LIBRARY OF TIIE Theological Seminary, Case, PRINCETON, N. J. VJ109Z Shelf, : , . S 5\3 Hook, , lia - Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/egyptianhierogly00shar_0 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHICS ; BEING AN ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN THEIR NATURE, ORIGIN, AND MEANING. WITH A VOCABULARY. By SAMUEL SHARPE. LONDON: EDWARD MOXON AND CO., DOVER STREET. 1861. “ There are, or may be, two ways of seeking and finding truth. The one, from observa- tion and particulars, jumps to universal axioms, and from the truth of those finds out the intermediate axioms ; and this is the way in use. The other, from observation and particulars, raises axioms by a continued and gradual ascent, till at last it arrives at universal axioms •, and this is the true way, but it has not yet been tried.” Novum Organum, xix. Taylor, Printer, 89, Coleman Street. P R E F A C E. rjAHE valley of the Nile is remarkable over every country in the world for the number of its ancient buildings. The architecture of the temples varies in style and excellence, from the noble buildings of the Thebaid to the ruder copies in Ethio- pia and Meroe ; but they are all massive, and both in materials and in form suited to last for ages. The walls of these temples are covered with sculptures, much of which is meant for writing ; and the letters or characters are the figures of men, animals, plants, with other natural and artificial objects. Even the walls of the tombs hollowed out of the rock are covered with painted and written records; and the mountain -like pyramids near Memphis, in the time of Herodotus, before they lost their outer casing, were not without the same ornaments. When this system of hieroglyphical writing began is unknown to us, but it lasted for more than two thousand years. It was perfectly formed before the Israelites settled in the Delta ; and it only fell into disuse after the time of the Antonines, when the idolatrous reli- gion of the country, together with the writing and other customs which were entwined round that religion, gave way before the spread of Christianity. IV PREFACE. The hieroglyphical -writing on the walls of Egyptian temples was in characters so large that every body could read them as he ran. It had been gazed on by Moses, when he warned the Israelites against the misuse of sculpture, and by Plato, when he came to study from the priests who wrote and read it. It had been admired by Herodotus, Pausanias, Strabo, and other in- quiring travellers ; but they none of them took the trouble to learn to read it. This knowledge was chiefly in the hands of the priests, who, in Egypt as in all other countries, were the great possessors of learning ; but it was never concealed from the vul- gar, or even from strangers. Hieroglyphics were not used for religious purposes only. On the funereal tablets they were in the hands of all who were rich enough to employ that method of honouring their deceased friends ; on the walls of the temples they recorded the nation’s victories, and the tribute from the conquered countries ; and they were the sculptured ornaments over the doors of the temples, declaring the names and praises of the kings who built them. During the reigns of the Ptolemies, who governed with a care- ful attention to the religious prejudices of the people, and whose popularity with the priests was greater than that of many of the native kings, we cannot suppose that any of the learned Greeks who ornamented the court of Alexandria would have found the least difficulty in getting himself taught this method of writing. The grammarians of the Museum might with case have formed dictionaries and grammars for the hieroglyphics ; but, unfortu- nately, the Greeks too often despised foreigners, and the Alexan- drians in particular looked down upon the Egyptians. Want of curiosity, and a fashionable contempt for the language of the barbarians, must have been the cause of our pi’esent ignorance. Like Voltaire at the court of Prussia, being courted and admired PREFACE. V for the knowledge of their own language, the grammarians had no wish to turn either their own attention or that of their ad- mirers to any other. To help us in our studies they have left us only a treatise on hieroglyphics of very little worth, by Hora- pollo ; a few lines by Chaeremon, and a few more by Clemens ; but these never guided an inquirer to the meaning of a single word of an inscription. The hieroglypliical writing went out of use on the spread of Christianity; and, soon after the conquest of Egypt by the Arabs, there was no living being who could read a single sentence of the countless inscriptions with which their buildings were covered. The very language itself, the Coptic, became a dead language ; and after a time the Bible and services of the church were written with a translation, that they might be understood in Arabic by the vulgar, while read in Coptic by the priest. After the revival of learning, the hieroglyphics on the build- ings naturally attracted the attention of modem travellers. A few inscriptions were copied and published in Europe ; but, when the French scientific expedition landed in Egypt in company with the invading army under Buonaparte, no success had yet re- warded the efforts of scholars to decipher the unknown writing. Among the works of ancient art then collected was a slab of black basalt, found near the town of Rosetta, which seemed to be the wished-for key to the secret. It contains an inscription in three characters. One is in hieroglyphics ; a second in what we now call enchorial or common Egyptian letters ; and a third in Greek. This last could of course be read. It is a decree by the priests in honour of Ptolemy