liffca., La seule maniere d'entendre cette disposition, a ce qu'il me semble, c'est d'admettre que le Pschent s'elevait sur un base, dans I'espace vide laisse au milieu des basilies, disposees autour du tetragone, les domi- nant, et formant le sommet de la pyramide. " C'est avec le Pschent en tete, que le roi etait etitre dans le temple de Memphis, pour la ceremonie du couronnement. C'etait done, a propre- ment parler, Vattribut royal, la coiffure privilegiee du roi, celle qu'il devait prendre dans cette grande solemnite. Aussi, je ne doute point que le Pschent ne soit designe par le mot Kvve-ij, casque, dans les deux passages, ou Herodote, a propos de Psammitichus (ii. 151.) et d'Araasis (ii. 16t3.)) nous represente I'action de se coiffer du Koverj, comme propre au roi, ou annon^ant la royaute. — Alors le mot 'Vx^i't ne pouvait etre encore adopte par les Grecs ; aussi Herodote emploie-t-il I'equivalent Kuverj. Mais, sous les Ptolemees, le terme egyptien etait devenuc le terme d'usage, parce que le Kvfer] n'avait reellement aucun rapport avec la coiffure egyptienne." — Lenorman sur Vlnscript. Grec. de Rosette, pp. 33, 34. These laboured attempts at explanation prove only the existence of an enigma : they do nothing to solve it. But the Egyptian word, coupled with its accompanying hieroglyphic, solves the problem. The Pschent, instead of a ponderous helmet, was its graceful pendant. E 3 54 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. suited Golius. The Arabic alphabet being desti- tute of the letter p, I looked for Pschent under h^ and found immediately l::^UwJ, j^schnt or bishnat, Milii genus, " A kind of millet." The definition appeared, at first view, to interpret the ignotum per ignotius. And I might have given up the point, had I not previously decyphered the en- chorial equivalent for Pschent, viz. '-.'-jy^-'^, cwhar rcird, "a shining jewel," and found, on consulting Johnson, millet defined by Miller, " An oval^ sliming seed^ This definition led me to turn to the corresponding hieroglyphic, which I found rightly under-marked by Young as the Pschent or '•'• insigne:^^ when the truth, and the true form, simultaneously disclosed themselves ; the Pschent proving to be neither crown^ nor head- dress ^ but a royal ornament, the ensign of plenty in the shape of " An oval shini7ig grain of millet, with its stamina and antherae develoj^ed.^^ The appropriateness of the millet seed as an ensign of Egyptian royalty will at once be perceived, when it is recalled to mind, that the prosperity of Egypt, in all ages, has turned on her fruitful harvests ; and that millet has been always her standard crop. " When Mr. Bruce was in Egypt, there had not been one scarce season, from the lowness of the inundation, for thirty-four years; though, during the same THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 55 space, they had three times experienced '■''a famine^ by the great abundance of water ivliich carried away the millet ^ * The appropriateness of the Pschent was ri- valled by its gracefulness and beauty ; this ensign of the Pharaohs and Ptolemies being composed, apparently, of a single pearl, or diamond, of oval form, and of the first magnitude and water, with three gold filaments depending from it, repre- senting the stami^ia; each filament, again, being threaded with five jewels or brilliants, representing the antlierce of the grain of millet. Such an orna- ment in the middle-, on the summit of the crown, or on that of the golden vao^, well merited and justified its enchorial appellation of c .c. ^i'*^^, kuhar rdrd^ " the shining jewel, or pearl," or its hieroglyphic designation of J:.^.:^ cr^-'^' *''^''^^^^' jams, "the ruby millet." f The annexed glypho- graph exhibits Dr. Young's harmony of the three texts : — * Encycl. Britt., art. Egypt. f The Rosetta stone itself supplies material for a second verification- I had read as A 'J or pi. s jii. bahar, haharein, an enchorial word, which Dr. Yonng had rendered "super aurets ajdiculis," conformahly with the Greek text. On consulting Golius, I found, not only that /.j signified Auriim et argentum, and also, tria talenta auri; but that the word was stated by his authority, al Djuhary, to be of Egyptiati origin. lU-M Tria auri talenta dicuntur : quod originis yEggptiaccB videtur esse, ' Gi.'" E 4 56 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. E itAiaAyt^^^wtaimeeai € \ insigne ; Bat the occurrence of the Egyptian word psclient in the Greek inscription, is not only highly important in itself, as demonstrating, so far as a single example can demonstrate, the identity of the ancient Egyptian and old Arabic idioms : it is yet more highly important in another light, as supplying the hint for an inductive proof of the same nature, if other Egyptian words could be recovered, and tested, in like manner, by the Arabic lexicons.* * The occurrence, in the hieroglyphic text of the inscription, of a second Egyptian term for millet, was as unexpected, as it is conclusive. Observing a trilitera! word beside the Psclient, or developed grain, which 4'- 5/, a ^';. THE PEREICRINE FALCON. ITi* E-mblenv arui Insigrv of the Fhaj-aohe. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 57 HOR APOLLO. It was not, however, until after an interval of several years, that I was led to follow up the foregoing verification, while engaged in exa- mining for myself the well-known treatise on Hieroglyphics, by the Egyptian priest, Horapollo. In this very curious work, I found several Egyp- tian words quoted by this native authority, and their pronunciation given in Greek characters. Upon these quotations I stayed to reflect ; for they instantly reminded me of my former experience in the case of the term pschent; and I resolved to pursue the experiment. I did so ; and the result was the recovery of every one of Hora- poUo's Egyptian words in the Arabic lexicon. The first word furnished us by the priest of Bubastis is the Egyptian name for the hawk. " The hawk (he tells us) is denominated by the Egyptians /Sai'-ijQ*, haiethy On reference to the read, by my alphabet, , m.,;^, I looked for it, and found iy.»p^i jams. Milium, milht. Upon this double verification I would only observe, that the whole Arabic lexicon does not contain a third name for this staple grain of Egypt; while, out of its 10,000 roots, or 50,000 words, its two Egyptian names on the Rosetta stone (as decyphered by my alphabet), namely, pschent and jarus, prove to be, also, its two Arabic names. * "Eti ye fx)]v koL avjl ^vx^^^ ^ Upa.^ Taa-aerai, ac ttjj tov uvoixaros fpHrjvfias' KaAilTCii yap ■nap' AlyvnTiois 6 Upa^ Ban] 9 [i,^, buwath, aad 58 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. Arabic lexicon, we at once recover this Egyptian denomination, in c:^*._,«, huiceth, and oy, buhath, Accipiter qui Sacer dicitur. The Saker, or pere- grine falcon. " A falcon, a hawk." Horapollo adds, that the term 3airj5 was compounded of ^ai\ bae, The life, or soul^ and ^'5, eth^ The heart. And its disjecta membra, also, can be traced in the Arabic : in .j or .j ^j, ba, baba, i. q. J^\, asal, Radix, origo. The root, or origin ; and cL>^, ci^-l, afs, atsits, carnosa, succi plena: and, compactas habens carnes ("The solid heart" of the poet). " Fleshy : full of flesh and blood." Thus, in the component parts, we have close approximation to the Arabic : while in the Egyptian word itself, we have absolute identity with the Arabic name, and thing signified. The next help for experiment is supplied by Horapollo in the Egyptian word for thunder. " The Egyptians (he states) style thunder o'jais*, ouaie.'^ And in the Arabic root ^.£,, cO>i.'j buwhath']. Tovto Si rh ovojjia SiaipeOev, xj/vxvv (Truj-aivn Koi KapSiav, (ffTi yap rh fj.\v 0ai', ^vxv ' ''"^ 5e f)d, KapSla. 7] 5e KapSia, Kar^ AtyuTrriovs, xpvxris Trepl§o\os • wme ai]fj.aly€iJ' ti]v ffvvdicnv toC dvdfxaros ipvxv ^yKapSiav. a.(p' o\j koI d l^pa^, Sia t^ ical vphs tV ipvx'fl" (rvfinaOelv, vdcop oil Tf'ipei rh Ka66\ov, aW ai/xa, ai ical i) \f/ux7J rpecpeTai. — IlorapoU. Hieroglyphica, cap. vii. * ^Ci}vr)v 5e naKpudev tSovKdfKVoi Sr)\oi>aai, t Ka\e7Tat irap' AlyvTrriois oi/aii [1,^, (iuwa, ^, daw, ,~., gkaw], aepos (poovriv ypdcpovfft, rovTeari P povrr]v, ■>)! ovSff KaTa became, also, their name for learn- itig.* In this curious account, however, my only con- cern was with the word a-^ai, and its definition, TrXrjpr]^ rpof^v]'. For, if Horapollo's version was correct, and my principle right, the word ought to be found, or, at least, might be found, in its Egyptian sense, in the Arabic lexicon. To the Arabic lexicon, accordingly, I forthwith turned ; and there I found the very word, in Arabic letters, in its Egyptian sense : viz. __^, shbd, shabaw, Satur, satiatus fuit, pa7ie, came c^'C. Pabuli abunde habuit pecus. Saturavit eum pane. Res aut quantitas potis satiare. Satietas. Multus. Quan- tum una vice satiare potest. " Satiety. Enough for one time. The being satiated." "Full to repletion", then, is the common sense * Xt] . Wilis AlyvTTTia ypa.iJ.fiaTa ; AlyviTTta Se ypafi/xaTa SriXowTes .... jxeKav, koI k6(Tkivov koI (rxotvlou (^ioypacpovaiv. AlyuiTTia /xiv ypafxp-ara' Sid to Toirois iravra Trap' AiyvtrTtois ra ypa(p6/j.eva (KreXfTaOai. axoii"fi yap ypd(povffi, koi ovk ^\Aa) nvi. k6(Tkivov 5e, 67rei5>; rh kSctkivov vpSirov inTdpxov (Ticevos dproTrouas, iK (Txoivov yiverai. Sr]- XovcTip o6p, '6ti nas ojx^*' '''V Tpocb))v, /xaOrjaeTat rd ypd/x/j.aTa • d Se fi^ *X'"''> irepa t^xT XP''!"^^''""' ' "'^' "^ ''"' V ''^"■tSeia ■nap' avrols a 6 ai [» _ . :\, shbd^ KaXelrai' (hrep early, fpfxrjvevdeu, ■n\7]p-t]s rpo Tovs '■7ra7oas dpyovvras, Tre/xnovaiu • ol Se /jlt] Svvd/xfvoi, 01) nffiirovaiv. — Cyropadia, cap. ii. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 65 of the common root, (rS(v, ^^, in the Egyp- tian and Arabic idioms. And with this conclu- sive example of their identity, I shall close my observations upon the Rosetta Stone. It will re- main for the candid reader to draw his own infe- rences from the fact, that of four Egyptian words preserved, one on that monument, and three by HorapoUo, one and all, on examination, prove to be pure Arabic words, each in its proper Ara- bic sense.* But this process is the converse, ■ * The catalogue may be enlarged from the following passage of Sir Gardner Wilkinson, accumulating the Egyptian names, preserved in the Classics, for the Automoli, or deserters from the army of Psammeticus, who retired from Egypt into Nubia, where they became a colony : " The exact position of the country they occupied is unknown. He- rodotus places it on the Nile, at about the same distance from Meroe, as this last is from Elephantine, or fifty days' journey ; and adds, that these Automoli (deserters) ' are known by the name of Asmach, which, being translated, signifies Standing on the left hand of the king.'' (ii. 30.) Strabo states (16.) that 'they settled near Meroe, which was afterwards governed by the Queen'; and calls them ' Sebritce, a name implying Strangers.* But Pliny (vi. 30.), on the authority of Aristocreon, reckons 'seventeen days from Meroe to Esar, a city of the Egyptians who fled from Psam- meticus, and who are reported to have lived there 300 years.' " A singular connection may be observed between the names given by different writers to this people and their country. ' Esar (says Pliny) is called, by Bion, Sapen, and is supposed to mean Strangers ; ' and the neighbouring Symbari, Semberit£e, Sambri, and Sembolitis, cannot fail to recall the Sebrits of Strabo ; or the great similarity of the words Shemmo (a stranger), and beri (new), in the ancient Egyptian language. It is not less remarkable that Esar is the pure Arabic word signifying ' the left hand ;' synonymous with Shemal ; and this last is plainly pointed out in the dcr/xax of Herodotus, where the letter x ^^^^ been accidentally changed for the letter \ it so much resembles. It is highly improbable that 240,000 men could have had any duty ' on the left hand of the F G6 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. and, therefore, the measure of the process pre- viously carried on, and terminating in precisely the same result ; namely, the experimental de- cypherment of the enchorial and hieroglyphic inscriptions. HYCSOS. The result of the foregoing experiments upon the specimens of the Egyptian vocabulary pre- served by Horapollo, suggested the application of the same test to one of the most prominent terms in that vocabulary, the Egyptian denomination of one of their own dynasties, that of the Hycsos, or Shepherd-kings. A two-fold etymology of this celebrated title is given in two fragments of Manetho preserved by Josephus. The seeming discrepancy in these passages has been well re- conciled by Jablonski ; who shows, from the text of Manetho, that Hyc^ in the Egyptian, signified, king ; ' a post, moreover, reserved for the sons of tlie monarcli, or the chief persons of the country ; and wc may ratlicr conclude this name to have been given these strangers in consequence of their coming from the left, or north, which was considered the left of the world, and is still so called (Shemal) by the Arabs of the present day." — Vol.i. pp. 153, 154. Upon this passage I shall only observe, tliat the Egyptian synonymes enumerated, viz. Shmal y^\/%J^ji Esar ( j^S-j and Sham {J\J^) the left, are all pure Arabic words ; and all three, as in the ancient Egyptian, synonymes for the left, or the left hind. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. G7 primarily, to (lird or hind, and Sos, a shepherd, whence the compound Hyc-sos, denoting Shep- herds girt ivith the ensigns of royalty, passed into a title of honour, Hycsos, or Shepherd-kings. * * 'EKoAfrro Se ffvfjLirav aiTuy eOvos 'TKSHS ' rovTo Se i Vinum, in Golius. I state the fact (of which I have noted ample proofs), not in depreciation of the work, but to guard students against the vulgar error of supposing, that, because they possess Freytag's lexicon, they can dispense with that of Golius : of whom it has been truly said by Sir William Jones, that " the palm of glory in this branch of literature is due to Golius, whose works are equally profound and elegant ; so perspi- r 3 70 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYl'T. The quality of wine^ and absolutely Wine. The cognate root ;:J, kanaz^ next occurred, and in the actual signification of the Egyptian term vJ, xo'vSu, viz. y^, Scyphus parvus: "A small flagon, or wine-vessel." The philological value of the passage in which this Egyptian term occurs, is enhanced by the peculiarity of expression in the Hebrew text, as well as in the LXX. version : in the former the word J^O.1, instead of DO, cmcas, a wine-cup, occurs five times, being the only examples of its use, excepting once (Jer. xxxv. 5.), where it has no equivalent in the LXX. ; in the latter, the equivalent term, xovduj occurs also five times*, cuous in method, that they may always be consulted 'w-ithout fatigue, and read without languor, yet so abundant in matter, that any man, who shall begin with his noble edition of the grammar compiled by his master Erpenius, and proceed, with the help of his incomparable dictionary, to study his History of Taimur by Ibni Arabshah, and shall make him- self complete master of that sublime work, will understand the learned Arabic better than the deepest scholar at Constantinople or Mecca," — Asiatic Researches, vol, ii. pp. 4, 5. * The passage of the LXX., witli the lights thrown on it by the scho- liasts and paraphrasts, is here subjoined : Th k6vSv ixou rd apyvpovv (/x6d\eTe tls tov fxapcrnnrov toG yecoTfpov. "iva Tf fK\e\paTe fjLov to k6vZv ro apyvpovv ; ou tovto tariv iv cp nifet d Kvpios fiov, avTos 5e olooviiTixcfi otuut^(TO.i iu aiirw. Tlap' di hv ivprjs rd icdvSv tuiv TraiSwu aov, anoOvricrKerat. Vlap" w hu evpeOp to KdfSv, laTai jxov irais. Kal (vpe TO KdwSu iv Tca /xapcr'nriro} tov Bepiaixiu. KSpdvj Pocuhan, calix, scyphus. V^'^i, Scyphus, crater: Gen. xliv. 2. (ubi vide Montf.) 12. 16, 17. DID, Calix: les. li. 17. (ubi dua3 thp: monuments of egyi't. 71 being the only examples of its use, excepting once (Is. li. 17.), where it is used interchangeably with TTOTrjplov, versiones coakierunt) et 22. Suidas, et Lex, Cyrilli, MS. Brem. : K6v5v, TTOTTjpiov. Gloss, ill Octateuch. ; K6i'5v, TTOT-rjpiov ^a, i. e. cTKoApw, cTKatrTw. Vide 478. Athena;i, ubi constat forma sua orbiculari. Vide et Relandl Diss. Miscell. P. i. p. 218. seq. ac Sturz. de dial. Maced. p. 91 Gesenius in voc- *y3J.] Aquila, (TKvcpos. Symmachus, (pidk-q. Hieronymus, Pro KovZv, i. e. poculo, quod etiam in Esaia legimus. Aq. Scyphum, Sym. Phialam, transtulerunt. Scyphus, sic interpres noster Vulg. Onkelos S^T'?3, quod affinitatem habet cum calido: unde calicem dictam existimat Festus : nam eo caJida bibebantur. Jonathan |''3J''K (quod non intel- llgo). y''3J, formam diversam habebat a D13, (\\\oA poculum sonat. [Yet 013, as well as y''!13, we have seen rendered by k6v^v, ap. Is. li. 17.] Moses de Kotsi ait, CD''y33, pocula significare qualia sunt Alexandrina [i.e. Egyptian wine-cups'^. K6vZv etlam poc«/^^?« interpretantur: sed Hesy- chius additj/KH'&arzcwm fuissepoculum ; et Pollux, Persicum; et Atliena3us, Asiaticum, quod cotylas decern capiebat. — Drusius in voc. k6uSv, ap. Crit. Sacr. in Gen. xliv. 2. Scyphum autem meum argenteum'] LXX. rh k6vZv, quod pocull Attalici genus esse ait Athensus. Aquila OKixpov {scyphum) ; Symmachus, (j)idA7ii> (phialam'). — Grotius. Scyphum meum'] y^J, scyjihus. Ita Hieron. quem nunc seeutus sum. LXX. tJ) /c(5i'5u. Interpres, Condy meam. Q,md co7idy? Lexicon Hesychii, icouSu, voTr]piov fiapSapiKov , Kv/xGiov. Sed diversum esse KnuSv, ab eo quod Grreci kv/j-Slov appellant, patet ex loco quodam Hipparchi, ubi simul duo ha'c nomina leguntur. Locus extat in 11. Athensei. Ceterum Nicomachus, Persicum esse poculum scribit, ut Athena?us, Asiaticum, decem cotylarum capax. Mercerus annotat, iEcrPTiAM vocem esse vi- DEiii. — Drusiiis, Nota Majores in loc. Gen. Amidst these consentient, or conflicting, authorities, the meaning of the word /coV5u is as completely hidden, as the cup itself was in Benjamin's y 4. 72 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. The recovery of two pure Egyptian alphabets upon the Rosetta Stone, — the enchorial, identical with that of Sinai, and the hieroglyphic, possess- ing several characters in connnon with the en- chorial, and others in common with the Hamya- ritic alphabets of Southern Arabia, — naturally drew my attention, in the next place, to the pri- mitive sources whence the Rosetta alphabets themselves were derived, the monuments of the Pharaohs. The substantial identity of the Egyp- tian alphabets of all ages became here soon ap- parent. The characters of Rosetta and Sinai, of liisn Ghorab and Mareb, continually presented themselves to the eye, intermingled with the hie- roglyphic figures ; and the powers of those cha- racters proved to be in strict correspondence with their forms, when tested by the severe ordeal of success in explaining each figure and action sack. We may, however, ask: Is it likely, that a vessel measuring nearly a gallon (^decern cotylas) was drunk out of by Joseph, or concealed in a sack's mouth by his steward ? One point is agreed on : the cup, and therefore the name, were of Eastern origin. The most sensible remark is that of Mercerus, after Moses de Kotsi. Both were Egyptianf. From the other explanations " dark with excess of light," how pleasing to return to the Arabic lexicon, and the true etymology of the word kov^v, viz. Jjiijj or Jijj, " A small flagon or wine-vessel." Let the learned reader compare this etymon with Gesenius's, .Jcjo? isJoti, or '^cjt^ hdtdat, hiidat, or hatat; and, after comparison, respectively, of sounds and senses, judge for himself. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 73 (however obscure or complicated) of the accom- panying pictorial representations. A series of select specimens of these successful results shall now be submitted to the reader : be- ginning with the simpler alphabetic characters and hieroglyphic figures; and advancing progressively to the decypherment of some of the most interest- ing and important monuments — monuments, in more examples than one, confessedly of a date approximating to that of the Deluge ; contempo- rary with some of the earliest events in Scripture history ; and recording, at once, the most awful fact, and the most glorious truth, of patriarchal revelation. In an early stage of my progress, it was once said to me by a learned friend, himself deeply conversant with the idiom of the Old Testament : " You have given us some specimens of inscrip- tions accompanied by figures of animals, in which the name of each animal, a noun substantive, stands beside the figure. Let your alphabet only be constructed on this principle, and it will be irrefragable." I accept the friendly challenge : although exacting more than ever, I believe, has been exacted, hitherto, from the decypherers of unknown tongues : premising only, that (were it my object to do so) in Egypt at least, owing to the multitude and variety of its pictorial 74 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. monuments, not only could I construct, but re- construct the same alphabet again and again, from as many independent series of pictorial inscriptions. It will suffice, however, for my proper object, to give a few clear and simple specimens of this nature : namely, hieroglyphic inscriptions, in which each animal appears with its name, a noun substantive, above, below, or beside it.* In entering more at large uj^on this line of proof (of which a specimen is already before the reader in the cartouches from Champollion with the names and figure of the lion), I would premise once for all, that the ' object proposed * Champolliou had the good sense to acknowledge and adopt the principle, however mistaken, as he too commonly is, in his own exem- ])lifications of it : he speaks of "certains mots, suffisamment determines d'ailleurs, par le caractere-image, ou determinatif figuratif." (^Gr. Eg. p. 74.) To this class of words, it is, I first address myself. It may here be observed once for all, that the legends, in alphabetic cha- racters, intermingled with the hieroglyphic figures, prove uniformly to relate to the animals or objects represented, and not to the gods or the kings supposed to be indicated by those animals. And this is only the natural order. For the Egyptians carved their inscri})tions for themselves, and not for foreigners. But t/iei/ knew perfectly trftat gods or kings the objects portrayed designated ; and could have no need to chronicle the names of those gods or kings for their own information. They confine themselves, accordingly, to the names, qualities, and actions of the ani- mals depicted : a kind of natural history. The consequence is, that they leave us almost in the dark as to the mystic sense of the hieroglyphics, where a mystic sense existed. What was clear as the daylight to them, becomes, to foreign nations, and future times, obscure as midnight dark- ness: a darkness not dispelled, but only rendered more palpable, by the dim twilight of Greek and Roman versions of the hieroglyphics. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 75 throughout the present work is, not the theore- tical reconstruction of an unknown scientific grammar, but the experimental recovery of a lost vocabulary. This is the Baconian principle, the only true one : a principle as applicable to philology as to philosophy : which would arrive at general conclusions by an induction of facts ; instead of vainly seeking after facts through the medium of preconceived general conclusions. If Ave have the vocabulary of a language, even to a very moderate extent, we have its alphabet : if we have the alphabet and vocabulary, we have, at least, the seeds of its grammar. This gram- mar, in all primitive tongues, as the reason of the case might well prepare us to anticipate, will, it is believed, invariably be found of the simplest conceivable kind and construction. I have else- where noticed vestiges of such rude forms of speech, both in oral remains of primitive Eu- ropean dialects, and in the patois of the Gipsies. It is presumed that nothing more can be re- quired for the establishment of the proof, than the production of matter-of-fact evidence, that the unconstructed idiom here described once actually existed, not only as a spoken, but as a written language. For the knowledo-e of the fact that such a Ian- guage did once exist, I am indebted to the truly 76 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. learned reviewer of the First Part of my work in the Journal Asiatique, ^M. Garcin de Tassy. This eminent orientalist has shown that the most ancient form of the Hindostanee exhibits (though as he conceives from a different cause) precisely the phenomena attributed to the one primeval language, as described and exemplified throughout the present work. The passage is too important to be given in any but the author's own words. " C'est j^recisement cette meme langue primi- tive que M. Forster croit trouver ici (a Sinai), comme dans les inscriptions hamyarites: ce langue antique dont la simplicite severe rejette, selon lui, I'emploi presque total des prepositions, des conjonctions, des inflexions, des declinaisons, des modes, des temps, des voix, des prefixes et des suffixes, en un mot, de tous les accidents du discours qui sont regies par la grammaire. On trouve UN phenomene semblable dans les OUVKAGES HINDIS LES PLUS ANCIENS. Mais ici, c'est par une raison bien differente de celle que donne M. Forster de la simplicite primitive. La langue hindi ou indienne succeda a une langue d'un mccanisme artistement combine, d'une sa- vante complication et d'une exuberante richesse de formes et de desinences grammaticales. La reaction eut son tour, et voulut rc^duire ce THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 77 langue si parfait a la plus grande simplicite. C'est ainsi qu'on vint a parler et a ecrire d'une maniere presque inintelligible, tant I'accessoire grammatical des mots fut neglige." Upon the important case of fact enunciated in this statement, it is obvious to remark, that, in the first place, it completely sets aside all ante- cedent negative objections to the existence of such a language ; and, secondly, that it supplies written exemplifications of that absence, nearly total, of all the accidents of speech, which, on experimental analysis, had been previously found to characterize every primitive branch of the one primeval tongue. With respect to the cause of the phenomenon in the most ancient form of the Hindostanee, I would venture only to suggest the probability that the reaction of which M. de Tassy speaks consisted, not in the creation of a new unconstructed idiom, but in a return to the simplicity of the primitive language of mankind. The probability seems sustained by the whole history and analogy of language, which has always advanced from the simple to the complex ; which, as Bishop Warburton has most justly ob- served, " was at first extremely rude, narrow, and equivocal, the art of enlarging language by a scientific analogy being a late invention." But the unintelligihility of tlie ancient Hindos- 78 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. tanee, as described by M. de Tassy, throws a new and invaluable light upon the origin of hiero- glyphic writing. It is self-evident, that, without the aids of grammar, the meanings of words must be most uncertain, the meanings of sen- tences most obscure. Such, we have seen, was the result in the most ancient Hindoo dialect, in the absence, at once, of grammar, and of pic- torial illustrations. In the absence of grammar, pictorial illustration afforded the obvious and only remedy ; and, accordingly, we find it co- piously employed, not by the Egyptians only, but by other primitive nations. If the Egyptians were not the first to make the discovery, they were, at least, the most successful in appro- priating it. The discovery itself, however, would seem coeval with the history of man ; and hiero- glyphics, the interpreters of the first written language. We proceed with examples of their interpre- tative uses, beginning with figures of animals, in Pharaonic cartouches of the simplest form. The Lion. (Cartouches containing his name, and attitude or action.) No. 1. Subject: a lion passant, surmounting the piers of a pro-naos, or gateway. Inscription THE MONUMEJJTS OF EGYPT. 