T. F. Young

“ The general inference, to be derived from an examination of the names now discovered, is somewhat more in favour of an extensive employment of an alphabetical mode of writing, than any that could have been deduced from the pillar of Rosetta, which exhibits, indeed, only foreign names, and affords us therefore little or no information respecting the mode of writing the original Egyptian names of the inhabitants. ”

“ Although the discovery of the general import of the hieroglyphics has by no means excited any great sensation in this country, yet the activity of the various collectors resident in Egypt seems to have been in some measure stimulated by it. Important additions have been made, or are about to be made, to the Egyptian department of the British Museum; and in France, the magnificent liberality of the Government, together with the insatiable curiosity of some affluent individuals, has held out ample encouragement to the commercial antiquarian. ”

“ A cursory inspection of the Greek inscription, contained in the pillar of Rosetta, was sufficient to establish, as incontrovertible, the opinion, which had been very ably maintained by our acute and learned countryman Bishop Warburton, that the hieroglyphics, or sacred characters, were not so denominated, as being exclusively appropriated to sacred subjects, but that they constituted a real written language, applicable to the purposes of [Pg 6] history and common life, as well as to those of religion and mythology ”

“ The obelisc at Heliopolis is without the bull; and the whole inscription may be supposed to have signified something of this kind.
“This apollinean trophy is consecrated to the honour of king ‘remesses,’ crowned [Pg 27] with an asp bearing diadem; it is consecrated to the honour of the son of ‘heron,’ the ornament of his country, beloved by phthah, living for ever; it is consecrated to the honour of the revered and beneficient deity ‘remesses,’ great in glory, superior to his enemies; by the decree of an assembly, to the powerful and the flourishing, whose life shall be without end.” ”

“ I had thought it necessary, in the pursuit of the inquiry, to make myself in some measure [Pg 13] familiar with the remains of the old Egyptian language, as they are preserved in the Coptic and Thebaic versions of the Scriptures; and I had hoped, with the assistance of this knowledge, to be able to find an alphabet, which would enable me to read the enchorial inscription at least into a kindred dialect. ”

“ The first circumstance, that repressed my eagerness to obtain a copy of Drovetti’s inscriptions, was the arrival of Mr. Casati at Paris, with a parcel of manuscripts, among which Mr. Champollion discovered one that considerably resembled, in its preamble, the enchorial text of the pillar of Rosetta: and the value of this discovery was afterwards almost miraculously multiplied, by the existence of a Greek translation of the same manuscript, which has been brought to London by Mr. Grey. ”

“ The obelisc found in the Isle of Philae, and lately removed to London, contains also the hieroglyphical name of one of the Ptolemies, expressed by the same characters that occur in the inscription of Rosetta, surrounded by a ring or border, and it is followed by a second border, which must necessarily contain the proper name of a woman, and of a queen of the family of the Lagidae, since this group is terminated by the hieroglyphics expressive of the feminine gender; characters which are found at the end of the names of all the Egyptian goddesses without exception. ”

“ It has, indeed, been asserted, that the Egyptians were not in the habit of deifying any mortal persons; but the inscription of Rosetta is by no means the only one in which the sovereigns of Egypt are inserted in the number of its deities ”

“ It may not be strictly just, to say, that a man has no right to claim any discovery as his own, till he has printed and published it: but the rule is at least a very useful one. It is always easy to publish such an account of a discovery, as to establish the right of originality, without affording much facility to the pursuits of a competitor: although it is generally true, that not only honesty, but even liberality, is the best policy. ”

“ It has also been observed by an accomplished scholar, who is much attached to the pursuit of Egyptian antiquities, that, according to the testimony of Herodotus, all the kings of this dynasty [Pg 33] were buried at Saïs, and that we must either reject this evidence, or admit that neither Psammis nor Necho can be the personage here represented. We may, however, hope, that future researches will furnish us with materials, that may enable us to remove this and many other difficulties, which at present envelope the chronology of the kings of Egypt. ”

“ I found, also, that the emblem which I had taken for MOTHER could only be translated WIFE, as it was applied to Cleopatra with relation to her husband Ptolemy; and that a FATHER was denoted by a bird with an arm, as I had at first inferred from the pillar of Rosetta, though I afterwards abandoned the opinion, from supposing that I had found another emblem for Ptolemy Philopator. ”

“ Bankes on the leg of the colossus at Ebsambul, in which Psammetichus is mentioned; and if this was the first Psammetichus, as appears in some respects to be the more probable, it would follow that the king who founded that temple was more ancient than Psammetichus. But it is abundantly certain that our Psammis was prior to the founder of that temple: so that either that Psammetichus must be of much later date, as the employment of the Greek Ψ in the inscription would indeed appear to indicate, or this catacomb was not constructed in honour of the son of Pharaoh Necho. ”

“ Mr. Champollion had ascertained, in the third place, the analogy of one of the manuscripts, purchased of Casati, to the enchorial inscription of Rosetta, and he had obtained from it, without difficulty, the mode of writing the name Cleopatra in that character. ”

“ The work exhibits considerable research, and some ingenuity: the author had devoted his life to one very extensive pursuit, and he proposed to illustrate every part of his subject, by the most minute investigation of every circumstance, that [Pg 41] could be brought to bear upon it. The undertaking, commenced on so large a scale, appears to have proceeded but slowly; nor is it probable that the life of any man would be sufficient for its complete execution.
With regard to the enchorial Inscription, Mr. Champollion appeared to me to have done at that time but little. ”