Epiphanes; and it ends with the important information that it was to be written in three characters. The Greek was clearly seen to be a translation, by which the other two inscriptions might be understood. This VI PREFACE. stone is now in the British Museum, and is the groundwork from which has sprung all our knowledge of hieroglyphics and of early Egyptian history. It is to the sagacity of Dr. Thomas Young, and through his comparison of the several inscriptions on the Rosetta Stone, that we owe our first knowledge of this mode of writing. He deter- mined the meaning of all the sentences, of many of the words, and of several of the letters. These he published in 1816 and 1818. This knowledge was soon afterwards enlarged and cor- rected by Mons. Champollion. Other students, both here and abroad, have since made further additions, among whom, in our own country, we should not omit the names of Mr. Salt, Sir Gardner Wilkinson, and Mr. Birch. It would be difficult to allot to each his due share of credit in this most interesting discovery. Some will think more highly of him who made the first entrance into a hitherto closed region of knowledge ; others will be most thankful to him who led us farthest and taught us most. They all enjoyed the pleasure which arises on making and publishing an original discovery ; and may they all receive the honour due to their services in the cause of science and literature. The study of Hieroglyphics is already sufficiently advanced to moderate our expectations as to the reward which is likely to be the result of future progress. The knowledge hitherto gained belongs to the three sciences of history, mythology, and language. In history, by obtaining a pretty correct series of the kings’ names, dates, at least approaching the truth, have been assigned to most of those stupendous works of art which have attracted travellers to Egypt from the time of Strabo to the present day. PREFACE. vii We have at least learned the order in which those buildings were erected ; a knowledge which is of importance in the study of the architecture of any nation, and particularly important in the case of Egypt, where, from the scantiness of other records, and the abundance of these, the study of the architecture is the study of the civilization. In mythology we have learned the names of the gods, the ages in which some rose into importance and others fell, and the groups into which they were arranged. We have learned many of their attributes, and their union of several characters in one person. In the department of language we have learned the origin of writing, that most wonderful of the arts, by which, more than any other, we are enabled to use and to enjoy the faculties with which we are blessed. By writing we can speak to those who are at a distance, and even those who are not yet born. By means of -writing the world grows wiser as it grows older ; and we pos- sess a memory almost boundless in its powers. But as for the knowledge to be gained from the contents of the inscriptions when they shall have been more completely de- ciphered, whether in respect to Egyptian astronomy, philosophy, or arts of life, it may be safely asserted that it will not be great. Were our knowledge of Greek and Roman literature limited to what could be gained from the writings on the marbles, on what subjects would it throw much light, except on those before spoken of? And we know of no funereal writings of other nations which authorize us to complain of the scantiness of the information contained on Egyptian tablets. Vlll PREFACE. Since here the system of writing is to be explained rather than the language, it is clearly necessary to give instances of words written in several ways. Hence a dictionary of hieroglyphics, to be complete, would be far more bulky than most other dictio- naries. The present Vocabulary is, however, very far from com- plete ; it is limited by the author’s knowledge on the subject. His plan of giving no meanings to words which he could not support by referring to a published inscription, added to some little distrust, has forbidden his quoting from the writings of his eminent predecessors in the same path of study. Most of them have been accustomed to write the hieroglyphical words in Coptic letters, and thus to produce a word apparently Coptic, but in reality only of their own making. To avoid such a misunder- standing the author would remark that all words which ai’e here printed in the Coptic character may be found in the Rev. Henry Tatham’s Lexicon JEgyptiaco-Latinum. Many of the author’s predecessors have also relied far more than he has ventured to do upon the unaided spelling. We can often find many words in the Coptic language, any one of which might be supposed to be meant by the very scanty number of letters which are seen in a group of characters in an inscription. When the vowels are often omitted, and the consonants have more than one force each, a group of letters becomes of very uncertain meaning ; and without the help of a context of words certainly known, and of a pretty large number of pictorial words sprinkled over a sentence, the reading of the others by means of the spelling only is often unsafe. The more important cases in which the author differs from his learned predecessors are in the force of the character No. 1625, which he reads as M E s, and translates battles in the group PREFACE. i.