79 — ' CJ, nahhat, Rugiens Ico. " A roaring lion." Hieroglyphic publislied by the Egyptian Society, pi. 68. facing the head cijI^j, nahhat^ Eugiens ho: a roaring Imi : or the lion roars. " Roaring as a liony — mdiardson. Or, taken substantively, ij:,^i£^l, Leo. A lion. Nos. 2. and 3. Subject: in both cartouches, above, a lion couchant, below, a dove. Inscrip- tion in No. 2., N LC^^J^fH], \ar\dahi har^ Leo gannivit ad eum. The lion yelps, whines, growls at any one. The inscription is repeated in No. 3., but accompanied there by a second, belonging to the dove: viz. ^U?- *li, nam hamam^ moans or cooes the dove. The devices, in these adjoining cartouches, face each other; and the legends, accordingly, are written both ways. The prac- * " When we find the same words, letter for letter, and in a sense pre- cisely the same, in different languages, we can scarcely hesitate in allow- ing them a common origin." — Sir W, Jones's IForks, vol. i. p. 1.'39. 80 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. The lion. .&', liar, Yelps. Leo. »j^5 har, Gannivit. Uj na?n, i. q. i^U an, Gemuit. Mourns, cooes. V^^__0/ At*,r^, hamam, Co y^ PN ' lumba, turlur. The dove: the turtle-dove. tice of writing, indifferently, from right to left, and from left to right, will be found general, not in Egypt only, but in all the primitive nations and idioms of mankind. The cartouches Nos. 4, 5, 6, 7., from the Florgnce Sarcophagus, published by Dr. R. Lep- sius, Tat. X., contain the one subject, and the one A J .£, urin. The lion's den, also. Princes and chiefs >Si. of the people. ^'^ ^ in Nos. 4, 5., and •;, ndr in Nos. 6,7. In which case, each legend will be found illustrative of both the devices ; am denoting the haunt or layer of the lion, and ndr (sonum bom- bumne emisit per nares — " snoring") the snor- ing of the owl. However this may be, under the figure of a sleeping lion, seems obviously represented the tenant of the sarcophagus. «A-Sh asad, Leo. A lion. U'^Sl The last No., 8., from a stone in the Louvre, contains the fore-quarter of a lion, and his name, a noun substantive, beside him. It is remarkable here, that, read either way, the word is still a lion: viz. ^J,, asad, or ^^LwS dawas, Leo. A lion. As the inscriptions usually run in the di- rection of the animals, the former is the proper reading. The following examples add three additional names of the lion : G 82 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. Li lifiJ•^-!^J AaJi? Avidecaptavitpraeda ^^i»ic, y,-V«r4.>^, mumtana, Validus et generosus leo. " A strong lion." ^ n ^i. D /♦M, razam, Leo. The lion. y -^^ ^' i Anna, Inflexit, demisit so. Croucliing. U^> wiSfl, Extendi! se. Stretches himself out. Ml /fc^Usji') Afl/ai, Leo. A lion. (_5*£> dw, Latravit, ululavit. Barks, yelps. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 83 The Sphinx. In the small temple between the paws of the sphinx, discovered by Captain Caviglia, occur two couchant figures of sphinxes, with inscrip- tions describing the attitude and action^ and the word , ^Lj, dawivds, " Lion," in front of each figure. The longer of the inscriptions is as follows: — ^, bemfji, Vox gravissima: bassus vulgo^ " Deep-voiced," ^U, mdi, Extendit (se), " Stretches itself out," ^^Lj, dawwds^ " The lion," ^^jo^i hasbasaty "Caudam motitavit," "Lash- ing its tail." The shorter legend is simply, bemm mdi dawwds^ "Deep-voiced, stretches itself out, the lion." Examples similarly in point, under this and the following heads, might be multiplied almost at will, since they are nearly co-extensive with the hieroglyphic monuments of Egypt : in which, allowing fairly for exceptions, it may be stated as the rule, that the name of each animal repre- G 2 84 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT- sented usually stands beside or near the figure, as regularly as the legend accompanies the de- *-'> iew, Vox gravissima, t'M/go bassus. A deep bass voice. ; ^cVci mai, Extendit (se). " Stretching " (himself). />~1»l)) dawas, Leo. " A lion." THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 85 vice on coins or medals. But my duty is to establish, not to exhaust the proof. o *.S bcm. Vox gravissima, vulgo bassus. A deep bass voice (i. e. a roar). Xxj ma/, Extendit (se). " Stretching" (himself). ^wU J, darods, Leo. " The lion." /ka* 6ciJj) amah, and r^ or r>r^'' hharm, or aJchram, a word literally signifying clo- ven-lipped (qui fissum labium habet), and hence (though no longer used as a proper name in Arabic) manifestly an Egyptian name for the hare. A fourth word might be mentioned, namely, -\J, karnak, '^ A leveret," which occurs over a playful young hare. ir^ HlV/ arnab, Lepus. " A hare.' f\dH, I '.[•A ^U sua, Cucurrit, assilivit. " Runs leaping." " They are extremely swift in tht-ir motion, which is a succession of quick leaps." — Enc. Britt. ^'J\\ arnaJ, Lepus. "A hare.' -5 A/?(i, Festinare jussit » ^^ Urging to speed. Going at full speed. (^^^^'♦S amaj, Vehemenciore incessit gressu. jc Ji^' dari, Decepit, circumvenit prxdam. Quo hoc fieret, Latuit post aliquam rem VerMlor Circumvents the prey the hunter, lying concealed. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 87 /♦tc)» darimat, Lepus. " A hare." ^jl) nffr, Terrorem concepit. Tiraidus. Timorous: Terrified. aU>-, hum, OhWxt: rem circumlatus fuit. " Skimming in circles." > " The hare never runs straigiit forward, but always doubles about." Enc. Britt. * ' * ^ L5^ '^""'' ^y^^^- (Canls ?) jS'J J nefar, Fugax et pavidum animal. Frightened and flying animal. i^--c\i rt»!n/, Vehementiore incessit gressu. y^S-h aaln, Amplis oculis prasdita. ^ Running at full speed. Large-eyed. ' 1, »aOTi Fugitivus. The fugitive. £r^ ) ramd, Festinavit. Celer fuit. Innuit manibus suis. Hastes, or Makes signs with the hands. •^^i^:^:^^- ^j^i kharm, Qui fissum habet labium. Hare-lipped ? 1 »/< \^_^^'> toatl, Pedem imposuit solo. Conculcavit rempede. Putting the feet to the ground : pounding^[it] with the feet. ^^> n«>-, Fugit. Flying. Flight. j*.=>-b acAarw, Qui fissum habet /aJJMW. Hare-lipped. Hare. jA^-., hamar, Velociter incessit. Going at speed. l*>SJ.4>>-5 hamharn ('?), ^icsjJ ? nahnah, Reciprocavit sonum in gutture. ' ^ Breathing hard : panting. /♦U) >2«?n, Vox debilis, et occulta seu submissa. Vel 1*5^5 nHyii, Dormi. ' vit. " Sleeping." ' " A weak, low, submissive voice." (Cry of hare.) HV-Cjii^ darimat, Lepus. " A hare." jjij aur, Terrorem concepit. Seized with fright. Terrified, ■vwv^j " The Timidus or common hare." — Enc. Brit. The Egyptians, 'Wv/Vs' like ourselves, describe the hare from its leading characteris- tic, cowai-dice. G 4 88 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. n ~4 I /«lj) nam. Vox debilis, et occulta seu subraissa. (The fetble cry of the hare.) ^ It)? ^-Ojy^i darimat, Lepus. " A hare." i«b 0(7>-, Terrorem concepit. " Takes fright." h ]. A iw7 (/(rr(/«(7/, Lepus. " A hare." 2. /»%-S nnu)«/, Dormivit. "Sleeps." 3. Ui?j5 rasa, Inhaesit loco: mansit in eo niinime excedens. "Stationary." /♦I— 1 (/«mnfl<, Lepus. "A hare." .•h rtMf, Terrorem concepit. " Seized with fright." I I I vWAa /iw1«^» merwas, Cursu praBcedentium primus. " First in the race." I- -J I'l amah, Lepus. " A hare." i«Jj ««A, Caput extulit. " Raises her head." r^^ i-U acharm. Qui fissum habet labium, i. c. " Hare-lipped " (hence name for hare). ^3, nn/, Celer fuit, properavit. Swift. Going at full speed. O ^ ^^^ ^j^k-l, acharm, Qui fissum habet /aJi'wOT. Hare-lipped; Arnct! Hare. _4,>-j hamar, Velociter incessit. " Going swiftly." \l\)i renna, Pavidus fuit. Timidus. Timid. The hare. *iSS'' wnAnw, Cum vehementia in pectore spiritum duxit. Multum ?•«/). 1 Drawing a thick breath, r.mtlng. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 89 Of the three names here exemplified, darim or darimat^ it will be noticed, occurs five times, arnabj thrice, and kharm or akhrJiam, four times. When it is remembered that there are ten thou- sand roots in the Arabic language, and, conse- quently, a vast amount of probabilities, in each example, against any save the true alphabet re- turning the required name, the recurrence, in all the examples, no less than twelve times, of three different names for the hare, presents, upon the doctrine of chances, a compound ratio of evidences, the amount of which it must be left to a La Place or a Morgan to compute. In the word darlmat, the Hebrew scholar will notice with interest, in the initial d, the exact form of the Hebrew daleth, "T ; and, in this identification, will recognize one among several proofs of the derivation of the present Hebrew alphabet, from the alphabetic prototypes on the Pharaonic monuments of Egypt. It will not escape the reader's observation, as an important adjunct to the proof, that the in- scriptions accompanying the hare, contain, be- sides the name, the well-known habits of the animal, its timid fear, and its rapid flight. And, with these, the attitude and action of the hiero- glyphic figure uniformly correspond. The hare is commonly depicted startled from its form, and in full flight. 90 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. The Goose : the Duck. The following illustrations present hiero- glyphic figures of the goose, and the duck, with their common, and most usual, Arabic denomi- nations, j. 01* J J, wazz or iwazz, and k,, hatt, beneath or beside the birds. The characters in the first example are remarkable for their essen- tial identity with the Hamyaritic a and z of Southern Arabia. The z, indeed, both in form and power, is preserved in the Ethiopic: but, although the form exists in every quarter of the globe, the true power of the character -ti wahuiah, Raucisonam emisit vocem. C_ " Making a hoarse noise." THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 93 ftn oe t jjf wazz, Anas. " A duck.' •■2^, bahbah, Raucisonam vocememisit. " Making a hoarse noise." C^^i bat, Fatuus. " Foolish, fatuitous." seu iJJ.^w.J, beshbesh, Lffititiam et lubentiam demonstravit. Exulting. Of ) '» ""• Vociferantis et increpantis ■ ^— -^ A loud, scolding voice. k;, bat, Anas. " A duck.' ^Ij'i arir, Vocis sonus, vociferatio. Vociferous. Vociferation. The Owl. We will next submit a few examples of the owl^ the most frequent in its occurrence of all the hieroglyphics of Egypt. In each ex- 94 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. ample, the reader will find one or other of its two Arabic names, i^U, hamat, or y>u> naliar, over /■/ iJ or under the bird. A third term, ^^j, darum, occurs under the owl in a single instance ; and the definition of the word, Qui venit, abitque noctu^ " one who comes and goes in the night," is a sufficient voucher that it, also, was an Egyp- tian name for the noctua, or bird of night. Nahar, properly denotes a male owl: a cir- cumstance which may enable the ornithologist further to test the just application of the name, by reference to its accompanying hieroglyphic. The inscription, to which we now come, afi'ords an exemplification. For here we observe two owls, a smaller and a larger ; the one, it may be THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 95 presumed, female, and the other male. And the names vary accordingly : before the female, the word is simply hdmat^ Bubo ; but before the male, it is nahar^ Bubo mas, or " A male owl." /(a^ e^ 3-=D JjJj «5/,Sonitus,vox, "Sound.voice." j^ 1 ndr, Sonum bombumve emisit per nares. " Snoring." -»? wahad. Solus. Solitudo. Solitarius et ab aliis scparatus. Lonely, solitary, alone. VJJj ruffa, Seorsim recessit. " Seceding, sitting apart." J&U5 na/iar, Bubo mas, " The male owl." It is Gray's description : — " Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower, The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such, as wand'ring near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign." . ^X>5 ndl, Nuncius mortis, " The messenger of death." " The ancients thought them [the bubo], lilte the scrtech- owls, the messengers of death." — Enc. Britt. art. Strix. a\j, nahar. Bubo mas, A he-owl, and Fluvius, flumen, " A river.' r\ Ci-V' '^"'' ^°""''' gcmuit, vociferatus fuit. Moaning: vociferous. )^ r r;"* '""'""■) ^"I^o ™as, " A he-owl," and Fluvius, flu- " men, " A river." THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 99 TJie Dove. After the falcon and the owl, the dove is, per- haps, the bird of most frequent occurrence in the hieroglyphics. And, as in most examples in which characters occur along with the pictorial figures, the figure of the dove is usually accom- panied by one or other of its Arabic names. As the names for the dove are few, their occurrences are the more marked. be?n. Vox gravissima. A deep voice. *J 15 rannm, Gemuit columba. Coos the dove. <^^/*>^, ranfw??/, Palumbes foem. A female ringdove. The Ostrich. The subjoined glyphograph presents no fewer than eight groups, or flocks, of the ostrich, with one or other of three Arabic names of this giant of the feathered tribes ; viz. j^, hik^ juj^, hikam^ and j^ji, hird^ standing beside each group. H 3 102 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. /JMJ^, hlk, Struthiocatnelus mas. A male ostrich. t VWAVrt /jljJbj hilc, &c., et /•-' 15 ranam, Striduit pennis. Rustling, making a sound with the wing). /Www (•^^T?^' ^?Aa»j (bis), Struthiocamelus mas. The male ostrich. — I V^-' 1 221 1?% i*^ L^^' The ostrich rustles with its wings. 2* C!0'>''^~*Q M^f^' '"^' '^''^ male ostrich. tiJbj hird, Struthlocamela foem. The female ostrich. /»-u&lj a/«A:, LongicoUis. " Long-nccked." (?) cjb uwt. ^> Aves simul congregate. Birds in flocks. " I I i_>->^> '"/i^. Struthiocamelus mas. The male ostrich. /V r ' *■ *■ ' j»J» nur, Fugit: fugamccpit. Flees: takes flight. It3't>, dada, Vehcmcnti cursu latus fuit camclvs. Borne along in headlong flight, &c. tr THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 103 The Zodiac of Tentyra supplies six more spe- cimens, and two fresh Arabic names, of the ostrich, both standing and running. Each name, as in the preceding examples, stands beneath, above, or beside the bird. The additional names, here, are oL^j, raaa^ Struthiocamelus foem., A female ostrich, and ^\jij-, rafraf^ Struthioca^ melus, A male ostrich. The last of these examples claims our special attention. The Arabic word rafraf signifies both a male ostrich, and a kind of sparrow. And in the place of the Tentyra planisphere referred to, the sparrow appears along with the ostrich, be- side, or rather in the word. The proof supplied in this twofold verification of the one alphabetic root by its pictorial representatives, while obvious to the general reader, will have peculiar interest with the impartial philologist ; who will always remember the amount of the evidence, upon the doctrine of chances, where one of the ten thou- sand roots of the Arabic tongue thus stands confronted with the two animals, and the only two animals, whose name it represents. The phenomenon is of frequent recurrence, as already shown under the head owl. Its value as a test of the alphabet increases, therefore, in compound H 4 104 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. ratio. For these further examples, the reader is referred to the Zodiac itself. Tlie Horse. The HORSE, so conspicuous in the chariots of conquerors on the monuments of the Pharaohs, is among the rarest figures of animals in the hieroglyphics properly so called. In the collec- tions, however, of Champollion and Lepsius, a few specimens (nearly the only ones I have met with) are to be found. And as each specimen occurs with a word standing beside it, it became matter of interest to ascertain whether the word (as in the case of all the other hieroglyphic animals) would prove to be a name of the horse. The experiment was the more important for the pur- poses of evidence, as the words in question were two only; one occurring in six examples, and the other in nine. The following are engravings of the first set of examples : — on on on nn v] ^ ii ^L m^ I B 3 C — ■^ ac ?= ^ .'P ^ r-^ CO (C O 53 £ _, o ^l :-l" Is i THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 105 The word in three characters, common the reader will observe to all the above examples, I read, by the previously formed alphabet, as ~^, hajan. And on looking for it fomid .^.^siJS' hajin^ Mare Arabico, foemina alia, genitus equus. " A horse bred by an Arab sire from a foreign mare." In other words, the horse of Egypt, a mixed breed, half Arab and half Egyptian, celebrated in all ages for its beauty, strength, and agility ; and forming, successively, down to the present day, the chief arm of the Saracenic, the Mame- louk, and the Turkish armies. But the last of the foregoing specimens sup- plies a second word, also in three characters, or rather in one character thrice repeated. The character Champollion has treated as a nume- ral, and its triple recurrence, as the sign of the plural number: his sole ground for the former inference being this, that the character I is so used on the Rosetta stone ; where, in its single, double, and triple occurrence, it certainly represents (as De Sacy was the first to discover) the numbers 1, 2, and 3. Now, hence to argue that the character 1, must always denote the number 1 , is precisely the same as to conclude that the Roman letter I, because used as a numeral, must, therefore, always stand for the 106 TUE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. number 1. And so of all our Roman letters, which stand, alternately, for letters and for numbers. On the face of the case, therefore, it is obvious, that very different grounds of proof must be forthcoming to justify so sweeping a conclusion, from that contained in a single pre- cedent on the Rosetta stone. But granting him, for argument's sake, his first untenable position, by what process of rea- soning, I would ask, does M. Champollion arrive at his second ? — namely, that because the signs I, II, III, stand for the numbers 1, 2, and 3, in the Rosetta hieroglyphic inscription, therefore the group ill, representing number 3, must always stand for the plural number. The as- sumption admits not of discussion : it is at once self-destructive; for it is directly at variance with the ascertained fact, that the group I II on the Rosetta stone stands for the number 3, and for neither more nor less, as the signs I and 1 1 also stand for 1 and 2, and for nothing else. Now the group III, 1 found continually oc- curring under the figures of horses, mules, asses, oxen, and generally of beasts of burthen. That it was not Champollion's plural number I had, on the above grounds, abundantly satisfied my- self. The question remained what it was : or what it did really denote. I was first led to test THE MONUxMENTS OF EGYFr. 107 the matter experimentally, on finding the group in question under nine figures of horses, being, with the foregoing six, all the examples of the horse I had hithero met with. This second series of illustrations is submitted to the reader in the following engravings : — ODD Lono- familiar with the fact that, in the Arabic lexicons, the first letter of the alphabet, \ a, stands both for . u, and ^_j {, and is con- tinually substituted for them, I at once applied this Arabic usage to the Egyptian group in question, which, if a ho?id fide word, was likely to contain more than one vowel. I read it, ac- cordingly, as J^, and, on looking for the word, found the whole mystery at once unravelled. For the root \^ proved to denote, primarily, a 108 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. wild ass, and then, horse, mule, ass, ox, in a word, all beasts of burthen. Here is its defini- tion : j^, wai^ " Onager : pecul. bene commensa corporis constitutione, atque inde etiam de equo et aliis dicitur.^Mm et Yelox et validum jumen- tum;" An active and strong beast of burthen. Accordingly the last of the preceding illustra- tions is one of draught horses in a quadriga. The definition prepares us for oxen as well as horses. And here, accordingly, they are. The Ox. I a a i?r? 4 ^ f!. But the word J^ signifies, also and espe- cially, a well-fed animal, or an animal in good condition ; and hence is found, occasionally, as above, under the figure of a ram. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 109 I would take this opportunity of observing, once for all, that the whole Champollion system of Egyptian numerals is as ideal as the rest of his hieroglyphic system. The groups which he mistakes for numbers, being uniformly letters and words, explanatory of the figures among which they are disposed: single letters being frequently repeated again and again in the same word, for the sake of intensiveness ; and, in examples of large flocks and herds of cattle es- pecially, of conveying the idea, apparently, of indefinitely large numbers. It is observable of the hieroglyphic figures of the horse, that, like paintings of the French school, they are generally in action. The Egyptians, however, when they chose, knew per- fectly well how to represent the horse fatigued and at rest. A striking example occurs in the plate prefixed to this topic. I would close it with a second. Here is a specimen of a fatigued horse, standing at ease, with an inscription de- scribing what is pictorially represented, I 1 --. Li.'i «M«, Quievit. Stands at rest. ^~- ^ ri-r^' tnana, DehWitAvit et defatigavit eum iter. Weakened and wearied bt/ his journey. ^ -U.ri«7 manah, Debilitas. Debility. >, I I I g'»> wa'i, Equus. The horse, or The draught horse. 110 THE MONUSIENTS OF EGYPT. The subject of the tablet of the horse-breakers, with its explanation in a single word, is one of those cases in which the evidence in proof of the decypherment is so clear and simple as to require only exhibition. I should, accordingly, have left the Plate to tell its own story, without a word of note or comment, were not this expe- rimentura crucis one of sufficient importance to justify the mention of the circumstances attend- ing this decypherment. A friend brought me a newly published volume containing this tablet, for the purpose of trying whether any light could be thrown on the picture from its inscrip- tion. Immediately on looking at the single central word, I told him the word was ■^,,.v, tls ; but that full light could hardly be expected from one monosyllable. I opened the lexicon, however, at the root ^^s tis, and, to his great surprize and my own as great satisfaction, read the primary definition: viz. "Exercuit et ob- sequentem reddidit equum^ Exercising and taming the horse. That the one word should thus give the double action of the picture ; it being, perhaps, the only one, out of 50,000 Arabic words, capable of doing so, and that it should be fixed on impromptu from among its 10,000 roots; is, on the doctrine of chances, an amount of 10 EGYPTIAN FIG-CARDEN- THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. Ill proof, which it is easier to indicate than to compute. The Unicorn. Notwithstanding the consentient testimonies of the ancients, who have described, and of modern travellers, who profess to have seen, the animal, the existence of the unicorn, — a creature of the horse species, armed with a single horn set in the forehead, — has been long relegated among the fables of natural history. The idea of its being the rhinoceros, entertained by some writers, is merely one of those expedients by which difficulties are evaded, without being overcome. Without canvassing the notion fur- ther, it seems sufficiently disposed of by the description of the unicorn in the 29th Psalm : — " He maketh them, also, to skip like a calf: Lebanon and Sirion, like a young unicorn." The passage was pointed out to me by a youthful friend in this connection, with the just remark, that " The rhinoceros could not skip." It can, indeed, run, or rather shuffle along, with con- siderable speed ; but to bound or spring seems wholly incompatible with the form of so un- wieldy a creature. The ancients, on the contrary, conformably 112 THE MONUMENTS OE EGYPT. with the scriptural representations of its qualities, have, with one accord, described the unicorn as a species of horned wild ass. Aristotle, who dwells most upon its formidable properties and powers (said to give it the mastery in combats with the elephant and the lion), is sustained in his descrip- tion of the animal by the later concurrent autho- rities of iElian and Pliny. Pliny's words, which make the unicorn a native, not of Mesopotamia, but of India, are few but full : " excepto asino Indico, qui uno armatus est cornu :" * " The Indian ass excepted, who is armed with one horn." In support of these testimonies, " Dr. Sparman in- forms us, that the figure of the unicorn described by the ancients has been found delineated by the Snese Hottentots on the plain surface of a rock in Caffraria ; and therefore conjectures, that such an animal either does exist at present in the internal parts of Africa, or at least once did so. Father Lobo affirms that he had seen it."f And the statement of this learned Jesuit (if needing confirmation) seems accredited by more recent accounts, especially by the report in Frazer's Tour to the Himmalas, where we are told that " it is found in the plains of Tibet." X * Hist. Nat. 1. xi. c. 45. Aristot. Hist. Anim. ix. 7. p. 1G8. .(Elian, Hist. Anim. iii. 41. f Enc. Brit. \ See also Gesenius, Lex. Hebr., in voc. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYrT. 113 It will clearly be no slight accession to these collective evidences, upon a question of natural history rendered so interesting by its connection with the zoology of Scripture, if the unicorn, in the form of a horse or ass, shall be found de- lineated upon the monuments of ancient Egypt ; and if the inscription accompanying the device shall prove to be its legend, and this legend to contain its Egyptian, as well as classical deno- mination, that, namely, of the wild ass. Without further introduction I now submit the testimony (see next page) on this subject borne by an Egyptian monument. Premising only that the second character of the inscription, the m, is not the ordinary Egyptian w, but the Ham- yaritic m, as exemplified at Hisn Ghorab. Compare the asses in this tablet with the unicorn of the classic writers, and have we not here before us the wild ass of Aristotle or Pliny ? Compare, again, its habits as above described, with its habits as delineated in Scripture, and have we not here before us — '"'' ih.Q joy of wild asses — the wild asses quenching their thirst — the range of the mountains their pasture, and searching after every green thing." * * Compare Job, xxxix. 