“ I found that its beginning was, “A copy of an Egyptian writing ...;” and I proceeded to ascertain, that there were the same number of names, intervening between the Greek, and the Egyptian signatures, that I had identified, and that the same number followed the last of them; and the whole number of witnesses appeared to be sixteen in each. The last paragraph in the Greek began with the words, “Copy of the Registry;” for such [Pg 58] must be the signification of the word ΠΤΩΜΑΤΟΣ, employed in this papyrus, though it does not appear to occur any where else in a similar signification. ”

“ It must, without doubt, (p. 15,) have been by the form of this symbol, which has some resemblance to the figure of a basket, that Dr. Young was led to recognise the name of Berenice in the border that actually contains it. But he was of opinion that the hieroglyphics constituting proper names were employed as expressing whole syllables, that they were therefore a sort of rebuses, and that the first character of the name of Berenice, for example, represented the syllable BIR, which means a basket in the Egyptian language. ”

“ The upper part of each manuscript is occupied by a series of pictural tablets; under them are vertical columns of distinct hieroglyphics, or, in the epistolographic manuscripts, pages of the text, which are commonly divided [Pg 25] into paragraphs, with a tablet at the head of each; the first words being constantly written with red ink, made of a kind of ochre, as the black is of a carbonaceous substance. ”

“ Grey: a second papyrus, of considerably greater magnitude, contains three Egyptian conveyances in the enchorial character, with separate registries on the margin, in very legible Greek. These are not only of use for the illustration of other similar documents, but they afford us also many additional examples of enchorial proper names, besides a general idea of the subjects of the respective manuscripts, all of which relate to the sale of lands in the neighbourhood of Thebes. ”

“ The beginning of the manuscripts is seldom entire, being always at the outside of the roll; as the umbilicus of the Romans was synonymous with the end.” ...
“The coffins of the mummies, and the larger sarcophagi of stone, are generally covered with representations extremely similar to some of those which are found in the manuscripts. The judicial tablet is frequently delineated on the middle of the coffins; above it are Isis and Nephthe, at the sides, and apparently Rhea in the middle, with outspread wings. ”

“ It will be most convenient to consider them as parts of a series, of which those are the first to be examined, that are the most capable of affording an independent testimony; beginning with the Greek papyrus in [Pg 63] the possession of Mr. Anastasy, the Swedish consul at Alexandria, and proceeding to the Antigraph and its original, and thence to the three enchorial manuscripts, which are also the property of Mr. Grey. It is scarcely conceivable, by a person who has not made the experiment ”

“ Mr. Grey had the kindness, on the 22d of November last, to leave with me a box, containing several fine specimens of writing and drawing on papyrus; they were chiefly in hieroglyphics, and of a mythological nature: but the two [Pg 56] which he had before described to me, as particularly deserving attention, and which were brought, through his judicious precautions, in excellent preservation, both contained some Greek characters, written apparently in a pretty legible hand. He had purchased them of an Arab at Thebes, in January 1820 ”

“ Drovetti’s decision, I trust that this application, from one who flatters himself that he is the only person living, that can fully appreciate the value of the object in question, will at least not be disagreeable to him. ”

“ ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE MANUSCRIPTS BROUGHT FROM EGYPT BY MR. GREY.
I am impatient to turn, from every thing of a polemical or personal nature, to a field that has hitherto been exclusively in my own possession, in consequence of an event, which is the most important, considered as a single occurrence, that has taken place since the commencement of my Egyptian researches. It was very soon after my return from France, that George Francis Grey, Esq. ”

“ Such are the Pamphilian, in explanation of which the laborious Kircher has published a folio volume, and the Barberinian or Veranian: in both of these the emblems are put together in a manner wholly arbitrary; and when an attempt is made to imitate the appearance [Pg 28] of a name, the characters are completely different at each repetition. The Sallustian obelisc has also been broken, and joined inaccurately, and some modern restitutions have been very awkwardly introduced, as becomes evident upon comparing with each other the figures of Kircher and of Zoëga. ”

“ Asos the son of Horus and of Senpoeris ... the Royal Street (HIR = ῥύμη) ... ¿vineyard? ... α ... α ... (19) ... (20) ... place ... (21) given up ... month ... time ... (22) ... (23) ... (24) ... Executed and confirmed. Written by Erieus the son of Phanres, clerk to the chief Priests of Amonrasonther and the contemplar Gods ... Amen.
It is sufficiently obvious that this deed must belong to the same period as the sale of the collections for the mummies, and that it must consequently have been at least eight years earlier. ”

“ I was obliged to leave many important passages still subject to some doubt, and I hoped to acquire additional information, before I attempted to determine their signification with accuracy; but, having made the first great step, I concluded that many others might be added with facility and with rapidity. ”

“ Champollion to be Anubis and Horus] , who are employed in adjusting the equipoise; but their names in this manuscript are omitted. The five columns over the balance are only remarkable as containing, in this instance, the characteristic phrase, or the name of the deceased, intermixed with other characters. Beyond the balance stands a female, holding the sceptre of Isis, who seems to be called [Pg 24] Rhea, the wife of the Sun. ”

“ He is followed by a second goddess, who is also holding up her hands, in token of respect; and whose name looks like a personification of honour or glory, unless it is simply intended to signify “a divine priestess,” belonging to the order of the Pterophori, mentioned on the Rosetta stone. The forty two assessors, [noticed by Diodorus and by these manuscripts] , are wanting in this tablet; and, in many other manuscripts their number is curtailed, to make room for other subjects ”

“ We have, however, no evidence that Philometor’s dates extended beyond 35, and we must naturally consider this 36 as belonging to Eupator, corresponding to 135 B. C. which was 11 years after the death of Philometor. If we judged from this manuscript alone, we should infer that Eupator was canonized, by some accident, during his temporary reign, before his brother, and that the order of the names remained undisturbed through the different changes of their governments. The [Pg 76] epithet “Illustrious” in this preamble is not easily recognised ”