5—12. The whole description appears to belong to the one animal. I 114 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT jj'Ksj- J tabmur, Asinus Sylvester, onager. "The wild ass." Lssj;^-, Imja, Lsctatus fiiif. Rejoicing: joyful. I_5li5 wai. Onager: pccul. bene commensa corporis constitutione. The wild ass : especially well-fed, or In high condition. ^yS^ sul, Agmen ferarum. A herd of wild animals. (__s|«i !^;n2, Onager. The wild ass. ; . i»\> awn, Pabulo et potu Asinus impletus fuit. Asses full to repletion with food and drink. The Camel. From the physical character of the countrj^, and the necessities of its commerce, we might safely assume, antecedently, that the camel, " the ship of the desert," if not a native, must, in all ages, have been naturalized in Egypt. Her in- tercourse Avith India by the Red Sea on the one hand, and her communications with the in- THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 115 terior of Africa on the other, lay alike across those deserts, for the traversing of which the camel was providentially formed and designed. The necessities of Egypt, consequently, suppose the demand ; while the neighbourhood of Arabia secured the supply. Yet while Egypt, from the earliest times, may well be supposed to have abounded Avith this useful servant, we observe (as though to expose the true worth of mere negative objections) a nearly total absence of the camel from her monuments.* The nearly total silence on the subject in the books of Moses might complete the negative argument, were it not for the occurrence of a single text which at once overthrows it. In Exodus, ix. 3., Ave find not only mention of the camel, but we find " camels " enumerated among the flocks and herds Avhich most abounded in Egypt : " Behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thy cattle Avhich is in the field ; upon the horses, upon the asses, upon the camels^ upon the oxen, and upon the sheep." The absence of the camel from the monuments, therefore, however to be accounted for, certainly cannot be explained by its absence from the country. * The elephant occurs in two examples: viz., Wilkinson, plate 4.; and in a plate of the Egyptian Society's. I am not aware of a third in- stance. I 2 116 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. The camel, however, does sometimes occur among the hieroglyphics * ; and more frequently than might appear on a cursory inspection. The reason is its singular resemblance to the ostrich, with which it -is constantly liable to be con- founded in minute delineations. Even in nature, the classical name for the ostrich, viz. struthio- ca7nelus, or the camel-bird, attests the liability to ocular illusion ; and the testimony of travellers proves the fact of this liability, since, at a dis- tance, it is often difficult to discriminate a flock of ostriches from a herd of camels. The illusion is heightened, in the hieroglyphics, by a further circumstance, namely, that the camel is mostly represented sideways, not in action, and conse- quently showing only two legs. It is, accord- ingly, by the head alone that it is distinguished from the ostrich ; but, to a correct eye, this mark will be mostly sufficient. I have already noticed an example in Wilkinson's Egypt, plate 76., where, though the hieroglyphic shows but two legs, it is impossible to mistake the animal. I now come to examples of a similar kind, but far ruder form, belonging to the earliest stages * So also does the eamelopard: finely delineated, Wilkinson, plate 4. ; and microscopically in ChampoUion's Precis. nS|\. -— rJ, nnj-ff/, Camela nobilis A noble she-camel. (The eamelopard.) THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 117 of Egyptian art, and the first monuments of the Pharaohs. I refer to the series of royal signets or cartouches so called, beginning, it is said, with Menes, the founder of the monarchy, b. c. 2188, and carried down to Nectanebo. With the assigned dates and ownerships I do not here intermeddle, further than to observe, that, what- ever their object or their origin, the earliest of these remains are certainly of the very highest antiquity. Older, apparently, than the pyramids; perhaps little posterior to the dispersion of man- kind. In several of the most ancient of these car- touches appear minute figures, with bodies resem- bling those of birds, but heads resembling those of quadrupeds. The minuteness of the objects, naturally deceiving the eye, led to the conjecture that the emblem of these Pharaohs (styled the Memphite dynasty) was " a chicken." On exa- mining the hieroglyphic carefully, I conceived that the supposed chicken was an ostrich ; and, on directing my attention to the head, I further found that what appeared to be an ostrich was more probably intended for a camel. The proba- bility is increased by the consideration, that, in the hieroglyphics generally, birds are uniformly placed upon perches, while the animals repre- sented in these cartouches are not. From this general impression of the character I 3 118 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. of these cartouches, and of the object designed to be represented in them, I turned to the lexicon to try whether further light might be drawn from their brief inscriptions. The results of the experiment proved confirmatory of my previous impression : the camel, or some defini- tion relating to the camel, being, in the specimens fixed on, the sense of each successive word: the word in No. 1., from the First Pyramid, signifying " A camel drinking out of a channel or conduit ; those in No. 2., "A keeper or herdsman of dis- persed camels;" and the three words in No. 3., " Summoning to water the strong and docile camel, marked with a brand on the side^ n , i'y c~i, Camelus bibcns ex canali qui i jl vocatur. " A camel drinking out of tlio canal called aza." (^•5 wahl, Custos, protector, defensor. A keeper, guardian, protector. ,^XJ, ndi, Disgregati sunt cmnrii. Dispersed or scattered ca?nrf«. j^jiti harliar, Aquatum duxit caviclos. Leading camels to water. J^«5 wahcn, Magnus corpore, et subactus ac obsequens camelus. A large-bodied, docile camel. ^Kir^T kh'alam, Nota in jumenti latere, A mark, or brand, in the side ' of a beast of burthen. That any of these elucidations of the devices by the legends should be fortuitous, I knew by THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 119 experience to be little likely. That the last word in No. 3.. (that inscribed within the car- touche beside its device) describing the mark or brand which is to be seen stamped, as the defini- tion specifies, on the side of the animal, could be accidental, is a conclusion to which the thorough- bred controversialist is alone likely to come. The collective evidence plainly countersigns the inference suggested, antecedent^, by the heads of the animals, that the devices are camels. This result would be of little consequence did it terminate in itself. It may become of high interest, if it shall be found to throw a ray of light upon a point of great doubtfulness and difficulty ; the origin, namely, and etymon of the royal name or title of Pharaoh. OEIGIN AND ETYMON OF THE IMPERIAL TITLE PHARAOH. It is sufficiently known that the term Pha- raoh, like that of Tohha in Yemen, of Caliph at Bagdad, or of Ccesar at Rome, was not a proper name, but a dynastic title, appropriated, in suc- cession, by all the native dynasties of Egypt. It is the oldest title of honour in the world ; and, as such, is not undeserving of the efforts be- stowed by commentators to trace its origin and I 4 120 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. import. By those who derive this regal title from the Hebrew, it is made to. signify " {He) that disperses, that spoils, or that discovers." By those who have recourse to the Syriac, it has been interpreted (very variously it must be allowed), " The revenger, the destroyer, the king, the cro- codile.''^ What special appropriateness may be discernible, in all or any of these etymologies, is a question I would leave willingly with other inquirers. I shall confine myself to the remark, that, with the exception of the definition king, however one or other of them may agree with one or other of those ancient sovereigns, the foreo-oinsj senses have no lineal connection what- ever with the series or succession of the Egyp- tian kings. Under the conviction that the whole of these etymons were absolutely groundless, I was led, on discovering (as I conceived) the ca7nel among the emblems of the first Pharaohs, to try whe- ther any connection might be traceable between the symbol of a camel and this royal name or title. I began by examining, in the Arabic, the senses of the root ^ ;, fard. When, together ■J with the proper sense here required, viz. " Head, Prince, King," which the root V\ti has only conventionally in the Hebrew, 1 met a series of definitions directly identifying the emblem of THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 121 the camel with the title of the kings of Egypt, — cj, farcij Mactavit Uj, farda, i. e. primogeni- tum camela\ " Sacrificing the Farda^ or first- born of the cameir Mactavit, immolavit, primo- genium cavieli. " Offering up, immolating the first birth of the camel.''^ Primus camelte pullus. " The first foal of a camels Primus camels pullus, quem mactabant diis suis Arabes pagani, aliis^' Camelus juvencus, quem Arabes, ante Moham- medis tempus, diis mactare solebant. " The first foal of a camel, which the pagan Arabs sacrificed to their gods, or, a young he-camel whom the Arabs, before the time of Mahomet, were wont to offer in sacrifice," &c. .^t ;, Farid, as well as ^^,»~ J, Fardun, being the Arabic name for Pharaoh *, the integral connection between the symbol and the title, between c ,i, the first-born of the camel, and .,_..;, the First-born of the Egyptian kings, at once broke upon me in its fail light. That the law of primogeniture was a fundamental law of Egypt, is clear from the accbunt of Moses. The Mosaic record of the judgment or tlie first- horn^ is a witness to its prevalence through all grades of society : the patriarchal inheritance of the birth-right still survived in heathen Egypt, * ^_^\ • pro ,.- ', Pharao. Kam. ap. Freytag. 122 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. otherwise the judgment would not have been di- rected and limited as it was : " And it came to pass that, at midnight, the Lord smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt, from the first- born of Pharaoh that sat on his throne, to the first-born of the captive that was in the dun- geon." * But the law of primogeniture being the law of Egypt, and Pharaoh signifying, at once, the first- born of the camel, and the kitig, its two-fold sense supplies a two-fold dignus vindice for the trans- mission of this title, through the heirs of the throne, from father to son, for more than 1500 years. We have already seen that the Arabic root c ;, in its primary sense, supplies what the Hebrew root VIA fails to supply, the Scriptural, that is to say the Egyptian, sense of this once celebrated name. Now, fortunately, we learn from Josephus, that the Scripture term HJ^ID, Pharaoh, was not a Hebrew, but an Egyptia7i icord : Proprie* regent significare hoc vocabulum ^?^ lingua ^gyptiaca dudum observavit Josephus.f But the idea of sovereignty, converted into the » Exod. xii. 29. j" Gesen. in voc. 'O ^apawv kut' AlyvTrriovs fiaaiXia (Tru-iaivei. oljiai 8' au- rovs (K iraiSwp &KAots XP'^f^^'^ovs dv6/xaaiv • tVeiSai/ He fiaaiAus yevoyrai, rh (TTifJ-aTvov auTwi' rijp i^ovalav /cora tjjv irarplov yXwrrav neTOVo/xd- ^(ffdai, — Ant. Jud. 1. viii. c. 2. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 123 title of king, is, also, the primary sense of the Arabic root, viz. c •, farci : In summo fuit, summumque cepit vel tenuit. Superavit alios nohilitate. " At the summit of aiFairs : holding the reins of state: before all others in dignity." Whence, Caput et princeps populi. " Head and prince of the people." And thus, in fixing the long-disputed etymology of the title of Pharaoh, we obtain one more example of actual identity between the vocabularies of the Arabic and of the old Egyptian ; and one additional proof of the preservation in the Arabic, beyond any other of the Semitic dialects, of the primary elements of the one primeval language. The planisphere of Tentyra supplies further materials of proof, which it may be as well to introduce before we pass on to other topics.* * Decypherments of the Zodiac and Planisphere of Tentyra will be found in their proper places as we proceed. In none of the Egyptian sculptures is the principle of legend and device more clearly exemplified than in these remains : a point of the higher importance, because of the attempts of infidelity to build an atheistical theory upon the pretended anti-scriptural antiquity of Tentyra and its Zodiac. The fact, that its brief inscriptions, in alphabetic characters, contain merely the names and actions of the monster animals who represent the signs of the Zodiac, and beside which they stand, reduces to its proper insignificance and evanescence this infidel castle in the air. 124 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. The Dog or Jackal. In the immediate nei2:libourhood of its hiero- glyph ic ostriches occurs, seated in a boat, a human figure Avith a dog's or jackal's head. The word ^vfc*: iDehiveh^ in plain Arabic letters, stands over LZ^ the head. But the Arabic term „»^., wahwah, signifies canis vociferans, " A barking dog," and a^i^^^ioehweh^ Minus latrare valens cam's, "A low-barking dog." The latter is manifestly the action in the hieroglyphic, where the dog is howling or whining, with the mouth half-closed. And this word stands, not only with the same sense, but with the same letters ^ ^, as the cor- responding Arabic term. The next example is one of extraordinary in- terest, and claims corresponding attention. For, if I do not greatly deceive myself, it will be found, hereafter, to let in a flood of light upon the dog-headed monsters and the demonology of Egypt. In the same circle, a little in advance of the sitting cynocephalus above noticed, ap- pears a dog-headed figure standing, with a word in two letters in front of the face. The characters THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 125 were old acquaintances, viz. the Egyptian or Hamyaritic A, e3, and the Greek nun, -t, wa/iwa/i, Canis voc\Scia.ns. A barking dog. (Subject, Dog and hare.) be as easy as it is needless to multiply examples of an equally clear, though less striking kind. Those of the cynocephali are endless. The dog and hare are a somewhat favourite symbol. In a second instance of its occurrence, the word III, ^X awi, hylax, stands under the dog. Of the hieroglyphics generally it may here be remarked, that, if the word beside any figure be not its name, it commonly denotes the action, or some quality or attribute of the animal, or some- thing of which the animal is itself symbolic. For example, a sitting cynocephalus appears in the Grammaire Egyptien of Champollion, p. 114., with a word in alphabetic characters before it. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 129 Tlie word is ^15, najar, J^stivus, fervidusque mensis ; and the subject, evidently, the dog-days. An example in which the action, tlie animal, and the object in hand, are all three given, in three words, in the inscription, occui^ in Wilkinson's Egypt, 2nd series, Supplement, plate 70. To the left of the tablet above, we observe a lion couchant, the left fore-paw raised, sustaining an unknown object. The inscription here is ^^z l^J ^U, dmadnaham ra% and instantly explains the whole: viz. j^-, Sustinuit. ^\_,, Leo, ^.\. Vexillum : j^^cuL, minus. " Supports the lion the little standard." An example of the ac- tion of a kneeling figure exj^lained by the in- scription, as simple as it is striking, occurs in plate 82., to the extreme right of the tablet above. The kneeling figure holds an incense pot in the right hand, the left being raised in the attitude of supplication. The inscription is ^s] '^id, nadam danach : its rendering, " The penitent abases himself bowing the head," viz. ^jj., Poeni- tens, and r^;o, Humiliavit, &c.; viluit; demisitque se, et caput suum. The device and legend over a frog-headed goddess, plate 25., on the extreme right of a tablet, seem a specimen of the Egyptian love of the grotesque, but are curiously to our purpose as mutually self-interpretative j the de- K 130 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYrT. vice being a frog, raised on its hind legs croak- ing; the legend, X; -3 \.\, na nak nakem, viz. L3, Surrexit cum labore, rising icith difficulty j:;, Coaxavit ?'a?za, croaks the frog, and^., Eleganter cantavit, elegantly singing. The Ox. The ox, the deified personification of Osiris, and the symbol of abundant harvests, was sure of a place and prominence in the Egyptian monu- ments proportioned, at once, to his sacredness and utility. Accordingly, the sacred animal, both in the character of Apis, and in his proper character as tiller of the soil, is among the more frequent symbols in the hieroglyphics. From this frequency of occurrence arises one great ad- vantage for the purposes of decypherment. For the hieroglyphic ox is usually accompanied, like the other symbols, by one or other of several alphabetic words. And, on reference to the lexicon, from my previously formed hieroglyphic alphabet, these words invariably prove to be one or other of his known Arabic names. The oxen of the hieroglyphics, it is observable, are very commonly of the wild species. And the names, accordingly, arc usually those for the wild ox. <; « 0) > w •5* •- ^ t^ " X • UT3 S ,. Hi- S-^ > Cj cu us OJ 4J < "5 ^ =- a S« !:; ^ ,7 := S^ «-,■-. ^* -»^ 'Q T^ -^ bX) ,A -* S J 5" 003 MI-1.S S3.2£.^1.S >E^^-S -J •« O.S u _-J « , ndjat, Bos Sylvester, ^^c. Candida, j^_^:, na- inash^ Bos Sylvester, seu montanus, 'l:^,, wa- Jiash, Bos Sylvester, and ^^:^^j, ramat, Bucula sylvestris foemella, are examples in point, the two former in the case of single oxen. A fifth name is simply ^ .-►, Mrm^ Bos. Where the oxen appear in groups, the nomencla- ture changes to the plural terms (^p^, jaf, Agmen et caterva pecorum*, 4_j,, raf^ Agmen pecorum boumve, j., waten^ obesa pecora. In all these examples, it is important to add, the sig- nifications of the words were unknown to me, until I turned to the Arabic lexicon, and, in each instance, found that the word, when decyphered into Arabic from the hieroglyphic alphabet, was ox, oxen, or wild ox. Less curious, but not less conclusive, examples occur, where the ox appears accompanied by one or other of his ordinary Arabic names. Thus, in the zodiac of Tentyra, the word AJ, arachf, Bos sylvaticus, stands im- mediately under the bull in the celestial sign Taurus; and with the significant hieroglyphic i^^S!S>- jaf, Agmen et caterva : de pecore non dkitiir nisi totus grex sit. The definition is strikingly illustrated by the annexed wood-cut from Wilkinson : in which the word t_ o"> - occurs. \ It is the name for the Cape or Caffcr buffalo : « They arc called Aurochs," — Enc. Brit. art. Bos. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 133 of a tree, apparently to indicate that the animal is Avild or ivoodland. The more common name for the ox, ij, behur, I have not yet met with in the hieroglyphics, but it occurs twice in the enchorial text of the Rosetta stone, in near con- junction ; and in a part where the Greek text speaks of the sacred animals, whose horns appear in the adjacent hieroglyphic text. In the former of these examples, the enchorial characters are Hebrew forms ; in the latter, mixed Hamyaritic and Arabic. The BiiUj or Apis. I come now to two specimens of the sacred bidl, in which the prominence of the figure, and the clearness of the word (the same word) over each, in known characters, give peculiar interest as well as conclusiveness to the decypherment. _»k-', fatuk, Taurus. A Bull. K 3 134 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. C^' I These figures of Apis will be found in plate 76. of Wilkinson's Egypt: a subject to which I shall have occasion to return more at large. In ex- amining this great historical subject (the only clearly historical one I have found in Eg^^pt), I naturally stayed to consider attentively the cha- racters over the figure of Apis towards the ex- treme right of the monument ; under the con- viction that the name either of the god, or of the animal representing him. ought to be Jiere. Immediately above the head of the sacred bull, I observed a word in known characters, viz. the Arabic i /, the Ethiopic "j" ?, and the third form answering to the old Syriac C h. The w^ord, of course, read fatah, ^,j or ^y. I looked for it under ^kl, although, never having had occasion to consult the lexicon for this root, I was un- aware, not only of its sense, but of its existence. On opening Golius, the first definition that met THE MONUMENTS OP EGYPT. 135 my eye was the very definition required, viz. ,ki, fatuh^ Taurus, " A bull." I turned to the second Apis, at the extreme left of the monument, and found the same word, letter for letter, over his back, only differently arranged to suit the narroAver width of the column. The importance of this double recovery of the name .k', Taurus, a bull, over two figures of Apis, must be perceptible, not only to every can- did philologist, but to every intelligent English reader. The hieroglyphic names and decypherments given under this topic will be found in the plates referred to. One example, taken from Young's Hieroglyphics, pi. 88., is peculiarly ob- servable. It represents a wain drawn by three yoke of oxen, attended by three drivers. The inscription above, being the last line of a tablet, I read A •••j;^,, wahash awi : viz. wahash, Bos syl- vester, and awt or taw% Congregatus fuit, con- junxit, i.e. "Woodland oxen, joined or coupled Jumenta, w«?, ^U ^>ti watah, 'Percussit (nste. Beasts of burtlieii. •■ ^~- They strike «ith sticks. (Draught oxen). ^ M Jpf^fFTF^n K 4 136 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. together." On reference to the plate, the reader will perceive, by the hunch on the shoulder, that the animals are of the wild species, a kind of buifalo or bison.* The untameable character of these ferocious animals may account well for the attendance of a driver on each yoke. For a team of domestic oxen, a single driver would of course suffice. If the animals be the hison^ it is proof how greatly the Egyptians excelled all other people in taming savage animals. " The hison (as described by Cotgrave) is a kind of hulch- backt^ rough-maned, broad-faced, and great-eyed, wild ox ; that will not be taken as long as he can stand, nor he tamed after he is taken "'\ Yet, if the hulch back, or hump on the shoulders, be, as naturalists seem to say, peculiar to the hison, this animal, supposed peculiar to America, was known and tamed in ancient Egypt. Were it the object to extend, it would be easy to extend, the class of evidences here submitted. For their alphabetic names very generally occur beside, not only all the animals, but all the objects, in the hieroglyphic monuments of Egypt: * Of one or other kind the oxen in this Egyptian tablet rtinst be : The question which, is a curious one for naturalists ; the buft'alo being peculiar to South Africa ; the bison, to N. America, The tablet indicates that Southern Africa, at least, must have been known to the ancient Egyptians, and imports made from it. \ Enc. Brit. ait. Bos. iiri^^m^^i^M^tii \ D 1 ji^ THE MONUMENTS OF EGYrT. 137 these names proving uniformly to be the Arabic names for the animals or objects. The symbol of the serpent is endless. And one or other of his Arabic names, ^^, h% <<~^, rahat^ ^,j, das^ &c., repeatedly stands by the reptile. The Basilisc. But, under this head, the name of most fre- quent recurrence, and exclusive appropriation, is also 'the most peculiar, for it is no other than that of the fabled basilisc, the royal ensign of the Pharaohs. For this heraldic creation, the Arabic idiom, so abounding in synonymes for the serpent, appears, according to Golius and all the lexico- graphers, to have but one denomination. And this denomination, it is most remarkable, proves also to have been the sole name for the basilisc in ancient Egypt.* Although years have elapsed since this * As idle objections are sometimes made to the evidence of the Arabic lexicon, grounded on the copiousness of its definitions, and the variety of senses comprized under the same root, I may take this opportunity of observ- ing, that, while in many roots with various senses, all the senses occur in the hieroglyphic texts, in roots, like ,1^, containing only one or two senses, the results of decypherment by my alphabets are as sure and satisfactory, as in the case of roots affording the most numerous and various significa- tions. The objection, indeed (except for controversial purposes), would never be raised by any true Orientalist: for it would often apply equally to the Hebrew lexicon. But Eastern scholars, fitly so entitled, arc ))er- fectly aware that, both in vYrabic and Hebrew, the senses of the tuo^t 138 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. particular discovery was made, I cannot forget the surprise that it occasioned me. It was in the fron- tispiece of the highly interesting selection from the Egyptian Gallery of the British Museum, pub- lished by Messrs. Arundale and Bonomi, that the discovery in question was made. Being from home, and in the country, with no better dic- tionary than Hopkins's Abridgment of Richard- son, I had just procured the above-named volume ; and on looking at the royal insignia of the horned circle, vulture's wings, and basiliscs, in the titlepage, I was struck by a double in- scription, in the same characters, facing both ways, at each side. By the previously formed alphabet, I at once read the words ^J J^, sill hum, copious roots are for the most part capable of being fully determined by the contexts in which they stand. And where this is not so, the par- ticular sense of a Hebrew, is often quite as uncertain as that of any Arabic, root. Witness the various readings, often so at variance, in the margins of our English Bible. With respect to the Arabic, I would only further remark, that if such critical sophistry were once allowed to pass into law, there would be an end to all elucidation of the Hebrew Scriptures themselves from the Arabic lexicons ; whence, heretofore, the sacred text has always derived its most important collateral lights; and where alone, in the vast majority of examples, the missing Hebrew roots can be recovered. What would become of our commentators, from Grotius or Lightfoot, to Louth or Kennicott ? — of our lexicographers, from Castel or Buxtorf, to Parkhurst or Gesenius ? — if it were once ruled that the Arabic lexicon is 'o be excluded from the interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures ? But, if the Hebrew Scriptures ever have been, and ever must be, interjireted or elu- cidated from that lexicon, so, a fortiori, must every other branch of the languages termed Semitic. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 139 The term *^, was familiar to me : but of the sense, or even the occurrence of j^ as an Arabic root, I was unaware. I turned to Hopkins, when to my equal surprise and satisfaction, I found the word and its definition thus : " J^, sill, A basilisc." I returned to the frontispiece, and found the double inscription directly facing the two salient basiliscs, with a third, to the left, underneath ; the devices and legends counter- signing one another, and thus doubly verifying the previous and unpremeditated decypherment, JC aJ , 1_^, The basilisc stands erect. This decisive proof was the first only of a long series. For it soon came to light that, in numerous ex- amples, from the monuments, of this same royal ensign, wherever the salient basiliscs appeared, they were confronted by the motto sill Mm ; and wherever sill Mm was observable, it was con- fronted by the basiliscs. The prefixed plate will place before the reader select examples. The nature and the extent of the evidence in this case, are such as to preclude all liability to error. That the name, its known and only Arabic name, a noun substantive, should be discovered beside this phcenix of the serpent tribe in a single example, in characters read by an alphabet long previously formed, should alone, it is conceived, 140 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. be conclusive for the clecypherment. Where the example contains two basiliscs, and the name twice repeated, the surety already arrived at of course becomes doubly sure. But when the two basiliscs and the twice-repeated name reappear in a long succession of monuments from every part of Egypt, the amount of the demonstrative proof is a problem for the mathematician alone to solve, taking the doctrine of chances for his rule, and the name as one out of ten thousand Arabic roots. The alphabet appropriated by the Egyptians to their hieroglyphic monuments, in some of its characters identical with the enchorial and Sinai alphabets, in others essentially diifering from them, has now been experimentally tested by the class of proofs pronounced " irrefragable," by the experienced Hebrew Lecturer who proposed this test. A series of examples has been sub- mitted, comprizing a variety of animals ; each animal having one or other of its known Arabic names, a noun substantive, above, beneath, or beside it. In many instances, as I have stated, the sense of the decyphered word was unknown to myself, until, on consulting the Arabic lexicons, I found it to be a name of the animal by which it stood. It is very important that the reader THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 141 sliould give his attention to this point, because it raises to the demonstrative the character of the evidence. The chiss of evidence itself, it has been observed, is of the widest compass, in- cluding most of the animals, and many of the objects, depicted on the monuments. Enough has been adduced, it is conceived, to establish the proof; which, by use of the hieroglyphic alphabet which has obtained the foregoing results, can be enlarged to any extent by the more studious reader. We pass on to a class of proofs of a different, and perhaps not less eifective kind. These proofs will consist of examples, in which the ivords in hieroglyphic tablets will be found to describe, with the most graphic accuracy, the action of the figures. This action is, in some cases, simple and obvious, in others, complicate and obscure ; but, in all, the inscriptions clearly and perfectly explain the postures of the figures ; tell what they are doing, and neither less nor more. It is the principle of legends and devices : and we will commence with the simpler forms. In most of the examples, I shall refer, only, to the plates in which they occur: our chief sources being, Dr. Young's publication entitled, '' Hieroglyphics collected by the Egyptian Society," and the two 142 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYrT. series of Sir Gardner Wilkinson's " Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians."* Young'' s Hieroglyphics. Plates 81. 83. 87 B. " Sculptures from an excavated temple at Beit-el- Walij, in Nubia." These plates contain three corresj^onding repre- sentations of an Egyptian conqueror, in the same act, that of grasping by the hair, dragging and hewing down, his enemies ; whom the locality of the temple proves to be Ethiopians or Nubians. In 87 B. the countenance of the victim, the peculiar low forehead, up-turned indented nose, and thick lips, mark the Nubian. The inscription over the Pharaoh, decyphered into Arabic by the previously formed alphabet, read, ^^ J^ a.<, tU ^j *»3 .^^d, ramad sill Mm dis num hem maa. The words, in order, yielded the senses following : — ^^j, ramady Supervenit its: pec, exitium in- * Wilkinson's Egypt should be in the hands of every one, who would pursue the subject of Egyptian antiquities upon the experimental prin- ciple adopted in the present work. The beauty and accuracy of its cojiies of tablets in the minutest characters give security for their fidelity, which may often be vainly looked for elsewhere. 1 allude jiarticularly to the folding plates, and to the volume of plates comprized in the " Supple- ment " to the " Second Series." THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 143 ferens. Hanging over an enemy; especially^ bearing destruction. ^ J J^, sill Mm^ Basiliscus erectus stetit. The hasilisc stands erect (the motto of the Pharaohs). ^^j, dis^ Extractus fuit gladius a vagind. Un- sheathing the sword. ^y, num, Interemit, Slaughtering. ^, hem^ Vox gravissima. lU, maa^ Extendit. The cartouche over the head of the victim (one of constant recurrence) read ^l-j?- tin jjz iirz hidi hahesh : i. e. J c, drz^ Yiolenter detraxit, Dragging down violejitly. .jb, hwt, Exporrexit et protendit gladium: ut quoque manum ad capiendum quid. Stretching forth and reaching forward a sword : also, a hand to grasp any thing. ^-^, hahesh^ Habassinus, J^^thiops. An Abys- sinian, an Ethiopian. The general correspondence of this inscription with the whole sculpture will be obvious at a glance. And, taking the words in their order, every word will be found in its proper place. Thus : — The first word to the left, ramad^ " Impending over; especially^ bringing destruction," stands 144 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. under the uplifted sword, and over the head of the overhanoino; Pharaoh. The next two words, sill Mm, the " basilisc stands erect," have beside them the royal ensign with its two erect basiliscs, above the king's head. They are followed by the word dis, " un- sheathing a sword," with the unsheathed sword opposite : and dis, by 7ium, slaughtering. The next word, bem, " vox gravissima," repre- sents, apparently, the groans of the victim ; whose action, the outstretched and uplifted fin- ger, is undoubtedly described by the concluding word of the line, maa, " Extending, stretching," above the head of the Nubian victim. We come next to the cartouche, immediately over the prostrate Nubian's head. It is a com- monplace of the hieroglyphics : but every word, here, also in its place : drz, " dragging down," hwi, " grasping with the hand," habesh, " the Abys- sinian," represent the action of the piece, as perfectly as language can describe sculpture or painting. The remaining inscriptions of this tablet are equally clear, but less circumstantially descrip- tive. At the Pharaoh's back are three words, which read, ^^j U. w:J^, /^^^^^ icadza dafnt, Run- ning i6> him hastily — he wounds — conquering. Behind these, between lines, arc the words lJJO^ THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 145 , .^j jj., (jjCy (^y, hak mm tah warwar watheb, Striking with the sword he slays, cutting wrath- fully, rushing upon (the foe). In the words occur two hieroglyphic swords. The corresponding inscription to the left of the tablet claims closer attention. The first word I read^^^ ; and, on reference to Golius, found tahur, Arcus vehemens, quo procul jacitur telum, " A strong bow, throwing an arrow to a great distance." There could here be no mistake, for the bow is in the hand of the king. The next word, ^, san, Acutus ensis, was explained by the uplifted sword. The third, ^<, ne/adz, Pe- netravit, " Penetrating," might refer to either weapon or both. Then followed a word twice repeated, which I read ^>.. ; and found this term, in two of its senses, perfectly explanatory of the action of the piece : viz. ivajen, Conjecit in terram, prostravit. Casting to the ground^ prostrating; and, again, wajen, Demisit ac humiliavit se, supplicavit : the former definition giving to the life the action of the savage king ; the latter, equally to the life, the suppliant posture and action of the prostrate Nubian. The succeeding word I read as (_i:i*, hanaf ; and, on looking for it, found a definition, which, here at least, needs no comment, viz. kanaf, Con- L 146 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. cidit in partes ense^ Cutting in pieces with tlie sword. The remainder is less significant, being ex- planatory only of the two hawks on the opposite side of the tablet, and the two cowering partridges beside the last words, viz. ^~>. ^^v^ .y .1, The fugitive covey foolish run away together : the flying Nubians, apparently, being here symbolized by timorous partridges fleeing from the falcon, the emblem of the Egyptian kings. The results obtained from this Plate are trebly authenticated by its companions. For in Nos. 81. 83., the subject is the same, and the circum- stances only difi'er. We have still the victorious Pharaoh, dragging down by the hair, and slaying with the sword, his vanquished enemies ; but Abyssinian enemies of a diflerent race from the Nubians, with the countenances of Jews, or of the North American Indians. The cartouche, with the motto, drz hut habesh, " he drags to the ground the Abyssinian," recurs beside the Pha- raoh in both tablets; accompanied, in No. 81., by the other words, dis mm maa, " unsheath- ing (his) sword (he) slays, reaching (it out)." Beneath the cartouche I saw the words ^ ^^j^ damt war^eh, " he wounds the terror-stricken (foe)." The posture and countenance of the victim but too fully explain them. Behind the THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 147 conqueror, above, stands a short, but self-evident, account of what is passing, in two words. These were read ^^j ^i^, maJiu ramadh. Alalia is Ensis tenuis et acutus, et crispato rutilans nitore, " A thin sharp sword, glittering with wavy bright- ness." Ramadh signifies 'primarily Diffidit, " Sj^litting, cleaving asunder." The inscription needs no interpreter but the picture, for the sword is there seen buried in the head ; literally splitting, or cleaving it in two. In No. 83. we have a similar scene of blood, with the same action, and the same motto in cartouche. Only, here, the tablet represents the storming of a fortress ; and the king, with uplifted sword in the right hand, and his bow in the left, drags the vanquished enemy by the hair from the summit of the battlements. The whole of the inscriptions in these three tablets from Beit-el- Waly will be found similarly illustrative of the transactions depicted in the sculptures. But the object, at this early stage, is to give specimens only : and, in giving these, to select such inscriptions as throw irrefragable light upon the main action of the pieces. A fourth tablet might be added (No. 82.): but, though it, also, represents the Pharaoh, from his chariot, with uplifted sword, dragging his enemy by the hair, it does not give the cartouche, with the L 2 148 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. motto describing the act in which he is en- gaged. Young: PI. 57. On the right of this Plate, being the continua- tion of the figures from Elephantine copied by Sir GardnerWilkinson, occur the principal figures of the tablet : viz. the ram-headed deity seated ; a standing figure, in the close vest of a slave, with the hand upraised ; and a richly clad figure, also standing, between them and in their grasp. Above the god, to the right, stands a word in three letters, which, by the previously formed alphabet, read .j, dehir^ the first character being the Hebrew daleth. The action, immediately under this word, was very peculiar, and by no means self-interpretative. The god, holding the middle figure by the far shoulder with the right hand, has the left hand placed under the elbow of the central figure's arm (which is extended against his breast), apparently pushing the arm upwards ; an object evidently efi"ected, as the hand of his captive appears pushed above his (the Ammon's) shoulder, and consequently without anything to lean or push against. Here, then, was a very complicated action, which the single THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 149 word J J, dehir^ could hardly be expected to ex- plain. I was sure, however, of the word, and proceeded to examine its less ordinary senses: when, to my astonishment, I came to the follow- ing definition: jj, IV. Sursum mota vel a pectore abducta manu torsit. Pushing iqnvards forciUy the hand {of another') inished away from the breast. Every particular of this curious and complex action stands here explained by this definition ; while, without the word debir^ it would be difficult to conjecture correctly, and wholly impossible definitively to explain it. To the left, opposite to dehh\ and above the head of the slave or attendant, occur three short inscriptions. These, on decypherment, complete the description of the action of the piece, so strik- ingly commenced by the word;X>. The first of J^J the three inscriptions, is that immediately under a vulture with outspread wings. Its first word I read , ^y, natah, and on reference to the lexicon, found it defined, primarily, Digito percussit aures ejus^ " Striking another's ears with the fingers." There was no mistaking its perfect application to the subject : the attendant stands with the open right hand raised, in the act of striking or box- ing the ear of the captive. The next word, ^ j r 3 J' 150 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. dzaim, i. q. ^ijj!, expresses the uplifted action, viz. Sublatus supra fuit, raised above or over. The third short inscription was simply _j, dah, but, like dehir^ it describes to the life : viz. Im- pulit trusitque in cervicem, LniJelling aiid thrust- ing by the neck^ — the very act in which both actors are engaged. The intermediate inscrip- tion, in two words, is, if possible, still more cu- riously expressive. The first read c^^, shabath. I looked for the word, and found, ci^^, Affixus fuit adha3sitque rei^ ut avelli non potuerit : pecul. Manum, i. e. digitos, unguesve infixes habuit. Fastening on, adhering to anything, so as not to be torn from it: especially, having the fingers or nails thus infixed. The next word is simply Lj, na, Pressit, depressitve eum, ut vix surgere potuerit, Pressing down, or depressing any one, so as to render it difficult for him to rise. The action of the hands of the god and the attendant, the fingers and nails clutching and depressing the shoulders of the middle figure, completes the description of the whole action of this piece, with a peculiarity and minuteness to which the relation of device and legend between the pictures and inscriptions of Egypt could alone give birth. The intermediate legends are omitted, as less graphic, though equally illustrative and to the THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 151 purpose. The remark may be extended to the entire tablet comprized in the 57th Plate. Wilkinson^ s Egypt: PI. 77. Upon Part 2. of this Plate I shall observe but slightly, Part 1. containing the matter of main interest and importance as evidence. The author states the subject of the second Part to be " A king anointing the god Khem." Of " Khem " there is no mention in the inscription ; but it most accurately describes the process of aiioint- ing represented here pictorially. The words over the outstretched hand of the anointer are, wV* jJ ^^ _»::, dir mar an nad med^ The Prince of the people anoints the idol stretching out (his finger), — ^i,^ ^ j, dam merahem,^ anointing with salve. Those adjoining, ^^ cijj,, rat merid^ The Prince of the place lubricates anointing ivith oil. The inscription below, between the figures, runs, i ^y ^j ^ *j, nam ntd dam natah^ Diffusing fragrance leaning forward (he) anoints striking the ear with (his) finger. As all the characters are plain, and the inscriptions are countersigned by the picture, I shall not go more into detail on this Part, but pass on to Part 1. I- 4 . 152 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 153 This tablet represents (as I have already noticed) the king standing between two deities, the one marked by the hawk's, the other by the stork's head, who are pouring over him showers of the emblems, styled the crux ansata, and the locust-headed staff or sceptre. Over his head, at top, are the salient basiliscs and circle. A hawk stands above one of the gods, and a stork above the other. The motto ^ j j^, sill hum^ The basilisc stands erect, is placed under the hawk; and the words ^j , .^ .ji,, " rahu seh Mim^'' " The stork pours forth dry tilings^'' under the stork. The word iyc, muli^ Perfudit aqua, Pouring water all over any 07ie, occurs in car- touche, immediately over the king's head. This minuteness of description is required in justice to that part of the tablet to which we now come. On each side of the king, and beside the falling streams of emblems, stand two inscriptions so identical, as to differ in one character only. The characters are the Greek )(^ and the usual Egyptian m, or the semicircle, repeated twice in each inscription; with the decisive variation, that, in that to the left, the semicircle, which for some years I had known as the true Egyptian m, is exchanged for the final Arabic m, viz. ^, in its most perfect form ; being the first and only 154 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. instance of the verification which I have met with in Egyptian antiquity. For my own satisfaction, after countless proofs of the power of the semi- circle as m^ this most unexpected verification, indeed, was needless; but it was not the less valuable for the satisfaction of others. But to return to the lateral inscriptions, I read their common term, .iui*, hamkarn^ without an idea of the meaning, or even of the existence .of the word in Arabic. I consulted the authorities, and found in Golius and Freytag, Cantharus — Cucuma, A vessel^ a mcumhei' ; and in Richard- son, "A decanter, a vessel shaped like a cucumber." But it was not until I looked afresh at the pic- ture, after consulting the lexicons, that I dis- covered the proof and explanation in full, in the two cucumbei' -shaped decanters, out of which the gods are pouring their mystic emblems over the Pharaoh. Now, indeed, the decypherment be- came demonstration. It is remarkable, in con- nection with its position in this tablet, that the word hamham also signifies Mng — *U^i', Do- minus; Princeps; and would seem, like Gold- smith's bed, " contrived a double debt to pay." The last word in the lateral inscription is ^j, raini; and its primary sense and defini- tion, Abjecit e manu rem, Casting any thing from THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 155 the hand. Its appropriateness here, in connec- tion with the double kamkam^ is conspicuous ; both cucumber-shaped decanters being thrown forward by the right hands of the two deities, evidently in order to project their contents over the king. To resume the evidences of this decypher- ment: in this single tablet occur eight words, four of them repeated, and all circumstantially explanatory of the action of the piece, while the leading term Jiamkam is illustrated, in both in- stances of its occurrence, by the presence over it of the very peculiar form of decanter of which it was the Egyptian, and is the Arabic, name. These results were returned impromptu by the lexicon of a language consisting of 10,000 roots and 50,000 words. This statement of the amount of proof, however, does not exhaust it. The state of the evidences, here, is then only carried to its just height, when it is further remembered, that the characters in this, and in all the hieroglyphic inscriptions, belong to an alpha- bet of seven years' standing ; and had been pre- viously tested, and with like success, in the decypherment of numerous similar pictorial monuments. 156 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. TOMB, SARCOPHAGUS, AND COFFIN-LID OF MYCEEINUS. The examples of a purely alphabetical decy- pherment hitherto selected, while of unquestion- ably high antiquity, are of uncertain date. For the dates assigned to them, resting on the au- thority of an ideal alphabet, are plainly of no authority at all. But we now come to a hiero- glyphic monument, of which the date and owner are as fully ascertained, as its primeval antiquity is undoubted. The voice of antiquity, with universal consent, has assigned the erection of the third pyramid of Gizeh to the Pharaoh Myce- rinus, the successor of Cephrenes, and the son or brother of Cheops. Its date, therefore, within very narrow limits, is certain, as the three great pyramids were certainly erected within the same century. For the reopening of the third pyra- mid (for, on entering, it was found to have been formerly opened, most probably by the Saracens), learned Europe is indebted to the indefatigable energy of Col. Howard Vyse. The obligation is great indeed, since, in the sepulchral chamber of this pyramid was discovered a sarcophagus, and on the floor a coffin or mummy-case, or = s 3 — 1-3 r^^jniWk B\ THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 157 rather its broken lid, of which there could not be a rational doubt entertained, that they were the sarcophagus and coffin of the builder, King Mycerinus. The sarcophagus, unfortunately, was lost at sea on its passage to England. The lid of the mummy-case happily was preserved, and (together with the remains of the king) is now in the British Museum. The remote- ness of the time, and the certainty of the oc- cupant, throw an awful interest over this relic of the first Pharaohs. It was with this feelino- that I looked, for the first time, upon Col. Yyse's drawing of the lid, and upon the hieroglyphics with which it was covered. At a glance I saw that the first word, at top, to the left, was ,^, mam; the primary sense of which, as a noun substantive, is onager, A wild ass. There was a head under the word ; but as it was that of a man (most probably of the king), I at once gave up the primary meaning of the word marn, as here unintelligible. Being sure of the word, but unable to conjecture any appropriate meaning, I passed on, merely to take a cursory view of the inscription on the mummy-lid as a whole ; when, to my great surprise, I observed, near the bottom of the second colum.n of the inscrip- tion, the same word, mam, and the figure of a 158 THE MONIBIENTS OF EGYPT. recumbent ic'dd ass immediately imcler it. In- terest and curiosity were now thoroughly awa- kened ; and I proceeded without delay to examine and decypher the monument. There could no longer be a doubt as to its first word, or as to its application as the name or appellative of the king. The appellative struck me to be the more likely, when I recollected that, in later times, in the same country, Mervan, the Fatimite Caliph of Egypt, in tribute to his valour, was distin- guished, Mr. Gibbon tells us, " by the honourable title of the ass of Mesopotamia." The near re- semblance, however, between the word maran, and the name Myceriims^ dropping the Greek termination, inclined me, on further reflection, to think that the Greek was only a corruption of the Egyptian proper name. This was my im- pression, until, on closer inspection of the text of Diodorus, a new light broke in. This his- torian, or rather valuable compiler of history, has preserved a double list of the names of the builders of the three great pyramids. Accord- ing to his second list, the name of the builder of the third was, not Mycerinus, but Inarus, 'Ivac'coua. For 'Ivapwva, the margin of Stephens's edition reads Ma^oji/a. And upon this marginal reading, Wesseling puts his imprimatur, as the reading which, in his judgment, ought to be THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 159 received as the genuine text. In this opinion, this great critic is well borne out by the internal evidence, the error of a transcriber, in a single stroke of the first letter, obviously sufficing to turn [xdpcvvot into hdpcova. But that Wesseling was right, and Mapoiva. the true reading of Diodorus, remained to be established by the highest of all authorities, the Egyptian name of the king, engraven upon his coffin ! For the Mapwv of Diodorus, and the ^5 ^^, or Maran, of the monument, are absolutely identical. While the latter gives us, not the name only, but the reason and meaning of the name, in the accompanying figure of the recum- bent wild ass. The honour of recovering the materials for this decisive verification of a name so renowned and disputed, in an age so remote, might alone indemnify a spirit like that which animated the successful labours of Col. Howard Yyse. But this monument of Mycerinus is not " his name alone," it contains matter of far other and higher interest. The inscription, to the inter- pretation of which we Avill now proceed, bears a first and glorious witness to the existence in Egypt, in this earliest age of the post-diluvian world, of the truths of patriarchal revelation. For the doctrine of the Resurrection itself stands 160 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. ■ recorded on this coffin ; in which figures for- tunately come in, at every important point, to direct, at once, and confirm, the decypherment. The proper name, maran^ followed by the head of the Pharaoh, is succeeded by the word ^y, num^ Dormivit, sleepeth^ "with an owl, the emblem of sleep, underneath. Then come j, nil^ Surrexit cum labore, and ^., rajem, Sepulchrum : or " Kises with difficulty [from?] the tomb," fol- lowed by the term ^csj=-, hajen, Incurvus, pecul. dorso, " bent down, peculiarly in the back." Beside this significant word stands the figure, apparently, of an aged man, bent down, and lean- ing forward, as if groping in the dark : the figure is, in part, defaced. The next word, r/., nud, Mu- tatio corporis, seems here to signify metamorpho- sis^ a well-known tenet of the Egyptians ; and it is followed by a hare rising from her form, the back, like that of the old man, crouched into a bow ; and this symbol again, by the word t_^j^, marnah, Leporibus abundans locus, A place abounding in hares. One half of the remainder of this column of the hieroglyphics is broken off; but enough remains to show a kneeling figure, apparently of the same old man, and a word which I read ^.^ ami, or ^,4^^^, which signifies hlind, blindness^ and which curiously tallied with THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 161 the groping figure of the old man above. This column terminates with the favourite emblem of the locust. The second column commences with a word which read u^;., 71% will signify Mors, Funus, Death^ A funeral. The reading seems confirmed by the adjoining mummy figure. The succeeding terms, if read as .^.^v?- ^>. *j*5 Bern wdijdjdj * These characters occur in a cartouche, which, as it is found repeated on this coffin-lid. Col. Vyse entitles " the cartouche of Mycerinus." As the inscription is not the king's name, and as there is nothing pictorial in this cartouche to fix the sense, the reading is necessarily uncertain. Col. Vyse, however, has discovered a third example of the same cartouche, upon the roof of the chamber ; with some characters, and the hieroglyphic of an ostrich, attached to it. This discovery, perhaps, affords some prospect of light. " The walls of both the chambers were perfectly plain ; but upon one of the slabs composing the roof some hieroglyphics had been described with red paint, and, among them, the cartouche of Mycerinus : " The ostrich, here, is the determinative. The words in the cartouche therefore, may read ,^1,«£. ^J^»,.^, auhaj iljaj, " The fleet ostrich :" as the words below, certainly, will read ^\j ), aj nam, " Runs, partly run- ning, partly flying, the ostrich, with rustling sound ; " viz. *, aj, Cucurrit, seu celeravit gradum, partial currendo partim M 162 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. denoting lamentation and wailing, and ^,,j ^;» vjs, icatl dami hubaz, or " the serpent wounds [with] sudden death," are Egyptian common- places. But we now reach the turning point and key of the whole inscription, in the Avords .,-* J L^«, mahenna nil mam, " crouch [backed] rises with difficulty the wild ass," while the animal itself, recumbent, and rising with bended back, appears, in the middle of the words, to authenticate every point of their inter- pretation. It is (as already observed) the name and metamorphosis of the king. The word and emblem next under the name and figure of the wild ass bring to light, in a way too curious to be hastily dismissed, the theme of the whole inscription, the doctrine of the Resurrection, in the very way in which nearly three thousand years later, it is laid down by Mahomet in the Koran. Observing, below the wild ass, a hieroglyphic which I mistook for a swooping falcon, only the head appeared shapeless, I examined the word ap- pended to it, which read ^s. or ^.c, ddzhn. Not having met Avith it before, I consulted the lexicon ; when, instead of the supposed hawk, I found, in volando, struthiocamdus, et ^\_5, imm, Anhelando spiravit ; " Breathing hard, panting; ct striduit soiio ; ii-ith rustling sound." THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 163 Freytag, ^Uir, acham, Os radixve caudae equinte, and in Richardson, ^-, adzam, '' The rump- bone, or root of the tail of a mare, &c." Unen- lightened by the definition, I returned to the Plate ; when, to my great surprise, I saw at once that the supposed hawk had every appearance of some kind of bone. A surgical friend being at hand, I showed him the hieroglyphic, which he immediately pronounced to be, what the defini- tion of adzam had stated, viz. the os coccygis or crupper-bone ; of which he drew the anatomical form, being a fac-simile of this singular hiero- glyphic. By the kindness of a trustee, I had subsequently the opportunity of examining this hieroglyphic upon the coffin-lid of Mycerinus: when it proved to be the crupper-bone, most perfectly delineated, so that it could not possibly be mistaken for a bird, or for any thing but what it is. This discovery recalled to my recollection the Mahometan doctrine concerning the resurrec- tion of the body; and the singular tenet in- culcated by Mahomet in the Koran, namely, that the crupper-hone was the only part which should survive the decay of the body, as a nucleus round which the other parts were to gather in the day of the Resurrection. The passage is so curiously to the purpose, that it M 2 164: THE JIOKUMENTS OF EGYPT. must be oiven in the words of Mr. Sale. " But Mohammed has taken care to preserve one part of the body, wliatever becomes of the rest, to serve for a basis of the future edifice, or rather a leaven for the mass which is to be joined to it. For he taught, that a man's body was entirely consumed by the earth, except only the bone called al Ajam, which we name the os coccygis or rump-bone ; and that, as it was the first formed in the human body, it will also remain uncor- rupted till the last day, as a seed from whence the whole is to be renewed."* How wonderful that a notion seemingly so strange, and very naturally supposed to originate with the arch-impostor, or at furthest with the Jewish Rabbis f, should have existed nearly three thousand years before in heathen Egypt, and be found, after the lapse of four thousand years, engraven on the coffin-lid of one of the earliest Pharaohs ! But, on nearer survey, the doctrine itself bears internal marks of its origin, not from heathenism, but from a patriarchal tradition of the creation. t ♦ rrelim. Disc. vol. i. p. 101. ■f Sale, uhi supra. \ The preservation of a patriarchal tradition corresponciing with re- vealed truth, for a long period, among the primitive nations, is matter of history hoth sacred and profane. Tlic purity of tliis tradition, among some of the chief of those nations, is attested bv the first Book of Moses THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 165 For the mother of mankind, Eve, we know was formed originally from a single bone, one of itself. The fact, however, is so vital in the present connection, and the evidences for it so apt to be lost sight of, that I shall give them, in brief, as stated by Dr. Shuckford : " We are, in the next place, to inquire, how far the several nations at this time in the world agreed with Abram in his religion. Now, as all the nations at this time in the world, of any figure, or of which we have any accounts, were either the inhabitants of Persia, Assyria, Arabia, Canaan, or Egypt, I shall mention what may be offered of these, in their order. " First, the Persiaks, who, for some time, adhered to the pure and true worship of God. They are remarkable beyond other nations for having had among them a true account of the creation of the world ; and they adhered very strictly to it, and founded all their religion upon it. The Persians were children of Shem, by his son Elam, as Abraham and his descendants were, by Arphaxad ; therefore, the same common parent that instructed the one branch in the true religion, did, also, instruct the other. " The next people whose religion we are to consider are the Chal- deans. They, indeed, persevered in the true religion only for a short time ; for as I before observed, about the seventh year of Abraham's life, the Chaldeans had so far departed from the worship of the God of heaven, and were so zealous in their errors, that, upon Abraham's family refusing to join with them, they expelled him their country {Judith, v. 7, 8.); so that we must pass from them, until we come to treat of the nations which were corrupted in their religion. " The people next to be considered are the Arabians, many of whom persevered in the true worship of God for several ages; of which Job was an instance, perhaps in these times of which I am treating, and Jethro, the priest of Midian, in the days of Moses. Their religion appears in no respect to have differed from that of Abraham ; only we do not find any proof that they were acquainted with the orders which were given him, or the revelations made to him, after he came into Canaan. " And if we look amongst the Canaanites, here, as I before hinted, we shall find no reason to suppose that their religion was different from that of Abraham. Abraham travelled many years up and down in this country, and was respected by the inhabitants of it, as a person in great favour with God. Melchisedec, the king of Salem, was a priest of the Most High God ; and he received Abraham as a true servant, and par- M .3 166 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. Adam's ribs. And when it seemed good to the Creator thus to form the whole body from one ticular favourite of that God, whose priest he himself was. Blessed, said he, be Abraham, servant of the Most High God, possessor of Heaven and Earth. The Canaanites gave Abraham no manner of disturbance as the Chaldeans had done, during all the time that he sojourned amongst them ; and we have no reason to suppose that they differed from him in their religion. In the same manner when he came to Gerar, into the land of the Philistines, he found Abimelech to be a good and virtuous king, one that received tlie favour of admonitions from God, and showed himself, by his obeying them, to be his true servant. — There is nothing in the whole account, which intimates a difference in religion between Abraham and Abimelech ; nor any thing which can intimate that Abi- melech was not a worshipper of God, in great sincerity and integrity of heart. Such, I believe, was the state of the world at that time. The Chaldeans were something sooner settled than other nations, and so began to corrupt their religion more early ; but, in Abraham's time, all the other nations, or plantations, did still adhere to the true accounts of the Creation and the Deluge, which their fathers had given them ; and wor- shipped the true God, according to what had been revealed to them, and in a manner not different from the worship of Abraham, until God was pleased to make farther revelations to Abraharn, and to enjoin him rites and observances in religion, with which he had not acquainted other nations. Now tee shall find this true, amongst those whom we are next to consider ; for : " The Egyptians, also, at first worshipped the true Gon ; for as Abra- ham was received at Gerar, so was he, likewise, entertained in Egypt. We find, indeed, that the Egyptians fell into idolatry very early ; but, when they had thus departed from the true worship of God, we see evi- dent marks of it in their conversations with those who still adhered to it ; for, in Joseph's time, we are told, that the Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews, for that was then counted a7i abomination to them ; but, in Abraham's time, we meet with nothing of this sort. Abraham was entertained, by Pharaoh, without tlie appearance of any indisposition towards him, or any the least sign of their having a different religion from that, which Abraham himself professed and practised. The heathen writers (Plutarch, rhilo-151blius. Porphyry) give us some hints, that the Egyptians were, at first, worsliippers of the true God. — If we search THE Egyptian ANTiQuiriEs, we may find in their remains as noble THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 167 bone, what more natural than tlie idea, that it might please him, in like manner, to reconstruct it from another ? especially when that other is, anatomically, the basis of the whole animal frame. But whatever the origin of the tradition, one thing, at least, is now certain, namely, that it is primeval : for the coffin-lid of Mycerinus presents the Mahometan symbol of the Resurrection, the OS coccygis of an animal of the horse species, with the figure of a recumbent wild ass above it, in the act of rising slowly^, as the inscription expresses it, in a tomb. The wild ass, we have seen, is Mycerinus himself: and its rising, consequently, liis re- surrection, f AND TRUE NOTIONS OF THE DeITY, AS ARE TO BE JIET WITH IN THE AN- TIQUITIES OP ANY OTHER PEOPLE." — Sucred and Profane History Con- nected, vol. i. book V. pp. 278 — 285. * The idea of lending, or bending the back, so often repeated in this in- scription, is well illustrated by the figures of quadrupeds, which, in order to rise from a recumbent posture, 7nust bend their hacks. t " It would seem, indeed, from the great care and precautions taken to insure the preservation of the body, at an expense so vast, and by means so indestructible, that in tliese early ages there was a settled con- viction, not only of an after-existence of lengthened duration, but also of the resurrection of the body, — a belief of which, however obscured and mys- tified by imperfect tradition, and by superstitious ceremonies, could only have had its origin in direct revelation." — Vyse, vol. i. p. 1 1. " Looking to the myriads of immortal beings, gone to their account before the birth of Christ and the promulgation of his Gospel, how could the mercy and justice of the Almighty be ever vindicated, but on the conviction that Life Eternal was revealed at the Creation, and (in various M 4 168 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. ca:\ipbell's tomb. Before taking leave of Col. Vyse's work, I would direct special attention to two of its Plates ; being copies of the hieroglyphics upon the sides of the sarcophagus, found in the substructure to which he has given the name of Campbell's tomb. In point of interest, indeed (although not without striking approximations), these inscriptions will not bear comparison with that which has been just examined; but for the purposes of evidence, so far as the establishment of the alphabetic principle of decypherment is concerned, they are invaluable ; and the more so from the simplicity and innumerable instances) from the period of the Fall of Man. To each and all, the warning of Eternity was, and is given." — Eternal Life the Revelation of the Boohs of Moses, -pvef. pp. viii. ix. London: Riving- tons, 1835. (By the Rev. James Ellice, Rector of Clotliall and Aston, Hertfordshire.) " It is certain, in fact, that the revealed Law of God, existing before in essentials, but written first by Moses, has served as a fountain of light and truth for all the nations of the East ; although they denied its autho- rity ; aiid, with the vanity of human nature, concealed the sources of their knowledge ; giving the names of their own legislators to laws founded on those principles of Eternal Truth, yet infinitely deteriorated by their own innumerable added superstitions." — lb. pp. 136, 137. The inquirer after Truth will be richly repaid by the perusal, and more richly by the study, of this profound, though modest, little volume. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 169 of the evidence, which consists mainly in the re- petition of two words. It has elsewhere been shown, that ^ j, damar^ is one of the names for the lion in the hierogly- phic inscriptions ; and that its anagram, ^ .j or Lyd, darimat, is one name for the hare. Now, both terms occur, upon both sides of this sarco- phagus : the word damar, no less than thirty-one times, and the word darimat, three times ; Avhile in all the thirty-one examples, a lion couchant, roaring, occurs beside or over the one name, and in all three examples, a hare by the other. Both inscriptions contain further materials of the same nature. But I confine myself, at present, to these two words, in which the same three charac- ters, differently disposed, give the Arabic names of two animals, and where the two animals are found in all the recurrences, or thirty-four times, beside the two words.* Let the doctrine of * In several instances, in this inscription, the name ^J, over or under the hieroglyphic lion, is exchanged for joS^Jbt hafas, Pullus 170 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. chances be applied only to this proof. I would only add, that very early in the progress of the hieroglyphic decypherments, I had ascertained that one form of the serpent, viz. "^ , was the letter d. I had so treated it, always successfully, for several years. But it was not until I ex- amined this sarcophagus, last year, that I met demonstrative proof, or rather ocular evidence, for the power of this hieroglyphic. The reader has only to compare the two inscriptions on the sides of the sarcophagus, to see that the same word, damar, has the serpent, as above, for its leonis, A lion's whelp. The variation seems explained by the figure of a kneeling boi/ ", besides the crouching lion. The boy, again, holds out his hand to catch liquid flowing from a decanter above his head. ()L-J ,^jss: i*'-* *)> ''"''*^' '■'^"' '"^^ nakaj. He catches with the liand the liquid stream, the inscription here, describes accurately the action. But the first word /; \, narsh, has a further application : for it occurs no less than five times, immediately beside the principal hieroglyphic of the tablet, namely, a figure of Isis, also kneeling, with lier wings and arms expanded, and grasping in each hand an ostrich feather, the action corresponding with the term narsh. Cum quid manu capitur, The act of taking anything in the hand. The ostrich feathers, probably, are letters, and the word, t ) rir, L'bertate anni potitus fuit, Enjoying an ahundant harvest, being a synonyme with the name Isis, in its received Egyptian sense. » In another column tlie boy appears without the lion, and with the word hafas^ a lion's whelp, beside him in the next column, to the right. Thisisdecisivefor tlie con- nection between the two symbols. The inscription in this part describes, moreover, the action most accurately. , e. y i c *-^ l,'^*^^' hnfas hCti ari, Tlie lion's whelp stretches forth his hand to bring (the water or liquid stream). THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 171 initial in the horizontal inscriptions at the top, and the regular Hebrew daleth, *T, in the perpen- dicular inscriptions underneath. The inscription upon the lid of the sarcophagus, preserved in a third Plate, presents the same hieroglyphics of the lion and hare, accompanied by the same words, damar and darimaf, or the names of the animals represented. But it is still more remarkable for another hieroglyphic, also explained by the word adjoining it ; and which, like the epitaph of King Mycerinus in the same neighbourhood, would seem expressively designed to indicate the doctrine of the Resurrection. In examining this inscription, I was struck by the double occurrence of a very peculiar symbol : a pair of legs, with the knees bent, in the attitude of a man in the act of endeavouring to rise from a sitting posture, and of one making the effort with difficulty. The expression of the action is perfect ; there is no mistaking the feebleness of old age or debility. In both examples a word stood above the limbs, Avhich my alphabet showed to be 7ias or mas. On consulting the Arabic lexicon, the sense required by the symbol was given, literally by the one word, and substantially by the other : viz., :^:^, mazmaz, Extulit se ad surgendum, Exerting himself to rise up ; and ^i^' 172 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT- nasnas, Duobus genubus humi fixis ad surgen- dum se commovit camelum, A camel fixing both knees on the ground, exerting himself to rise up, or simply J^., nas, Extulit, sublatus fuit, erectus stetit, Rising, rising up, standing erect. But the locality of the inscription, the lid of a sarcopha- gus, taken into account, what more significant emblem of belief in the doctrine of a resurrection could there be, than this word and symbol ?* I shall only add, that, in this inscrij)tion, as well as in that of Mycerinus, is to be found the symbol of the os coccygis, or crupper-bone, the symbolic force of which is established by the Mahometan doctrine. Wilkinson's Egypt: PI. 76. This Plate has already supplied a decypher- ment of singular value, the name of the sacred bull. It will now be drawn on more largely, though still only for specimens : the scale of the • Tl'eir significance is heightened by another word, mjij, naha, coupled with mazmnz, in the first occurrence, to the extreme left of the tahlet. The force of this word is shown by the phrase CL?v*!^ «_->Ia3 nakaiu al muwt, Mactata corpora ac vclut epultn mortis, appellantur ho- mines. In this sense, nakatd mazmaz would signify the dead bodjj raisex itself to arise. Compare Isaiah, xxvi. 19. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 173 monument here delineated being so great, as to preclude more than an eclectic use of its ma- terials. It was OAvino- to a circumstance which deserves mention at the outset, that, in the autumn of 1846, I was led seriously to examine this great body of figures and inscriptions -, the magnitude of which alone might seem to repel investigation. Sir Gardner Wilkinson, however, having described the monument as " The Ceremony performed at the Coronation of a King, from the Sculptures of Rameses III. at Medinet Haboo, Thebes," — without any thought of questioning his account or authority, I became interested in endeavour- ing to ascertain how far an alphabetic decypher- ment might throw further light on his statement. My first essay was made upon the horizontal in- scription A, at the top of the Plate to the left. Reading the first word (from the right) in the sense of a herd of camels, I was agreeably sur- prized, on casually raising my eye, to see the hieroglyphic of a camel, microscopically small, yet exquisitely perfect, standing at top. n, hurr, one of the names of the lion, recurring soon after, I passed on without perceiving the lion, though he is beside and within the word, but found him most unexpectedl}^, drawn with the same micro- scopic minuteness and perfectness, near the end 174 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. of the line. The lion and the camel, with the word aran^ a desert, beneath the latter, struck me as probably indicating a scene of war and con- quest; and this impression was confirmed at every further step. To the left of the camel oc- curred the figure of a kneeling archer in the act of discharging his bow, with ra??«, ^,^^, " shoot- ing an arrow," and j^ watar, " drawing the bow," behind the figure, and in front a falling man, his victim, with the name ^^=^, Ethiopian or Abyssinian, in prominent characters before him. Further to the left was a figure with some great mass in the right hand. The word here, „j^ „ rajam^ " Stoning, overwhelming and slaugh- tering with stones," told, apparently, of moun- tain warfare, and of the Abyssinians defending their passes with stones, against an Egyptian invader. The enormous mass in question, it seemed now evident, was a stone about to be hurled from above. In front of these figures, again, to the left, my alphabet presented most distinctly the word -;, nun, a term, in Arabic, signifying, at once, " A fish," and " A sword." My surprise was great, but my satisfaction still greater, on observing a fish, exquisitely formed, at one side of the word, and a scimitar, not less exquisitely fashioned, at the other. As the re- THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 175 maining details were all in keeping with these main features, I could no longer doubt that I was master of the subject, at least, of this first line : namely, a war between the Egyptians and the Abyssinians, originating in an invasion, by the former, of Ethiopia. As the decypherment proceeded, the scene of conquest and slaughter seemed gradually to change into one of mourning. I observed expressions indicating the victorious Pharaoh himself to have fallen, apparently by the wound of a poisoned arrow. It was not until after the discovery of these indications, that the real subject of the monument fully broke in upon me. On comino- to the second row of fio-ures in procession, in a, I was startled by the plain phenomenon of coffins borne on the shoulders of bearers, four and four. I looked onward, and now distinctly saw that the attitudes of the whole procession were those of mourners ; all save the bearers (of necessity erect), men, women, and priests, were moving with bent forms, and downcast looks. The soldiers, who close the procession, move in keeping with the whole, their bodies bent, their heads drooping, their spears inclining backwards, and their shields slung behind ; their whole attitude corresponding, in effect, with that of our own soldiers, at a military funeral, marching slowly with reversed arms. 176 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 177 The solemn procession was preceded by the vaoV, or portable temple, bearing the image of the Pharaoh, and carried by four-and-twenty pall-bearers.* Before this, again, is seen the image of Osiris borne aloft by forty priests, in- closed in a frame- work covered, apparently, with panthers' skins, or a cloth in imitation of them; the panther's skin being the priest's official dress, when in the discharge of his office. I could no longer doubt that the supposed coronation of the third Rameses (an idea very * This feature of a royal funeral procession in ancient Egypt, is finely illustrated by a parallel scene, and sublime description, in " The Curse of Kehama" : — "The death procession moves along : Their bald heads shining to the torches' ray, The Bramins lead the way, Chaunting the funeral song. And now at once they shout Arvalan ! Arvalan ! With quick rebound of sound, All in accordant cry Arvalan ! Arvalan ! The universal multitude reply. In vain ye thunder on his ear the name ! Would ye awake the dead ? Borne upright in his palankeen. There Arvalan is seen ! A glow is on his face, — a lively red : 'Tis but the crimson canopy Which o'er his cheek the reddening shade hath shed, He moves, — he nods his head ; — But the motion comes from the bearers' tread, As the body, borne aloft in state. Sways with the impulse of its own dead weight. ' N 178 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. naturally adopted from the Rosetta Stone), was the funeral pomp of some Pharaoh, who had con- quered and fallen in Ethiopia. As Egyptian history has transmitted no record of Ethiopian wars or conquests by Rameses the Third, whose warfare, during a glorious reign of sixty-six years, appears to have been confined to the ex- tinction or expulsion of internal enemies, I con- sulted the Biographic Universelle, to see whether the subject of the great monument before us was traceable in the history of any other early Pharaoh. I was not kept a moment in suspense. So far as a historical coincidence, as perfect as it was unexpected, can establish the identity, Ra- meses the Fourth, grandson of the great Rameses, and father of the greater Sesostris, b. c. 1487, is the hero of this grand funereal monument and procession. For this Pharaoh, history tells us, ivas renowned for his conquests in Ethiopia: while it is silent as to the cause and manner of his death. Now the cause and manner of his death in the arms of victory, Avith the pomp and circumstance of his funeral, on the return of his victorious army in mournful triumph to Thebes, appear to be the subject of the great monument at Medeenet Haboo. And thus one precious fact of Pharaonic history, lost in the darkness of three thousand three hundred years, seems at THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 179 length brought to light by this startling coinci- dence, between ancient Egyptian history, and the fuller lights of an existing monument of Egypt. To give the history of this Pharaoh in the words of the Biographic Universelle : " Ramesses IV., fils de Ramesses Miammoun, est nomme Amenophis 11. par Manethon. II parait que ce 'prince jit de grandes conquetes dans VEthiopie. Le sixieme de ses aieux, surnomme comme lui AinenophiSj est le meme que le cclebre Memnon, si souvent mentionne dans les ecrits des anciens. C'est a cette identite de surnom qu'il faut attri- buer I'origine de tons ces monuments de Memnon, que les Ethiopiens montraient dans leur pays, au rapport de Diodore de Sicile (lib. ii., cap. 22.), et qui ne sont pas autres sans doute que les edifices eleves par Amenophis II., sur les rives Nubienne et Ethiopienne du Nil, et dont les ruines ont ete reconnues et visitees par les voy- ageurs europeens. Amenophis II. devint roi en I'an 1487, et regna dix-neuf ans et six mois. Son fils Ramesses Y. (S^sostris) lui succeda, en 1468 avant J. C." N 2 180 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. THE PATRIARCHAL EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION IN EGYPT. We come now to a class of monuments of a still higher order, because, looked on as pictures only, they advance beyond general truths of Revelation, to throw, so far as pictures can throw light on history, the clearest light on the first Book of Moses, and the first great event in the history of man. The belief of the ancient Egyptians in a future state, and in the resurrection of the body, has been often, and most justly, inferred, from the care taken to preserve the body by their processes of embalming, and the care taken to protect it, shown in those wonders of the world the pyramids, the mountain tombs of their ear- liest kings. The inference stands now con- firmed, it has been already shown, by the epitaph of Mycerinus : every figure and word in which express or indicate the doctrine of the Resurrec- tion of the body. But, while the Egypt of the Pharaohs contains ample proofs of a general belief in the doctrine, some of her monuments present proofs not to be mistaken of the sources in which this national belief originated. To the consideration of this class we will now proceed. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 181 MONUMENTAL TESTIMONIES TO THE MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF THE FALL. The remark has become a common-place, it has been repeated by so many travellers, that the serpent, a hieroglyphic of such perpetual recurrence upon the Egyptian monuments, some- times is represented in a way, and accompanied by circumstances, rationally explicable only on the one principle, — an Egyptian tradition of The Fall. We will take for example the latest account of a monument of this nature, from the unpub- lished journal of a British officer of no ordinary mental powers ; with the impression made upon him on Ihe spot. The tablet which he describes is one in the tombs of the kings at Thebes; " Eve stands in parley with the serpent ; and, next to this, a god, with a sharp arrow, pierces the serjDent's head. It is evident that primeval tradition had handed down the true worship to the precincts of Isis, of which these last drawings are imperfect intimations ; and that it was cor- rupted and lost, when, finding out many inven- tions, they first personified, and then deified, the attributes of the Deity."* * Capt. Fraser, R A., MS. Journal. N 3 182 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. The inference is that of common sense : it would be irrational to question the origin of this subject, were this even the sole instance of its occurrence on the monuments. But it is one of many: a step only in a progressive series of pictures, commencing with one or other of its most characteristic circumstances, and ascending to a complete pictorial representation, in all its circumstances, of The Fall, as recorded by Moses in tlie third chapter of Genesis. To this final representation, although copied by Sir Gardner Wilkinson himself, and often (I am told by an eye- witness of the fact) repeated on the monu- ments, strange to say, no allusion appears hitherto to have been made. The curse on the serpent is illustrated by our first example. " Her seed shall bruise thy head." On the left side of this double tablet, we have the figures of a woman and a serpent : the woman in the very act here foretold, piercing with a spear the serpent's head. On the right, the symbols change, to a hawk-headed god, and a prostrate human figure : the god, in like action, piercing the man's head with a spear. The deity is in a boat : the prostrate figure in the water. Above, to the right, is the figure of a coiled serpent, in act to spring; and over his head two words. The decypherment imme- THE MONUMENTS OP EGYPT. 183 N 4 184 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. diiitely produced the sense expressed by the action : viz. ^^., iiabah, Sibilavit serpens, " To hiss (as a serpent) ;" and \, aj, Impetum fecit in liostem, Making an attack on an enemy. But a further sense of a;, and here surely the true sense, identifies the subject of this picture with the Tempter and The Fall, in a way beyond all antici- pation. However to be accounted for, thus much, at least, is certain, that the correspondence is perfect. But of this the reader shall judge from the following definition, _1, aj, Ad malum et im- probitatem dux fuit et indicavit viam, To sin and wickedness he led and pointed out the way. That a mystic sense lies concealed under this whole subject, is evident from the one action doubly represented by the figures of the ,man and ser- pent, and the god and fallen man : namely, the piercing, or bruising, the head. The more this subject is studied, the less possible will it appear, that it could owe its origin to any other than the prophecy. Gen. iii. 15. PICTORIAL REPRESENTATION OF THE FALL. In the summer of 1844, shortly after the pub- lication of my work on the geography of Arabia, I was favoured by a friend with the loan of the 3 C THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 185 collection of plates of hieroglyphics published by the Egyptian Society, and edited by the late Dr. Thomas Young. At that period, my attention was drawn and confined exclusively to the en- chorial text of the Eosetta Stone ; and to the identity of its characters with the characters of the Sinaitic inscriptions. The hieroglyphic plates I looked over with the interest of curiosity, but without a thought of their containing an alphabet, until my eyes Avere gradually opened by the discovery, in them also, of several of the alphabetic characters of Sinai and Hisn Ghorab. At this stage it was, that, in turning over the plates, my eye fell upon a small tablet, placed centrally in a large piece from the temple of Osiris * at Phyloe, which at once told its own story, as, beyond a rational doubt, an Egyptian delineation of the Temptation and Fall of our first parents. Every particular of the Mosaic account was here depicted, to the life : the man, * In the opinion of Sir John Marshain, Osiris was the same witli Ham ; in that of the Abbe Banier, he was the son of Ham ; while by the learned in general, he is allowed to have been one of the first de- scendants of Noah, by Ham. If any one of these opinions be correct (and they seem all near approximations to the truth), Osiris must have had the perfect tradition of the Fall, and of the history of the ante-dilu- vian world. This consideration gives great weight and significancy to any pictorial representations in his temples, which correspond in cha- racter with events of the world before the Flood, related in the first Book of Moses. 186 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. the woman, the serpent, the tree, the forbidden fruit ; only the fruit was not on the tree, but in the hands of the man and woman, and upon the serpent's head; a basilisc standing erect, as though the sentence "upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life," had not yet been passed. Under the intense interest awakened by this scene, I examined the sur- rounding groups of characters, upon the strength of the bare possibility that those resembling letters might prove to be alphabetical : as these inscriptions might well be presumed likely to contain the Egyptian account of the picture. The attempt, however, was soon relinquished ; as I had then no alphabet to guide me, and few of these characters at aU resembled those of Hisn Ghorab or Sinai. I laid aside the plate accord- ingly, contenting myself with the one great certainty, that I had here recovered, in a monu- ment of perhaps the highest antiquity, the pure Egyptian tradition of the Fall. Meanwhile the progress of decypherment went on. The hieroglyphic as well as the enchorial text of the Rosetta Stone proved, on experi- ment, to contain an alphabet mingled with the figures, and was decyphered. The elder hiero- glyphic monuments, when subjected to the same ordeal, yielded similar results ; the devices uni- THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 187 formly counter-signing the legends, the figures the letters, and vice versa. But it was not until I had fully constructed my hieroglyphic alphabet, each letter of which had previously been tested by experimental decypherments ; and until a long series of pictorial monuments had been al- phabetically decyphered ; that I bethought my- self of the picture of the Fall, and that, by the great accessions of light now gained, its myste- rious inscriptions ought to be decypherable. I took it, accordingly, once more, from the port- folio in which it had long lain undisturbed, and quickly began to see light, where, before, all had been Cimmerian darkness. When I had before examined it as a picture only, I was perplexed by the character of the tree. It certainly was not an apple-tree, as the tree of knowledge is represented by Christian and Jewish tradition ; and its branches were destitute of fruit. In ap- pearance, it more resembled a slender shrub spread out as an espalier. But what the tree was, I remained wholly at a loss to conjecture. Upon returning to the plate, however, after the long interval described, I instantly read the first word over the unknown tree, by my previously raman : and formed alphabet, as cJ'V' 188 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. rama?i, I knew, was tlie Arabic name of the pome- granate. Of the form of the pomegranate tree I was profoundly ignorant, hut turned to the Ency- clopaedia Britannica for information. I will not attempt to describe my feeling, when I found the description of the pomegranate tree answering, point by point, to the tree delineated in this Egyptian picture of the Fall. The reader will compare the following botanical description with the tree in the prefixed plate. " The granatum, or common pomegranate, rises with a tree stem, branching numerously all the way from tlie bottom; growing 18 or 20 feet high ; with spear-shaped, narrow, oppo- site leaves ; and the branches terminated by most beautiful large red flowers, succeeded by large roundish fruit as big as an orange, having a hard rind filled with soft pulp, and numerous seeds." — Encyc. Brit. The tree of the monument thus proved, after all, to be a kind of apple-tree ; whose fruit, growing from the ends of the branches, a^^pears to have been just plucked off by the female figure in the picture, and accounts for the non-appear- ance of fruit upon their sides. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 189 The Tree of Knowledge. Immediately upon ascertaining the species of the tree, I observed to the left of the name raman^ in the horizontal inscription over it, a cluster of three bell-shaped flowers ; whose ap- pearance being new to me, I asked a friend who happened to come in at the time, what flower they might be designed to represent. " They are the flowers of the pomegranate tree," was the immediate answer. " They are exactly of this form, and hang thus in clusters of two or three bells." The proof was at once doubled, and by an independent testimony. Proceeding now with the examination, I discovered, in the second perpendicular column to the right of the picture of the Fall, as I could now safely pro- nounce it to be, the word raman, pomegra- . nate^ at the top, with a second cluster of h three pomegranate flowers beside it, and Q two balls, one of them streaked, obviously ' representing the fruit, and a third cluster of three pomegranate flowers underneath. The surety now became trebly sure. But I was disappointed by the occurrence of an intermediate word and hieroglyphic, which seemed altogether to break 190 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. the continuity of the sense. The word was P ^ or * ^, mar or marmar : the hiero- iis:^ glyphic, a couchant dog or jackal, ij) i|) Marmar (like our English murmur) I (^ knew signified angry; and might mean, here, growling or snarling^ which would answer for the dog. It also, I was aware, signified marble : but this was nothing to the purpose. The dog, interposed between the pomegranate flowers, seemed quite to break the connection of the story depicted, whatever it might be. After pausing on the difficulty for a moment, it oc- curred to me to try whether ^„^^, mai^mar (a word, I was aware, having few senses) might possibly bear some sense which, from not having occasion for it, I had overlooked. I opened Golius at the word, and to my astonishment read, .1^-^, marmar^ Multi succi malum punicum, A juicy pomegranate. The mystery was at once cleared up : the growling jackal, instead of a break in the sense, was the determinative of the root _«^«, in its primary sense, Tratus fuit : its proper sense, here, being a juicy pomegranate. Upon showing the phenomenon subsequently to an accomplished Orientalist, his remark Avas : " What precious senses Golius has preserved in his lexicon. I can assure you, you might read THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 191 sixty Arabic authors through, without once meeting the word^^, in that sense." I may add, that the sense in question is not found in Richardson, and that Freytag gives it solely on the authority of Golius. That the tree in the plate was the pome- granate tree, and the pomegranate tree, con- sequently, the tree of knowledge^ the tablet being most plainly a pictorial representation of the Fall, was now certain. The genuineness of the tradition preserved in this tablet, I further re- flected, is sustained by the internal evidences : for the properties of the pomegranate wonder- fully harmonize with the mystic character of the tree of knowledge ; its flowers and its fruit being in colour sanguineous *, and the pomegra- nate here intended being all juice without pulp, and thus appropriately symbolizing the hlood or the life. The place of the pomegranate in the funeral rites of the Egyptians, as their cypress, or tree of death ; and (still more significant) the sacred uses of the fruit in the tabernacle, and upon the priest's vestments, under the Mosaic dispensation, complete the internal marks of * " The pomegranate is a kind of apple, covered with a reddish rind, and Ted within, which opens lengthways, and shows red grains within full of juice like wine." — Calmet, Diet, of Bible. "In times past they dyed scarlet with the seed of a pomegranate." — Peacham. 192 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. congruity fitting it so peculiarly for symbolic uses, by proving tliat it was, in fact, symbolically used.* While thus throwing precious light upon the dawn of sacred history . itself, by determining that immemorially vexata quaestio, the true species of the tree of knowledge, — as a picture of the Fall, the tablet was perfect. But a matter of intensest interest still remained for investiga- tion, namely, whether the inscriptions which surround the tablet, would prove, on decypher- ment, to contain an Egyptian account, or tradi- tion, of the Fall. To ascertain how this might be, I proceeded to apply to these inscriptions the alphabet already experimentally tested and veri- fied by those decypherments, specimens of which * No explanation has been attempted by commentators of the mystical use of the pomegranate under the Mosaic Law. It has been noticed only as a fact. Calmet seems to suppose it chosen for its beauty : " God gave orders to Moses, to put embroidered pomegranates, with golden bells between, at the bottom of the high-priest's blue robe or cphod. Pomegranates being very common in Palestine, and being a very beautiful fruit, the Scriptures often make use of similitudes taken from the pome- granate." — Diet, of Btble. This is a most superficial view of the scrip- tural use of emblems. How different the character of the pomegranate, when regarded as " the tree of knowledge ; " and how great the force and significance, in this light, of the Divine command : " And thou shalt make the robe of the ephod all of blue. And beneath, upon the hem of it, thou shalt make pomegranates of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, round about the hem thereof; and bells of gold between them round about : a golden I)ell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate, upon the hem of the rube round about." — E.iod. xxviii. 31—34. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 193 have been elsewhere laid before the reader ; where the characters were determined from the figures of animals, with the name, a noun sub- stantive, standing by each figure. Reading the horizontal inscription over the picture of the Fall, in the direction of its figures, from left to right, I first noticed three hiero- glyphics of men's heads, two of them set upon poles, with the figure of a serpent across each pole. The word beside these emblems of death was — ^ V,., ivahar, and its primary definition, Conjecit liominem in aliquid e quo exire non posset, " Casting a man into something from which he cannot get out." The second word was w Y a;^*, ivated, Palus, paxillus, qui in terr^ pangitur, " A pile or stake driven into the ground;" a term standing beside the two upright poles, supporters of the human heads. The third word was ^ ® • ;, fa7ii, Periit, Perishing. The Ci © ^r fourth P fe^ tjjjb, hak^ Percussit gladio, Smiting with the sword. l.\iQnM\oYfS>h.[^ {\ (\j^j,rajaz, * Or 1 ^j. . ^\ju tateh, Crucifixus. (Impaled ?) o 194 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. (Satanas?) or ^^., rahh^ Anguis torquatus^ A curling serpent^ 6. l(] q J\j, rai, Simulate et per Jiypocrisin egit, Dissembliyig^ acting hypocritically^ and 7. <^ ,^^4J, namas, Imposturara fecit, decepit, One guilty of imposture, a deceiver, an ac- cuser.* Here commences the subject of the pic- ture underneath, beginning, 8. r^^,^^ ^jv^ raman, Malum punicum, The pomegranate tree ; 9. P qp kWb, hatt, Pereuntes perditique homines, Lost and ruined men; 10. \\j\ ][ jAj, hadu, Modum excessit. Transgressing the hounds of tr — ^ moderation; 11. ^^ l^, Aqy'a, Comedit, ciba- vit, edendum dedit. Eating ; giving to another to eat. These words, be it observed, from 8 to 1 1 inclusive, stand over the picture of the Fall. Then follow, 12. n( ^S^ '^ raJiak, Aberravit a via, Periit, " Wandering from the right way, / wl/*,!', Delator, calumniator. An accuser: a calumniator. So Scripture describes the arch-enemy. Job, i. ii.; Ilev. xii. lO. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 195 PerishinG";" and 13. the iiojure of a croucliino: lion, with a word under it of a double sense, and awfully self-interpretative, viz. ^^^^ ^ — o -™CC: ^., naham., 1. Satanas, ^Sata^z, and 2.Jjeo, "A *.V^. lion." This all-important word is determined by the hieroglyphic lion : if connected words have connected senses, in this place it is Satan as " a roaring lion." The next words, 14. ^y:, drm^ Carne nudavit os. Stripping the hone hare of flesli^ and 15. j, natan^ Foetuit, male oluit, Fcetid^ ill- odoured^ with the significant figure of a vulture, seem to tell but too significantly, so far as words can tell — " Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe !" The concluding words, 16. ^U, auah, Magnum commonstrans moerorem ; pecuUariter Pra3 dolore ob peccata, et Dei misericordiam implorans, Manifesting great sadness ; peculiarly^ through grief on account of sins, and imploring the mercy of God, and 17. ^_r^j, dari, Conscius, Conscious, illustrated by a human figure crouching on the heels, a well-known Egyptian attitude of devo- tion and homage, at least are well in unison with the repentance of our first Parents. I o 2 19G THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. give flic words as they presented themselves on first consulting the lexicon, and leave the appli- cation with my readers. In a case of this mag- nitude and moment, it is my conviction, that the raw materials, the naked Avords, are unspeak- ably more valuable and demonstrative than the most finished version. To proceed with this decypherment. Below the last four words, beginning with arm, " De- nuding a bone of the flesh," is the figure of a jackal crouching on a tomb, with an unknown hieroglyphic between the fore-paws, which I mistook for a torch. A glance into the lexicon undeceived and enlightened me. The words over the jackal's head, in the plainest characters, were -^ >>, or namar har, Iratus gannivit ca7iis, Howls the angry dog, and machar, Emedul- lavit OS, Sucking the marroiv out of a bone. I looked again at the Plate, when the supposed torch vanished, to give place to the real object before me, between the creature's fore-paws, viz. a leg or thigh bone, with the marrow, as sucked out, projecting above it. The rest of this short inscription, being only the repetition of the vul- ture, with the Avords U,a '^^^, Ill-odour ed gnawed hy famine, the burthen of this part would most plainly seem to be, the fatal consequences of the Pl. VII. A. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 197 Fall (the scene of which stands depicted at hand), indicated by the tomb, the human bone, and the bird and beast of death. It was now clear that the jackal between the pomegranate flowers, already noticed, while it served the purpose of a determinative, had a further and mystic meaning, and a prospective reference to the jackal upon the tomb at the extremity of the monument. The connection is further indicated by the recurrence of the jackal, in the posture of a mummy, or upright on his hams, above the head of the principal jackal, in the inscription belonging to it, and the bone between its paws. From the pictorial representation of the Fall in the central tablet, and the clear references to it, and to the forbidden fruit, or pomegranate tree, both above and beside that representation, it might well have been hoped that the col- lateral inscriptions, when decyphered, would be found to throw still fuller light upon the know- ledge preserved among the Egyptians of that momentous transaction. At this point, however, the pure patriarchal tradition, like the dissolving views, glides suddenly into a heathen myth ; being an account, apparently, of the origin of the blood-stained pomegranate, and most probably the origin of the classical fable of Hyacinthus, o 3 198 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. whose hlood Apollo is storied to have changed into a flower. Immediately under the pome- granate flowers, in the middle perpendicular in- scription to the right of the picture of the Fall, the reader will observe the figure of a man seated, with an axe in his hands, and his feet cut off, seemingly with his own axe, and by his own hands. The word beside this figure is ^vj^, hajar^ and its primary signification (hap- pily, for our object, preserved by Golius, • and very strangely pretermitted by Freytag), Ab- scidit, resecuit, Amputatmg^ cutting off. For the proper sense of the next Avord (a term here equally significant, viz.) l-j^'^- or i^y^^, mejiib, Instrumentum ferreum, vel Culter, quo finditur, A steel implement, or knife, used for cleaving, we are indebted, on the other hand, exclusively to Freytag. Together, they completely describe the action in the hieroglyphic. And as the ad- jacent column presents, nearly at top, a hiero- glyphic resembling a human foot (inverted) am- putated above the ankle, accompanied by the w^ords ^Ji, dan, Fluens, iluidusve sanguis. Fluid or liquid blood, ^l^, mal, Fronduit, floruitque arbor, Sprouts into leaf, and flourishes the tree^ and, lastly, ^ raman, Malum Punicum, or The pomegranate-tree, — the whole subject would seem to be, the origin of the pomegranate-tree, as THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 199 springing from the blood of the self-mutilated man. It is obvious that the deep blood-colour of the pomegranate fruit, and pomegranate flowers, gives an appropriateness to the Egyptian myth, which we look for in vain in the classic fables of Hyacinthus, Adonis, or Narcissus. In the amputated foot^ an allusion may possibly be intended to Gen. v. 15. — "He (the ser- pent) shall bruise thy heel." Patriarchal tra- dition, however, once thus branched off into allegory, it is needless to pursue further : enough that, in this wonderful monument, from the chamber of Osiris at Phylce, we recover irre- fragable testimony to the Mosaic records, in a perfect representation of the Fall ; and full in- formation also, upon a point of unrevealed his- tory, lost for so many thousand years to the Jewish and Christian worlds, in the discovery that the pomegranate-tree is the tree of liNow- LEDGE. This monument of primeval tradition does not stand alone. The same temple of Osiris at Philoe contains a second picture, less circum- stantial, yet hardly less significant, since it is brought home to the Fall by the more full pictorial representation which has just been examined. o 4 200 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. ^u, wm, I. q I) ?/'d(/, Promisit : prredixit aliquid futu- rum alicui : pccul. boni . Promising, predicting, prognosticating any tiling g^ood to any one. ^ji rl, Apportavlt aqiiam. " Watering.' vasab, Assidiius et de- fixus fuit in vegotif. " Diligent in business." Diiceptio, fallacia, iinpostiira, • (h arut^ " deception, fallacy, imposture." * " Now l/ie serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea hath God said, Ye shall not eat of cxery tree of the garden ? And tlie woman said unto the serpent. We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden : But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the »erpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die : for God doth know that in the day ye eat tliereof, then your eyes shall be opened 5 and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." _ Gen. iii. 1—5. Gen. iii 13. " The .Serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty."— 2 Cjr. %i. 3. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 201 In this tablet, we observe the same tree, but Avith leaves only, as though " the time of fruit was not yet ; " and the same two figures, now employed in watering it ; that on the right of the j)icture, marked as a man by the short dress ; that on the left, as a female by the long robe : with the serpent standing in the same erect pos- ture, as in the first, before the man. That the figures here, as in the preceding tablet, are male and female, is further proved, not only by the unquestionable character of the figures in that tablet, but by the certainty that, in two more representations of the pomegranate tree, to which we shall presently come, the figures reappear, and are indubitably those of a man and woman : as is also the case in the cognate representations of " piercing the serpent's head." The occupation of the two " waterers," is sig- nally in harmony with that of our first parent, as recorded in Genesis : " And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it, and to keep it." The words which follow, moreover, show, that the dressing and keejnng here spoken of, had especial reference to what is exclusively delineated in these Egyp- tian sculptures, the cultivation of ti^ees* We come now to the inscriptions of the * Gen. ii. 15—17. 202 THE j\IONC]\IENTS OF EGYPT. second tablet. It will be seen there are two: both short ; and the characters in both clear. In that to the right occurs the hieroglyphic of a duck : in that to the left, the figure of a man sitting, the left arm apparently extended, as in the act of speaking. The first word in the right- hand legend, viz. ^J^? I I'ead t^^,^^, wasab, and, on looking for the Arabic root, found the appropriate definition, , ,^., Assiduus et de- fixus fuit 171 negoHo, which may be rendered by St. Paul's " diligent in business," or, in the busi- ness in hand. And Bene administravit r^m, an- swering to the expression a good steward or care- taker. The word has clear reference to the employ- ment of the two figures. The other word tells us what that employment is. This word, determined by its hieroglyphic duck, I read ^j„ viz. • I. Here is its definition : Apportavit, seu ^^ropinavit, hausitqiie aquam, Draiving, bringing, giving water to drink: or simply '''•watering.''^* The legend here, as everywhere, simply countersigns the device. But nothing is said of the serpent : " the crested basilisk " stands beneath unnoted. The opposite inscriptions seem awfully to supply the omission. Here, also, there are but two words : the characters very clear and simple. ♦ So lllcliardson, " ^ ,^ Watering, sprinkling, drawing water." THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 203 The first word, viz. | ® ®, reads ^\^, ivai, i. cj' Az., ivdd. And its primary definition is the following, Pr^edixit, significavit afi'Qturum alicui quid: pecul. boni, sc. promisit {quid honi). " Predicting, signifying, promising to any one something future : especially, some future good." Can we read the word, as connected with the scene depicted, without its recalling to mind the language of the first Tempter to Eve : " And the Serpent said unto the woman. Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that, in the day ye eat thereof, ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." The remaining word fills up the his- tory of the Temptation. It reads^J., * i wara. And a primary sense of the Arabic verb is, J\y In malum conjecit : Casting into evil. The sense of the legend, therefore, is this : " Pro- mising a future good, he plunges (them) into evil." Can two words more fully describe the Tempter and the Fall ? The sitting figure with uplifted hand, appears, then, to represent the same great enemy in a human form, who stands in the form of a serpent, on the opposite side of the tablet : a two-fold metamorphosis, which is elucidated and confirmed by the corresponding double representation in Plate 42. of Wilkinson's Egypt ; where to the left of the tablet, we see the woman piercing the serpent's head with a 204 THE M0NU5IENTS OF EGYPT. spear, and to the right, the figure of a man with a hawk's head piercing a prostrate man's head, also witli a spear, wliile a hieroglyphic serpent writhes above the victim. It is evidently the same being, under two different forms. In this connection it remains only to observe, that, ac- cording to the ordinary law of probabilities, re- petitions of the first great scriptural scene, and accumulations of its scriptural circumstances, like these, are altogether incompatible with the idea oi fortuitousness. AVhatever differences of judgment may arise as to points of detail, the main subject, and the main circumstances, are vestiges, beyond controversy, of patriarchal faith, and primeval tradition. This scene of the Fall, however, is not tlie only one, in which the pomegranate tree appears upon Egyptian monuments ; or in which it is found united with manifestly mystic symbols. Thus in Plates 32. and 36. of Wilkinson's Egypt, or of the Supplement to the Second Series of his " Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians," we meet two tablets with fruit- trees as their principal feature, and self-evi- dently containing a mystic history. I proceed to lay before my readers the internal indica- tions supplied by both pictures, that this history is, also, an Egyptian tradition of the Fall. The THE MONUMENTS OF EGYrT. 205 tree in Plate 32. is doubly proved to be the pomegranate tree, by the character of the leaves, :isp^n fruit, and flowers, and by the name raman^ Malum punicum, written immediately over it. 206 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. In the middle of the tree stands the figure of a AV'oman, with a tray of pomegranates in her right hand, and a flaggon with a spout in the left, out of which she pours a stream of the contents upon a figure beneath the tree, with the head of a man, and the body of a bird. This figure eagerly receives the libation, catching with both hands the fallins: stream to drink of it. The whole piece evidently implies a mystery ; and the cir- cumstances just noticed come near to nothing (known to us) so closely, as to the scriptural story of the Fall. The woman, in this view, would be Eve, and the transmuted man, Adam : Eve, from the tree, tempting with the out- reached fruit, and outpoured juice, of the tree of knowledge ; and her husband yielding to the temptation, and metamorphosed, we may suppose, in the act of transgression. Let us now see how far this view harmonizes with the surrounding inscriptions. The inscription to the extreme left, in the original Plate, reads -^ or lj^,jcu\ Aqualis, hydria, vas ^^iwwm ferendw aquw jyrojmum, A jar, a little cruse, an earthen icater-vesscl. As the vessel stands under the word, there can be no question as to its correctness. And as a stream flows from the vessel, there can be as little question that it refers to the vessel or cruse in the hand of the female figure in the tree. 'J'he next word is ^j^, radzern, Fluxit, seu THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 207 fliixu delapsus luit per oras: ob plenitudinem. Plenum fuit vas, et exundavit, Flowing^ overflow- ing (a vessel), or A?i overjlowing vessel. The cor- rectness of this word, also, is manifest from the picture. The third word s, harj, Captus vic- tusque vino fuit, Cepit eum vicitque vinum, over- taken and overcome hy wine, has plain reference to the metamorphosed man below. The last word of the inscription isiximan, the pomegranate, the juice of which has produced the ill effect de- scribed.* There is here an adumbration of the story of the Fall : but, taken alone, it is an adumbration only. But light breaks in from the inscription on the extreme right, which reflects a scriptural character upon the whole of the scene. In the last column but one, appear two human figures, a man and a woman, in the same unequivocal attitude of agony, with their right hands struck against their foreheads : the emo- tion here depicted there is no possibility of mis- taking ; it is the profoundest intensity of grief. Under the two figures stands a single word, but a word which speaks volumes. It is i?i Jcnoivn Ai^ahic characters, 111 b. This word is ^,1 or i'J, auah. I leave the judgment to be formed * That the pomegranate, as well as the grape, was in use for the manu- facture olivine, is clear from Scripture; " I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate." — Song of Solomon, viii. 2. Pomegranate-wine is still an article of manufacture and commerce in the East. 208 THE MONUMKNTS OF EGYrT. from its definition to the reader : ^1.1, Magnum commonstrans moerorem : pecidiariter, Free do- lore ob peccata, et dei misericordiam implorans : The manifestation of great grief ; especially on ac- count of sins ; and the hnploring the mercy of God. If this definition does not prove the two mourners to be Adam and Eve, it, at least, wonderfully symbolizes with Milton's description of them, in the first agonies of their fallen state. But it would almost seem brought home to our first parents by the inscription which follows. The hieroglyphic figure in this inscription is that of a mummy, in the usual attitude on tlie monuments, with the knees raised in a sitting posture. I I I \ U,, raman^ Malum Punicum, " The Pomegranate," is the first word (corrobo- rated by the pomegranate tree beside it). The next word is fj^ ^, hama., Quaesivit, et pal- pando ac tentando captavit, Seeking and talcing hy touching {ivith the ha?id). The third word is a monogram, iM, ^;, taha, Perdidit, detrimento aff'ecit, and Detrimentum cepit, damno affectus fuit: Periit. Destroying^ or Being destroyed: perishing. Definitions equally applying to the Tempter and the Tempted. The last word is of a character to give unlooked-for completeness to THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 209 the whole leojend : viz. Til .Uj or ^UjI adaman^ Nomeii iii_Pararboris adiso: ^xyCnn^ " The name of a tree in Paradise." "'" The subject of the second Plate (36.) is ob- viously the same. Here, also, we have the pome- Ur<) mana, Tentavit. Trying: tempting. 'f^^Ji ramak, Arbores densa; et perplexfe. Dense, intangled trees. ^5 ma, Succus, liquor rci. The juice, the liquor of any thing. ^|^> >«ia, Fluxit res : fecit ut flueret. Flowing; c.iusing to flow P 210 THE .MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. granate-trec, with the female figure standing in it, with a tray of fruit in the left hand, and a cucumber-shaped decanter -with a spout in the rio-ht, whence she pours a triple stream upon the same figure, with the head of a man, and the body of a bird, beneath the tree. The figure, again, eagerly catches with both hands the central stream, reaching out his head to drink. But instead of a pile of whole fruit, as in the preceding Plate, the tray contains only a single fruit cut in halves. The variation throws fresh and valuable light upon the two trees ; for the form, and the seeds of the bisected fruit furnish a new and decisive proof of its being the pome- granate. The inscriptions and other figures in the two tablets, however, altogether difi'er. There is, therefore, substantial identity, with circum- stantial variations of subject. The central inscriptions in Plate 36. are as brief, as they may appear insignificant. But their literal sense is simple and clear. I notice, first, one word over the head of the centre figure, with a falcon standing on the word, and a net- work hieroglyphic under it, and on the female's head. The word is a very common monogram, liere self-interpretative: viz. _U,, ramnj^ Illex t:. pra3da, seu illicium volucre, quo capiuntur aves rapaccs, or Avis, queni vcnatores ponunt in medio THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 211 decipulcB, ad capiendas aves rapaces : i. e. A de- coy-bird placed in the middle of a gin or snare. The falcon and snare (the network clearly is the snare) pictorially represent the definition. The central inscription consists of two very plain words, namely, cJj, nezk^ Mas in genere, A male^ and j^j^, maris^ Leo, " A lion." Be- side the words is a lion's head, with the mane (so unusual in the Egyptian monuments), marking the male lion. Next to this, on the left, stands an inscription in one word, and this word, in connection with -- — J the pomegranate tree, most significant, viz. j^^s^<, Vetitus, prohibitus, and still more to the point, , nasaj, and on looking for it, found this definition — Bipartitus fuit, bifariam divisit rem. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 21 o Bisected^ cutting a thing in halves. A glance at the picture showed the halves of a bisected pome- granate in the fruit-tray, and verified the sense and the connection. The next word, -_^;., nehd^ Fecit fluere, Causes to flow ^ doubled the evidence. The succeeding terms, ^, ham, Cantharus, A jug or flaggon, and ^j^, medaj (with its double signi- fication), Plenum fuit vas, and Maturuit j9^^6a«, Idolura. The idol. _ ^,1, a«'?, i.q. fXs-1 Slam, Signum: nota. (i. e. litterae, cha ■ ■ I ractera;. Letters, characters. ) No. II. 218 No. III. / v».', nuts/i, Recepit. " Receives" [Isis ?]. /•cX-S n(i(f(7»«, Pcenitens : qui pcenitentia ducitur. A penitent : one brought by repentance. /^A^) hnna, (?) Deinisit submisitqiic nllrri. Drmissus ac submissus homo. I.nweriiij, submitting oneself /o another. A bowid down and submissive 7'inn. 'iHE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. No. V. 219 Jactavit pcdon suuni animal jugulatum (doreas), ifCsyc^ mnhas, " Throwing out the foot (an animal when slaughtering)." Percussit gladio, ,»J^, ham, struck witli the sword. No. VI ^ Washing gold. ^^ ^- 1. Nummus aureus. Numrrata pecunia, speciesve ejus avirca vel argentea. Gold coin. Gold or silver specie. 2. Infusa aqua distentum, atque ita oppletis foraminibus suturarum, constipavit firmavitque novum utrcm. Distending liy pouring in water, and thus Cllingnp the small holes of the stitch- ing, they staunch and fit for use the new iialD -sUins. 220 > 6 ibfi i y- o < § > C e 3 ^ ^ ^ a .5 j= r ^ £ 3 5, o. 01 g « 5 i- 5 3 l^ °^ THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 221 o S 5 o p ^ a. c to a.= .^ — to - o- t; s ? ^. 22 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 01 o QJ to J 5 g THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 223 No. X. /•tj O ' ^'' kwm, The basilisc stands erect. 224 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. No. XL i\" j.-c^ inardt, Noni. avis fl^tograz similis. " A species of the attagen, or Asiatic wood- cock. No. XII. ^Pr m I Cj^, hik, Struthlocamelus mas. The niali- ostrich , 5 f5f"j jafi, Cucurrit. Runs. / ^~lk^, dus, Calcavit pedibus tcrrani. Spurning the ground with his feet. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 225 No. XIII. t^^--, haj, Conteudit aliquo, et intendit. ^ Hasting anywhere, and stretching out. I I t xnf- No. XIV. (-«»♦ J > namas, Latibiilum subivit, se abdidit venator. Entering his hiding-place, concealing himself, t/ie hunter. No. XV. *^ t nahatn Rugiit leo. Boars the lion, ' (*V ) Leo. A lion. Q 226 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. No. XVI. ,^ik.SjJ 5 najnaj, Commovit, concussit. Moving Vl_ * together, shaking. No. XVII. r', nam, Odorem difTudit, fragravit moschus. Diffuses odour, fragrant musk. <^.*'4..', namlt, Idolum. ^■^ *i^i dam, \\\\y\t. Quod illinitur : pec. medi- ,Vi 1 camentum. Anointing. Ointment C^ Anointing. ', ararn, Extremitates digitorum. " The tips of the Angers." THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. No. XIX. 227 m aJ, nam, Diffudit odorem, fragravit moschus. Diffusing odour ' (musk). <^*J, M«/, Canduit. Candor, sincera albedo (white heat). jUj ?((?;•, Ignis, ^iwcj manart, Lychnuchus, candelabrum, la- terna. Fire. A lamp: a candelabrum. ,4i ,-»i^»»4J, namudaj, Tj'pus rci et exemplar. A tj-pe: a pattern, jb, war. Ignis. HjC-^t manart, 'LaXarxia.: candelabrum. P^p »-. ha7ia, Demissi ac submissi homines. The downcast and submissive men. (There are thirty of these cartouches seriatim.) '.-rA!, 7«(i(T, Extendi! se. Stretching himself out. Q 3 6 <2 g J- h a i; *3 •<= o 2 e>2 is K ^ -^. • s o THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 231 No. XXII. 1 • ir--;*^"? habasch, ^thiops : Habassinus. The Ethiopian : the Abyssinian. 2- (__£}^' J«"'<, Suspendit appenditve ollam. Hangs the pot on the fire. Q 4 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT 233 HO .2 o ■p. S ^ lU ^ ;rj ■^ o« 11^^:2: ,JJ 234 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. e s S A s h o « *» Pi ♦» 8 J= e a s 5 Dl •I '% S \ ^^ *Jj CORMORANT THE I^IONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 235 e^^ i § CO o o 'S .« «" •^ s 4 a s> »- ^ ^ J\ ■3 fl 9 u g ■« oo ^ (^^ il - tlD .- C > '5 a a i£ .5 c o _3 236 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 237 No. XXVI. *i5j} watam, Laxarit velamentum \velum'\. He unfurls the sail. 2. «_»,aJ, iafa, Comportavit. Bearing : carrying [rt]. 238 No. XXVII. m ^^S 1 f e i_f^>-> /pan, Atrium mediunique domus " A court : a liall the middle of a house." if -SJ5^) hnjarat, Trac- tus aiigulusque do- mus : atrium. The corner of a room. "A chamber." i ft), i'iLN.-«5 madarah, Princeps. "A Prince: a King.' I. *.') bcm, Vox gravissima: bassus. 2. j.>-h achar, A tergo. Back to back. 3. J»irj /Kirf, Imraotus. 4. (_5vC5 >«af, Extendit. Reaches out. 5. iJJ'j Mfld7, Convocavit ad conciliabulum. Summoned to the council-chamber. " Called to the place of assembly." C. c_:'*— ■? sau'i, iEqualis et par fuit alteri. Equal to each other. (Of equal rank.) \ */»,*^, wamm, Cidari ornatus, ei hinc, Princeps gentis. Arabum rex. 7 y- 1 [bantur (•'? nnA«, Vox strutliiocameli. The cry of the ostrich. *^^ r All, razam, heo. The lion. <*k m. [ j .y^ C«) wd, Nocturnus explorator ac vigil. The night scout. ^ (Determinative hieroglyphic over the word, an owl.) p c'lh ami, Defixit in terra vexiUum. « k -v I •• Planting a standard in the ground. -ji ragu, Vociferatus fuit hytena, struthiocamelus. Cry aloud the hyena, the ostrich. I I Jltij dada, Vehementi cursu latus fuit camelus (struthiocamelus). Running at full speed the camel (the ostrich). A.*' ' 'Ji Pj' *""• Desertum. The desert, or Nocturnus vigil. Watchful by ^^^[♦^ ^ night. A night watch. . r . -L.M.O, dlski, Agmen magnum struthiocamelorum [in gen. avium ?] . '~'^ ^ ■■ A great flock of ostriches. IQ. of sundry birds ?] lijk^J, bahbah, Raucus fuit et murmurando vociferatus fuit camelus. I Hoarse cry of the camel (or the ostrich). It-iifc', ahana, Collum sequabiliter inflexum habeus struthiocamelus. k'L t " Contracting or bending the neck (an ostrich)." Cwj) roan, rrt«fl^ Struthiocamelus foem. A female ostrich. e — 'ti vaba, Paravit et expedivit se ad faciendum impetum. Preparing and hastening to make an onset. [Ostrich at bay."] Tty 1 -rr > , kashas, Validus. A strong lion. J-Jj, wdka, rrocuhuit humi. Crouches on the ground. ] ^^fi"*^? nanii, Sustulit extuHtve se de loco in locum accipiter. Springing, pouncing, from place to place, a falcon. 1« , kaa, Fugam cepit. Takes flight {the ostrich subintell.) l-feg -'■^*i V'atsa, Properavit, celeriterque progressus fuit camelus. Hasting, going at full speed, a camel {an ostrich). ^— ^, waba, Paravit et expedivit se ad faciendum impetum. Preparing himself, rushing, to make an onset, ^i I J att, Imminuit illi hostis. The enemy being at hand. 3 t*^'' "^ena, CoUum asquabiliter inflexum habens struthiocamclus. R ^jl.. No. XXXIII. Theoretical decypher- %^^^i^ Alphabetical decyphcrnicnis qf the present ments qf Champul- liun. Parso, riiarso, Pays d'Asie a Perse). loudahamalek, Pays d'Asie (fc royaume de Juda). -Ai, t^U^, Aacf, Leo. " A I «-^»^) manS, Validus, generosus|: pec. talis leo. (rl.\jt raxtm, Rugitus leonis. " The lion's roar." ' The roaring of a lion." C^-JtV>-) harts, Leo. " A lion." VXr<5 Vociferata fuit sua more felis : seu, . i^i 1 naay, Nuncius mortis. " The mes- senger of death." Baithhoron, Villc de Juda (Bet-Horon). Bolo, Balo, Pays d'AfriqUft Naharaina. Pays d'Asie (la hUtopolamic). I ^r«>3JJ^, Leo. 9^J'> Murmuravit. Strepuit. ^ Growls. Roars. ^\jb. , haySat. Sonus vel vox vehementior incutiens terrorem. " Any horrible voice or sound which strikes with terror." seu. p 5^*") i"") Esuriens, famelicus. " Hungry, starving." [Mesopotamia or Naliarain, " the country between the rivers," ^so called from its position between the Tigris and Euphra- tes, is represented in the hieroglyphic tab- lets by two rivers, hence it is, also, named ^41 ^rl»>aiJl» The peninsula. The hierogly- phic name ntand has the same sense as island.1 ik^><^) mana, Inaccessus locus. " An inac- cessible place." THE MONUMENTS OF EGYrT. 243 No. XXXIV. Device of a favourite Egyptian symbol ex- plained BY ITS legend. Among the hieroglyphic symbols on the monuments one of very frequent occurrence is, that of a figure sitting as usual on the heels, with the knees upraised and a crooked stick or staff placed upright on the knee. The meaning and purpose of this emblem, as in the case of all the others, have of course been variously explained ; and, as in all similar examples, the explanations have been conjectural only. Hap- pening, however, to notice a very peculiar specimen of this hieroglyphic, in which a legend in three characters stood beside the device, I resolved to test it by the lexicon. The crooked staff, in this instance, had a small ring or circle on the crook, and several horizontal lines or hyphens down the staff. What these might mean was wholly beyond conjecture. But fortunately they were accompanied by a word, which read ^.^^v.^-, hajan. I looked for it, and the enigma was instantly solved. For the primary definition of ^^.^j:?-, hajan, is Attraxit ad se rem .cs}.sj/»JU, i. e. incurvo baculo. Catching a thing upon a crooked stick. And the substantive , -sj^sJ'*'' ^nohajan, is Baculus capite adunco, clavaj lusorioe similis. " A club with a hooked head, like a stick used in a kind of game." The game intended was the play of catching rings upon the hooked staff. And it is fully explained by the above hiero- glyphic : where the ring is seen on the crook at top, in the act of being caught, while the horizontal lines on the staff below are other rings previously caught, and falling down the shaft of the play-stick. Thus the mysterious emblem is simply an Egyptian game, introduced, like other games, as symbols on the monuments. B 2 No. XXXV. u>V^, hdd, Leo. A lion. ^UwK-c, 7)iamanadt, Validus, generosus: pentl. talis leo. Strong, generous : especially Such a lion. n /* It) Leo. The lion. t-->t>-? Ira fervens leo. Enraged (n tow), \X.«5 Sonuit : vociferata fuit/f/z's (/eo.?). Vociferates the cat (the lion ?). ^^, Impetum fecit, irruit. Makes an onset : rushes on. /•JlS) Leo ^lAi) Dunis et validus, c/?«w Leo. ' ' Cruel and strong, also A lion. CI.JW5 Necavit, occidit, morte affecit. ; Slaying, killing, putting to death. ■"VVvVVVNA. >. u ji>^ Leo. The lion. tc^Jt Semet dejpcit, projecitve, et concidit. Casts himself to the ground. Couches. ^:ii ^ f\(]([ ViPCiS Q A ^' ''^''' ^^°' '^''® ''° Apaj-^, kajam, Invasit : ir- ruit in eum, pec. de improviso. Invades : rushes on any one, pec. unawares QMMD No. XXXVI. 245 siy-- — A L ^^*i/' I'^'i'^'us cam's, ^c. Yelps. (^ WSS^J Leo. The liou. /'W^/WN S .4 om^ ■J \i Constrictus et in unum contractus fuit, Drawn together and contracted into oneself. i^ ^'T^m/i. *.>^'i Odoratuexploravit.t'rf exaura, halituve \ ' percepit. I Exploring by scent: or perceiving by ' the air. j^j'i farfar, Attagen avis. The woodcock, &c. (Subject, a sportsman, pointer, and bird.) ' rT^*'T\ i-*i"Agoat. The goat species." {Pers.f) n jy^'^i Felis ; et primum quoque, Dominus Princeps. A cat ; also pn?naril//, A sovereign, a Prince. ij! ^J^ Semet dejecit, projecitve : et concidit. lj]j^ rara, Commovit convertitque oculos. Rolling the eyes. "\ JV R \ y^/^' Rugitus /font's. (Ruglit /eo.) P V CL"^ ^ ^~^ J (*^'^5 hajam, Invasit : irruit in eum, pec. de impro- viso. Invading : rushing on ayiy one, espec, unawares. R 3 1^ 6 •n a r yr. 0^ m 247 ^5>-l, n/aw, i.q. Hcbr. et Chald. DJK, Arundinetum [papyretum] : palus. A place of reeds [a papyrus fen] : a pool or marsh. NDJ' Junais paluslris spec. Papyrus nitotica. " The Egyptian reed or papy- rus." f^}\ ami, Aves simul congregate. " Birds flocking together." [ p^ " understood.] ^j-< mwr, Hue illuc, seu ultro citroque commota fuit res: uti vento palma. Moving to and fro : as a tree agitated by the wind. y^^i AffMar, Coramovit, agitavit »r»i. Causing commotion : disturbing. ^j.'j nfiar, Fugax, pavida (at>M). The fugitive, frightened (^ame). J^ } naiar, Vi traxit. Seizing by force : dragging forcibly. kX') nad, Dispersi sunt inter sese, hue illuc ab invicem aufugerunt. Scattered among themselves, flying to and fro. >^Sj 1} andid, Disgregatae, disperse aves. Scattered and dispersed birds. » AJ>, hadam, Diruit, evertit, destruxit rem. Demolishing, overthrowing, destroying anything. i*-fc.', rurt. Ictus vel jactus conspicuus. A violent stroke or throw. -I'd^j duch, Projecit. Casting, projecting, throwing. ^jir- 1 din, Observator, speculator, vigil. A scout, a spy, a watch. ^CT AVajJ) nuham, Nomen avis rubrte, qus forma anserem refert. 1 > The name of a red bird, in form resembline a c The name of a red bird, in form resembling a goose. • jyOy wjur. Hue illuc, seu ultro citroque, commota fuit r«. §p Hither and thither, or to and fro, moving iueli anything. R 4 n LI ».>£■) tsaru, Canis venaticiis. A hunting-dog. A setter. [" On a sudden a dog, which, ti!l then, keeps close, being perfectly taught his business, rushes from behind the trees, jumps into the water, and, swimming after the ducks, barks as he swims. Imme- diately the frighted ducks rise upon the wing," &c Oulton's Iti- nerary, art. Croyland.~\ ,— *3) 7i(y, Velociter progressus fuit. Moves on quickly. r-^ J rn/a??2, Lapidavit. Lapidibus obruit et occidit, n/ij'?*^ in gen. Necavit. Stoning. Killing with (sticks or) stones, and in general. Killing. c«', flM'J, Aves congregatje. Birds flocking together. (X^ 1, ramad, Supervenit iis : pecul. exitium inferens. Coming down upon: especially bringing down destruction. n^^ L5 ^Jj, radi, Jacto /rt/)!df, petivit. Aiming at with stones [or sticks?] iU cv*«;.-'C, mahmah,\.q^. r^J' Conjectavit. Throwing at. Et Divinans, pec. observans aves. Throwing at : also divining, pec. from observation of 6 irils. A (, 7a7>i, Fugitivus, Fugitive. ^P ^ ."»7 maraj, Turbatum fuit. Perturbatac res. Confusio, tumultus. ^ Perturbation. A perturbed state of things. Confusion «id ' •!> au'i, Aves simul congregata; {noctu]. Birds flocking together [by nigfil]. ^ ^-H^, tir. Avis : volucris. A bird. Uw» nana, Pavidus. Fearl'ul : frightened. If • iJty hakatn,i.q. jiiy Aa^rt/', Domuit, subjugavit. Sub>eeting: snbdoJnjJ» THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 249 ji>j hirr, Felis mas. A he-cat, ./♦J ) na>?iai; Maculosus, pellem pardi referens. Having a skin like a panther. Maculis punctisve respersus fuit : pecul. colore pardi. Spotted, striped, streaked like a panther. «... IP ^f5>-», Wfl/era, Supplicavit. Supplicating : suppliant, I . I )5 ran Vociferatus est. Vociferates, \\< et W*-"'-^j dasar, Confodit hastd. Piercing with a spear, ^5^ (^'^1 '"< Tiinidu et pavidus fuit. Timid and terrified. '-^ 1.11' ran, Vociferatus fuit. Vociferating. Res in rtqitd sonans, &c. l_»->*.'5 nagab, Inglutivit, absorpsit : ita sorbendo haurit, ethaustum gorpsit in bibendo. Sucking up, absorbing, swallowing bj' suction at a single draught. %,,^^^ ^i'^i tnahtt, Percussio vehemens. A violent stroke. SBC t^ /♦)' sawj, Petivit, captavitque 7)r-, //an, Arguta voce gemuitpraeamore ac propensione. Jti Whining with shrill voice through love and propension /^' *'""'' ^"stis, baculus, clava. " A staff, stick, club.' ^ l.,5^' ''"""' Jftcit, projecit, abjecit a manu rem \hier. a man in the act liy •■ of throwing^. Casting, projecting, throwing anylhing fro?n the hand. V* tr*^' '"*"' ''^'■'^"^s" manu. Confodit cum vehementia. Striking with the hand : or vehemently with a missile. '^ ... -'^ L^' ^"*' Crassior vox corvi. Croaking, having a hoarse voice (a crow). ^1 ^- <::_ ' ■ J^~~'' J^..J ) /'«»vr, Raucedo. Hoarseness. \n. . crows among the birds above.] "D^ \ a j*^ '' aja7n, i. q. Hebr. et Chald. DJX. Arundinetum : Papyretum. A lake of reeds : a papyrus marsh. I) (^_J^' ""''.■( ( ) •I Cl_53 J'-. ' '" '""'' ^^'^^ simul congregata ~' tir J" Birds flockins together > Birds flocking together. /Im, (< J^"' ''"''' CoUegit, comprehendit, complexus fuit, congregavit. ® •• " To take or lay hold of, seize hold of, catch; gather together. n ^^>A<:t nainah, Obstrepui!, attonitus fuit. Astonished, stupified [the birds']. 254 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. V^ Ui , kana, Occidit, ad necem adegit. ; Killing, making slaughter of. • iSA „« I, rirA, Disgregataeaves. The scattered birds. ^^if,^ 1 Jb, hari, Percussit, cecidit fuste, crassiore baculo. Striking, killing, with a club or thick stick. ff^^ <^Vs}.S n(7/aA, Prospere expedivit negotium. Superavit et vicit n/ws. • • ^^ — ' Prospering in his undertaking. Mastering and conquering others. ** y w, kana, Occidit et ad necem adegit. Killing, making a slaughter. J^^ w^, mata, Percussit /^i/f. Striking wiV^ a «/ici. cr* , e)^5 Aiai, Exporrexit et protendit rem, ut quoque 7«anaOTS«a7«. Projecit. Reaching out any thing — the Aarad— throwing. »«vv-»w iu,AJ, namas, Latibulum subivit, se abdidit, fpnntor. 5 Entering his hiding-place, hiding himself, the sportsman. 'V ,.r^"j j'n, Tectus fuit, semet operuit. Concealed : covering himself over. ^Iff 1*^1 iw/, Verberavit, et humi stravit. Wounding. Casting to the ground I THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT 255 No. XXXIX. ORIGIN AND PRIMITIVE MEANING OF THE CHA- RACTER DENOMINATED THE CRUX ANSATA, OR SACRED TAU. The Egyptian monogram, to which this title has commonly been given, so remarkable from the incessancy of its repetition on the monu- ments, is rendered still more so by the pecu- liarity of its occurrence as an emblem in the hands of gods, of kings, and more generally speaking, of prominent monsters or human figures in the hieroglyphic tablets. Its place and pro- minence naturally concentrated upon the cha- racter the attention, not of archceologists only, but of general readers. Conjecture, as usual, has been busy as to its origin and object. But the prevailing notion seems to be, that their Sacred Tau was used by the Egyptians as " The Symbol of Life." Although taught by experience the fallacious- ness of similar inferences, I had formed no opi- nion, pro or con, upon the subject. Attaching little or no value to conjectures of this nature, where unsupported by substantive corrobora- 256 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. tions, I rested satisfied with the general con- viction that the Crux Ansata was a mystic symbol of some kind or other : although its true nature might be undiscovered, and, too probably, undiscoverable. In this frame of mind I was employed in the decypherment of No. 61. of the Plates pubhshed, under the superintendence of the late Dr. Young, by the Egyptian Society. The subject of the piece, as its inscriptions were interpreted by my alphabet, proved to be the Pharaoh of the day, represented in the appro- priate character of a Shepherd, driving before him a herd of tethered calves. The Scriptural phrase of the Shephekd, as the symbol of roy- alty, derived increased appropriateness in ancient Egypt, from her celebrated dynasty of Shepherd Kings. I had myself, therefore, no doubt that an interpretation thus corroborated pictorially by the subject of the piece before me, was sub- stantially correct. I had completed, however, this part of the decypherment, and that, also, of a second central inscription, in which the same king is represented under the symbol of a pelican, feeding its young from its beak and breast, before my attention was drawn and arrested by objects dependent from the Pharaoh's left hand. These were three cruces ansatce^ each attached, respec- tively, to one of the three tethers, held, at one ^ 4E SHEPMERO C • THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 257 end, by the royal shepherd, and, attached, at the other, to the near forelegs of the three calves. The light, now, at once broke in: the objects could no longer be a mystery; they were, simply, the iron tether-pins, with revolving rings at top, with which, now, as then, cattle are tethered to the ground. The special appropriateness of the symbol to Egyptian royalty, and its general appropriateness as applied to their gods, nobles, magistrates, &c., to all of whom, in their several degrees, belonged alike tlie character of shepherds GLOSSARY. (I . e^^ hivi, Exporrexit ot protendit manum suam ad capiendum quid. '■ •• Stretching out, reaching out Aw Art/jrf to take hold of any thing 5-' (, raa, Pastor. The Shepherd. (From ^<~Ji rai, Pavit gregem pastor. The shepherd feeds his flock.] I -<) mara, Pullus bovis levis et albi. The calf of a smooth and white ox. ^ 1) ani, Retinuit, detinuit, coercuit. Restrains, detains, coerces. »A.'«, waiad, Firmiter Jidegit, innpegitque, seu depegit, paiillum in ierram. Driving firmly the tether-pin into the ground. Palus seu paxillus qui in terra pangitur. A stake or pin driven into the ground. [Hieroglyphic 3 tether-pins.] s t 258 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. of the flod; leave not a reasonable doubt, that, in the tablet before us, we have the origin and primi- tive meaning of that long disputed and mistaken emblem, the Crux Ansata, or Sacred Tau. ^,1 .X^i jflrnn, ivl'r*^ /*',«?« iiiran, Peliranus. The 1 U«ll»..n *.', bam. Vox gravissima, vulgo b.issus. A deep voice : deep- ' voiced. I V.C5 7naa, Extendit, dilatavit, utrem. Extends, stretclies (its) h.v^or pouch. * j*4>«ii', himan, i. q. ijj, ~ttk, Inserto rostro piillis suis pscam S^^— -j^ in fauces ingcssit avis. ^^^^^'"—^ A bird inserting its beak into the beak of its young to convey into it its food. It is not my purpose to enter at large into the details of this piece, as, in so doing, I might .only withdraw the attention of the reader from this, its most important feature. But as I have noticed tlie occurrence of the pelican, as a second THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 259 symbol of the Pharaoh, I would say a few words upon this part of the decypherinent. Having arrived at the perpendicular column facing the image of Osiris, of which the glyphograph op- posite is a facsimile, its inscription, decyphered by my hieroglyphic alphabet, reads as in the in- terpretation placed by its side. This legend gave, with zoological exactness, the conformation and habits of the pelican ; whose action, when feeding its young ones, is a favourite common-place in plates of Natural History. But, after rendering the legend, I could not perceive the device. Young birds, indeed, there were adjoining : but not, without the mother bird, determinable as pelicans. I abode, however, by the decypherment ; and was pre- sently rewarded : for, on looking casually at the bottom of the tablet, I found, without the least anticipation of such an issue, the mother pelican^ apparently fishing, immediately under the head of the third or lowest calf. It is needless to dwell on this unlooked-for, and decisive confirmation. s 2 2 GO THE MONUINIENTS OF EGYPT. No. XL. ANCIENT EGYPTIAN BAZAAR. {Wilkin.wn: PL IV.) The subject of this Plate, according to Sir Gardner Wilkinson, is, " The chiefs of four nations, bringing tributes to the Egyptian king, Thothmes III." No figures, however, either of king or courtiers appear in the tablet. Neither are the supposed four nations accurately or uni- formly discriminated throughout it ; for men of different races, Asiatics and Africans, and even whites and blacks, are grouped together in the third line. On the whole, at the same time, the diiFerences of countenances and costumes, and, in parts, the diversity of commodities, are such, as to authorize the inference, that the four series of travellers here represented, are people from different countries. AVithout prejudging the case, it was my business to test it experimentally by the accom- panying inscriptions. I did so : and the result has been, that, instead of a procession of tribu- taries to some king of Egypt, this tablet contains an assembly of traders, or of pedestrian caravans, from divers parts of Asia and Africa, bringing THE MONUMENTS OB^ EGYPT. 261 their various merchandise to some great mart or bazaar at Thebes or Memphis : an Egyptian prototype, perhaps 19 centuries b. c, of the Crystal Palace, and the Great Exhibition, in tlie 1 9th century of the Christian era. It is observable on the face of the picture, that, as there are four trains of voyagers, so there are four repositories for their goods, and four clerks or attendants in readiness to receive and enter them. It is further observable, that the goods piled up promiscuously in these re- ceptacles, are mostly the same kinds with those which are to be seen in the hands of the bearers in the several corresponding roads or avenues. The animals, and tlie carriage, are the only ex- ceptions: of course because they were unsuited for admission into the repositories, and were bestowed elsewhere. These remarks are suo;- gested by the tablet itself, without any reference to its decypherment. We come now to the task of ascertaining: the subject, by the evidence of its inscriptions. As these are partially defaced, and occasionally in- significant, we will take them eclectically, as they stand over the successive rows of figures, ac- cording to their greater prominence and pecu- liarity, and consequent greater clearness in point of evidence to the decypherment. s 3 262 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 263 £•-§1^1^? S I - a c^- ^jS ■^^S'u "5 -S^a oS -Si's >5c'« Sj=E "SI'S! g, ^« -o ^§ *^» gjjS oT-g-^ s 2g. 5?=* 2r, ^§ oS^ fct;-='~ '=' ■O'^i "^E -o-^ cSi E o 'E s-s- I . TO *s .-, 1 a " *^ Hj a E • i; S s 8 s s 9 :: s Is u f \ s o a; 3 a .s § 3 t. 60 fl lil < a 60 S o C J3 o ■~ -s !- s a s o a" U n ~ .5 S " -1) ^= L V -i- -A ^ ^ s 4 264 THE IMONUilENTS OF EGYPT. In the first row, occur three figures of men leading in leashes a gazelle, and two hunting leopards. The inscription over this group reads, freely rendered, thus : " They conduct, leading in leash, the prey ( j^^, Caper, the goat), holding it with the hand." The next specimen, in the same line, consists of six figures ; three bearing elephants' tusks, and three, logs of black and white wood. The inscription above them reads as follows : " They sustain [on their shoulders the an- nually shed tusks, the inward-bent teeth of ivory. The dog deep-voiced [here, a dog in leash barking beneath]. The tusks. The agallochuni [the black and white precious incense wood of Arabia and India]." We now arrive at the first storehouse, stall, or booth of the bazaar. There occur two words facing it. They read and render thus " ,U!„ raman, 1. A pomegranate, or 2. from its resemblance to the pomegranate, the iceight of a pair of scales or balance with which other things are weighed." Opposite to this word, within the storehouse, stand two baskets filled with rings shaped like quoits, being the hollow circular iron pomegranate weights, which the word . U„ raman, describes. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 265 c 3 8 — II c 1 o s< O . ^ a ij Q ;= 3 Q i. a 3' J I 3 = 2 g £ - K ^ 266 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. The second word is ,£, , or A^ ,, ras or rasas : find its definition, " Piled up eggs." Below this word, in the storehouse, stands, accordingly, a basket of eggs. Within the store occur five words, apart from each other, so as to spare the trouble or risk of subdivision. Like the storehouse itself, they face the opposite way to the approaching tra- vellers, reading from right to left. The first word ^A tsiii, Utensilia et strata domiis, sc. Household utensils, or wares, floor- cloths, the tiger skins both carried, and laid down. The next word, x^, scin, supplies a sense self-evidencing, viz. Leathern vessels cut into halves : for immediately underneath it stand no fewer than nine halved vessels or baskets, some full, others empty, exactly corresponding with the definition of -^ ; being doubtless the halved skin vessels there described. The third word U^ or i.U^;-, jdaut, denotes the provision basket which stands under it, with its cover. The fourth word is jt^, again, amidst the half baskets below. The fifth and last word is equally curious and satisfactory. For it has a double sense : and both its senses, here, are alike required and apposite. The word is .i, tsui, and its first meaning here, Household luares or utensils, floorcloths, THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 267 carpets, &c. This definition obviously includes the whole contents of the bazaar, its tiger-skin .§•5 is 3 £ 3' 3 S ^ "> floorcloths inclusive. The second sense of ^• is still more striking, for it fully explains, what, 2G8 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 269 11 11 i o o ] B5 •^ 3 be T3 i 3^ j= t^ oc "^ t" ^ 3 ~ 3 -2 « III! S o c '3 3 3 S & S .2P >« > .s 3 B 5 S ^ o" ° ^ .5-2 -■ S 3 o ^ ^ .1- £.5 ■Ij"% 270 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. without it, appeared inexplicable. The objects between which this word is placed are two obelisks, and two things shaped like tombstones. The question was, what might these articles be? From their relative scale, the obelisks could not be colossal, yet were too large for ornaments. The tombstones were a total mystery. But the word between immediately explained both, viz. isvi, tsut^ " small stone columns or pillars, fixed in the desert for the guidance of shepherds: way-marks, the height of a man sitting." The remaining storehouses, with their con- tents, will be sufficiently explained by the ac- companying glyphographs and their glossaries. No. XLT. MECHANIC POWEES. THE PULLEY. The problem as to the mechanic powers known to the ancient Egyptians is amongst the most difficult and disputed. While scepticism has been largely indulged as to their acquaintance with the simplest mechanic forces, their stupen- dous works argue their possession of some of the most complex and greatest. The problem is THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 271 solved by the tablet before us. For it demon- strates that they possessed the principle of the PULLEY. Observing in the storehouses, and in the vases borne by the traders, small objects like wheels with spokes, fixed upon little uprights, I was interested and perplexed by their appearance. Unable to conjecture their nature or purpose, I consulted friends. But the only conjecture ofi*ered was, that they might be intended to represent flowers. Too conversant with the correctness of Egyptian art to admit this con- jecture, my only resource was the possible light derivable from the tablet itself. Seeing the word ;, drn^ near the inexplicable objects, I looked for it ; and found, at once, in its definition, darkness exchanged for light. The word \r signifying " The block of a pulley," or " the staff of the wheel of the pulley, through which the iron axle is passed." I examined the un- known object once more, and found the pulley, with its stafi^, block, and wheel, responding at every point to the definition. Even the cord of the pulley is noticed in this inscription, which one of the bearers is described as in the act of replacing, it having slipped off the wheel. This one great mechanic power solves the enigma of the Pyramids. 272 THE MONmiENTS OF EGYPT. = t. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 273 S S e " 2 ■^ (U Oj O X s i ^ g I ^ ^ ; § -s ^ <^ -5 .1 ~ a .2, 6 j« s o ;S j3 s o E .1 ■>: o ^ ^ IS ;§ ^ ^ -ti •= u § S £ S i •- j^sja-ai c8S-"^o M'artca"- a a cS^oS-S U S •*- i- 4^ U m" ? 5 1 £ « *: = .. s " ^ ._ „ 0, ^ « OJ M ^ g flJ w C 01 o. c \ 'rJ , -J ^ Ctt £ 5 q ^5 !si -" fei is " «| 5 IS 2 5 -E ?o € = 3 •?> .• £f e Q -ti ■« 11 1.2 ^-i'- 1 "'^i-- i ^- £1 "ill S Si o g S .2 in (u ■= C _' •S 5! c 2 2 c s o, .2 u 73 tio V.-2 po » S. > a -^ Z Z ■- o . .5 o. 3 S ° 3 C g- = I" a,*; ^ ■§ ^ <^ - o -C s « =: T3 274 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. No. XLII. SPECIMENS FROM THE PLANISPHERE OF TENTYRA. 3, ^ H IMiX 1. VjSy, «a/a, Oculo maligno petens. Seek- ing with malignant ej-e. 2. jj%'>^) hGl, Voluit maligno oculo petere gregem. Eager with malignant eye to seek the flock. 3. i_$it^5 dat, Insidiatus fuit gregi lupus. Laying snares for the flock the wolf. 4. /♦v,'5 nam, Rugiit. Roars. 11/ ^ ^' ' """J'. Lupus. The wolf. 1 1 "" '■ \ n I («::^^Jfcj> wahal, Pressit, compressit. Presses, compresses. Q O Q I r^ ^^_}j^^'^^ duhrujtit, Fimus, vel pillulae ex eo, quern volvlt tcarabiEUS. Manure, or little balls of it, rolled into balls by the beetle. I THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 275 &.c^ 1)^ vs ^CTi /•(CiJJ, nuham, Nomon avis rubra;, quae formi anserem refert. The name of a red bird, in form resembling a goose. U , nw, Surrexit cum labore. Rising with effort. jj./»,.aijj \Jt nu bc/ianial, Assurrexit cum onere. Rising up under a load. ^0 ^, m, Crassus et grossus homo. A big heavy man. T 2 (j^ g M'^? (farrt, Fulsit et scintillavit Shiues and twinkles the star. kahkakat, Vox leonis : pecul. rugientis. The voice of the lion : espec. roaring. ; _ 1 I /^t-ay*) majan, Durus ac crassus fuit. Fierce and strong (a lion) jc)"^' Fulgens Stella. A shining s-^ jab, Hurai prostravit: humi prostratus fuit. Prostrating on the ground. Prostration on the ground. U,!>-, jatsa, Incubuit inseditque genubus. Lying down and resting on the knees. '«<*>"5 hani, Inflexus fuit. He bends down. Bent, bowed down. {^y^i tun, Accessit considendi ergo. Come for the purpose of sitting down. rJS}'^' hajar, Meridies, Medium sen ferventior pars diei. Midday. The meridian. Meridian heat rj'') a>'acA, Expansiore ungula cfl/ier. A broad-hoofed he-goat. C^_J^ radzam, Procubuit : Seraet in terram conjecit. Lies down : casts himself to the ground. ^^«£> ii", Eve? 3. y^i viara, Tr.insiit, prEEtervectus fiiit. Voyaging, borne along. 4. jJtX5^5 hadal, Decli- navit a recto. Falling from uprightness. 5. (tfJ"? tvakl, Timuit, coluitque Deum : plus fuit. The servants and worshippers of God. 6. f^-'^i da/an, Vagans qu6 voluit, ac pro libitu, citra nccessitattm incedens qu5 velit homo. Man wandering at will, and, without necessity, going whithersoever he will. 7. ic^^3' wahi. Res revelata, suggesta, pecul. divinitus. A thing or matter revealed, suggested, espec. from God. 8. , c*i&) hul, Dt-mentavit, fascinavit eum Satnnas, et seduxit. Satan, dementing, fascinated, and seduced him. It has already appeared that representations of the Fall, form a prominent series among the subjects treated of upon the hieroglyphic monu- ments of Egypt. We have seen that event in all its leading circumstances depicted, at once, with a fulness of correspondence with the Mosaic account, and with a minuteness in the details to be rationally explained only as resulting from a pure patriarchal tradition. It is quite essential THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 270 to have these points of facts present to the mind, when weighing the probabilities respecting the symbolic tablet from the planisphere of Tentyra, whose inscriptions supply the materials of the above decypherments. Since, if the Egyptians possessed traditionally the Scriptural details of the Fall, there is nothing extraordinary in the supposition, that they also possessed the histor}', and the names, of our first Parents. In truth it would be extraordinary, if the first Egyptians, the immediate descendants of Noah, did not. The question before us, therefore, is not one of antecedent likelihood, or unlikelihood : it is a question, simply, of experiment and evidence, like all that have preceded it in the present work. What, then, in this example, is the matter-of-fact state and amount of the evidence? 1. In this tablet, we have the figures of a man and a woman, with two words between, so placed, that they might stand appropriately as their proper names. 2. That next the man, in three characters of forms and powers previously authenticated by countless experiments, is the Arabic word ^j1, adam. 3. The word being certain, the only question, that can fairly arise is whether this word does, or does not, denote the proper name Adam. 4. The second word, facing the woman, reads L-., liua^ being the Arabic name for Eve : T 4 280 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. only the characters are less clear, and conse- quently less certain. The two names, however, standing together, should be held as mutually corroborative. 5. The woman, here, is employed in the same action, in which she appears in the pomegranate trees already before the reader, viz. in the act of pouring liquid from vessels with narrow spouts, apparently wine-jars. 6. The emigration of the two figures in a boat, mighty not unappropriately, symbolize the banishment from Paradise. 7. The corroboration of the foregoing circumstances, afforded by the inde- pendent correspondence with them of the whole decypherment, is left without comment to the consideration and judgment of the reader. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 281 No. XLIII. iTHfi Traxit, trahendo duxit. Drawing, dragging, pulling out, »^» Jara. W jl, arbian. Norn, piscis sine squamis. {conf. Freytag.) The name of a fish without scales. ■i)^ U^J' c^^ o 01 (S4i .,C5 HK ^=~ *^ ^""^ y^ ^ /.y 1 A.*? nn!rf Aurum. Nummus aureus. Gold. Gold coin. nffirl (.f*^) o?», Aurum. Nummus aureus. Gold. Gold coin. I r~\ "j< Flagravit, exarsit ignis. Burns fiercely, rages, the flame. ft -»-*J, «'7> Canduit. Candor, sincera albedo. (White heat.) *I ij'^i '''''■'■' Flatus venti. Movit, agitavitque ventus. A blast of wind. Agitated by wind. [Blower and blowpipe.'^ l"#, ?«fi, Liquidus. Liquid. [Liquid gold ?] nsHun (*'^'' sum, Aurum et argentum. Gold and silver. ■fl tI^ flfflPl V"'' 'J'*''^' *'"''') i'1- lJiA^' .iEquipoIluit.par fuit. ^S^quipond •^^ Eoual. ennallv balanced. Eauioondei Equal, equally balanced. Equiponderant. f'jIWW ^^ A j*"*-' i.q. (X-*^? (/«;«, Fulcivit, sustinuit inclinantem re?M. Supporting anything sinking down. 284 No. XLV. EGYPTIAN BRIDALS. ^:rs?P^ Tlie bride and bridegroom after the ceremotu/. h C^ ^^ /*- U adam, Amore junxit. ' Joined together by love. — r"7 -^ jibi han, Mulier. The woman. Tj \j J» (Uina, Propius adduxit. ^^ Draws nearer. J I ^-r'~' w (5 radxa, Studuit placere alteri. " Cy Cj Studious to please. ^xy^ (*5"'' "''"'> Conquievit in alio, fretus ro nixiisqiic fuit. ' Resting on another, relying and leaning on him. "^^A ♦S"- \i rahavi, Pmpitius, ct tenero animi ad'octu fuit. □ / ' ^ I'Kipitious and tenderly afl'eeled towards. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 285 C^ Ceremony of conducting the bride to the bridegroom, [The word repeated beside each conductor.] Q , ^(\Jfc) hadi, Deduxit sponsam ad sponsum Conducting the bride to the bridegroom. 1 PP •"jSjfe, hajar, Decesait a suis. Leaving her own people. " Forget, also, thine own people, And thy father's hoiise."— P«. xlv. II. (1 (^ JtSb, ham, Solicitudine affecta fuit. ' Full of anxious solicitude. O ed iv>^, mahanan, Famuli duo. Her two attendants. 286 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. No. XLVI. rn r > ""^ ' Heros seu Rex magnanimus. " Stretches" (himself). raoj^ D fl fl l^tXAJb, huniam, Leo. " A lion." ^VUiJ&j humam, leo. " A lion." Heros. " A hero ^^ S I king." (J U y ^ ^ nam, Rugiit leo. " Roars the lion." No. XLVIII. nl nnnV j^w, damar, Perdidit, exitio dedit. " Destroys : gives to de- struction." *W 5 nam, Rugiit leo. ^ v, " Roars the lion." 1 (fjji ruxam, Leo. " A lien." /k~t), das, Occultavit dolutn. ^^W.O, dasus. Genus noxii serpentis. 288 THE MONUMENTS OF EOYIT. No. XLIX. \un ^ <«l), damar, Perdidit, exitio dedit. Destroying, giving to ruin. ^^ *^* *U J naw!, Rugiit leo. " Roars the lion." ^—i Lt2J iUv«, mant, Kobur. Robustus, validus. OTSJ iJ 4/»>^, «uOT(7/ Leo. " A lion." No. L. '^^^-^fraiiis ^ DO '.^:::ayl ^1 jr ndf, Nuncius mortis. " The messenger of death." u 290 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. o I THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 291 VA JiJj) watad, Firmiter adegit impegitque palum. Striking a staff into the ground. Princeps populi. The Prince of the people. ^S= i masabl, Extendens sc. Reaching himself out. ^» ft^**Si sanatn, Formavit finxitque idola. Idolum. Idol -maker. J^ (Metallis confecta idola. Idols made of metal : co7j/. Frcyto^ in voc. ) PI Mt), darl, Benigne leniterque tractavit, blanditus fuit. «• Treating benignly and kindly, receiving soothingly. r^i «'«'', Princeps populi. The Prince of the people. w^r j^J^ ramax, Innuit, indicium fecit, }notd jnanu. •"♦ Making signs with the hand. ^SL i>y*i tnan, Benecolus, benignus et propitius in eum fuit. Rogavit ut pro- pitius esset. Benevolent, benignant, propitious towards anyone- V 3 294 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. ^ No. LIII. x>, L\ ° l\ ^'f? wan, Libra. A pair of scales. A balance. (^ . Q y^, man, Libra. A balance : a pair of scales \ V l" ^\i wait, Ampla scutella. A large saucer {i. e. the basins or pans of the balance). [If one word, it will be i^"^'' nam't, Sacoma, pondus libra. The weight of a balance": anything put into scales to make even weight.] ^ Ij') atsa, Petivit feriitque sagitta. Discharging, and piercing (U^ with, an arrow. ^ in ' jVjjj ruk, Vehementer cucurrit. Running vehemently. h^ »"i 1 wal, waat. Onager. A wild ass. Asinus Indicus uno cornu. —Plin. The unicorn. t f^=^ ^^ ^fiSjt nadas, Exivit : uti ut res una ex aliS. Going out : as one thing out of another. ^, hana, Curvus, incurvatus fuit. Curved, crooked, curling. ? hanash. Serpens, Vipera. A serpent: a viper, or (>»*^ nahash, Blomordit serpens. Bites the serpent. THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 295 izL <—— > I ^w-^ III L_sl}' *"''''' Onager. The wild ass. jSJ 5 nakar, Percussit : perfodit rostro. Strikes : pierces with his horn. &M^^ manat, IRohwt : potentia. Robustus: potens. Strong: powerful. f f ^^ <^/^^^ , najamat, Asinus. The ass. /jjl> adxan, Auritus, magnas habens aures {de bruto), Long> eared. No. LIV. kX,!*, watcd, Inipegit seu depegit pa/M»2. Hammering or driving in a stake. Palus, paxillus, qui in terra vel pariete pangitur. A stake or holdfast, which is driven into the earth or into a wall. J iX^J ^^ tawatid, Malleus, cujus percussu depanguiitur pali aut paxilli. A MALLET, by whose stroke stakes or hold- fasts are driven in. 296 No. LV ^1 J t • %■ THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 297 |2 I. y E 3 C . 60 ■ rt *^ O ^ C U in CO < "rt CO y 3 S 2 Is £ £ a So u "o bg 2 g c S 2 3 £ u> •« S = -2 u 3 " o '■B 60 1 s = S .2 S s 1 <2 -^ '■£ t. Cas o i! .S o H a •O QJ .3 O 'H a. ,9 -c <-> ? ^ a . •« C 01 §5 S S ° M ^ 60 ■■5 .3 ■*-) ^ c •= 3 2 > e 1 i 1 4-» ■« ■£ 3 j: ^ -a re .t; 60 H V u X a " "^ £ --S re 11 o "3 )- a 13 o "" Jl-^#C < 'i ** 'S s « r> s ts r» \i s '^i ^u Tli = J*«i« 298 THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. i S 3-i s.l' r 1^ r^ c :2 S 5« o o THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT. 299 No. LVII. SPECIMENS FROM THE ZODIAC OF TENTYRA. Uxj. y Do i^'^siXJ, n3jat,l. Ovis. A sheep. (2. Bos sylvestris. A wild ox.) £/ <^.'> warfxar, Nitore fulsit. Nitor : splendor. Shining with brightness. Brightness : splendour. 1 C] .^. C— Jv&O) hafaf, Splendens, fulgens. Resplendent, shining. ~\ (oV) wi^n, Piscis. The fish. [The constellation Pi'so's.] - lA " ."^^^^^ /»iiajJ» Stellae : sidera. The stars. 9 L-— LlT'' ^° va"^ genera distribuit populum : diversorum gene- P^ rum fecit. A\^ He [God] distributed into various races the people : He made them of divers kindreds. \^ U, Occidit (in occasum declinavit) sidus, opposito sidere simul oriente. Occasus sideris, seu ipsum sidus. The setting of a star, or a star itself. The setting of a star in the west, while an opposite star rises. ', (Same word and definition.) j\ ^ iXic, Extendit (?wanMi), 2. g. iiil/tJ, Manuum extensio, ac jactatio quce inter eandem fit. [N. B. the figures all in motion.2 The swinging of the hands made in walking- A.aj.' , Stellje : sidera. The stars. UU) Fulsit * id H E 1 V I P K ^ if A\ If s "y ^ T T t T K A I ^ ? J B I' r [t D ^ D 1 T 4= A '^ H 2 1 [1 i .vl *J > I a ■ O n H 1=8 — T J K <^ C . * ^ n Q ra ■«» C3 53 ID ^ 3 « MM w ■• MM WNI ^ \, 3 * TT ; T + t t t ( (- 1 — 2^e&. 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University of California Library Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last dare stamped bek r iiuss /, I a '■io' ^ - * .'- : - 310/8 25-9188 r 3 1158 00205 3063 liJC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 001 250 350 4