\ No. 1G29, N E B - M E S E, lord of battles-, and again, in the let- ters B 10 and S 13 ; and again, in sometimes giving to the TH the guttural force of CH. The reading of many kings’ names, and thence the chronology of the earlier part of the Egyptian history, depend upon the force given to these characters. There are several ways in which the words or groups of cha- racters in such a work as the following might be arranged. First, argumentatively, or in the order most convenient to convince the reader that the right meaning had been assigned to each group, beginning with those words whicli are translated upon the Ro- setta Stone, and proceeding nearly in the order that the author’s own investigations proceeded. But this would be very inconve- nient to the reader, except at the time that he had the plates referred to actually before him, and was reading for the purpose of testing the author’s correctness. Secondly, they might be arranged according to their pictorial similarity, in the same way that words are placed alphabetically in a dictionary. This, al- though the one most convenient for a reader new to the book, who wished to find the meaning of an unknown hieroglypliical group, would have been wholly confused when it was read through as a treatise on the language. The third mode, the one actually here adopted, is of arranging the groups according to the resem- blance of their meanings, which sufficiently approaches to the method of a dictionary, and has the additional advantage of ma- king the book useful to the reader, when neither using it as a dictionary nor testing the author’s correctness. The names of the gods are placed first, and form a short my- thology ; next follow the groups relating to the temples, to kings, and to other objects in succession. References are given in all cases to those inscriptions which seem most satisfactorily to jus- X PREFACE. tify, or ratlier to render probable, the meanings there assigned, though, in almost all cases, the proof will be found to rest more upon the connection of each group with the similar ones by which it is surrounded, than by the single quotations which are offered to support it. The Alphabet is placed at the end of the volume, because the sound of the words is to be proved first, and thence is afterwards learned the force of the letters. WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. The History of Egypt, 2 vols. 8vo. Fourth edition. Egyptian Inscriptions; two hundred and sixteen Plates in folio. The Chronology and Geography of Ancient Egypt. Alexandrian Chronology. The Triple Mummy-Case of Aroeri-ao, with Drawings by Joseph Bonorai. Historic Notes on the Books of the Old and New Testaments. Second edition. Critical Notes on the authorized English Version of the New Testament. The New Testament, translated from Griesbach’s Text. Fourth edition. EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHICS. EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHICS. The ancient Egyptians liavc left us, on stone and on papyrus, four sets of characters. These are the Hieroglyphics, or sacred carving ; the Hieratic, or sacred writing ; the Enchorial, or vul- gar writing, also called the Demotic ; and the Coptic alphabet. The Hieroglyphic characters are several hundred in number, and often cut on the hardest stone with great beauty and neat- ness. They are arranged in lines, sometimes horizontally and sometimes vertically. They are figures of men, animals, birds. £ I A*vWA fishes, and their parts ; insects, plants, flowers, and a variety of artificial objects, such as the house, the plough, the sword, the boat, with many others of unknown purpose. The Hieratic writing is borrowed from the former, and differs from it only as much as writing differs from carving ; as much as letters formed rapidly with a brush or reed pen, and employed in long manuscripts on papyrus, are likely to differ from those carved slowly with a chisel, and fitted to the architectural orna- ments of a building. Hieratic writing is not found of so early a date as some hieroglyphical inscriptions, possibly from the frailty of the materials on which it was usually written ; but it continued in use till about the same time. They both had been employed in the sendee of the old Egyptian religion, and went out of use on its fall, and on the spread of Christianity and the Coptic alphabet. n 2 INTRODUCTION. The Enchorial or common writing is also called epistologra- phic and demotic. The characters were no doubt taken from the Hieratic, and some few retain their resemblance ; but most of them are wholly different. ? i V ?K 2,5 ti | 'jK/jjj v) ikovi >\j Unfortunately we have no enchorial writing formed neatly and elegantly like the hieroglyphic, or even like Greek and Roman inscriptions. Hence the true shapes of the characters are doubt- ful. The enchorial characters of two inscriptions or manuscripts often differ as much as with us the bad handwriting of one man differs from that of another. The Coptic alphabet is formed on the model of the Greek, with the addition of six sounds unknown to Europeans, or not represented by Greek letters. This alphabet came into use after the second century of our era, when the Bible and the Christian writings were first translated into the language of the country. It was employed in the service of Christianity by the teachers, who wisely thought it better to avoid the hieroglyphics, which had been for so many centuries dedicated to the old pagan super- stitions. The language of these Coptic translations sometimes differs in part from that of the hieroglyphics, which were mostly written many centuries earlier ; and we should be led into mis- takes by assuming that it was altogether that of the unknown characters which are now to be deciphered. But when, by other modes of investigation, we have learned both the meaning and the sound of an liieroglyphical word, it is no small proof that we are right if we find one nearly the same in the Coptic language. The Ethiopic alphabet, or that used in Abyssinia, may as well be here mentioned, because it was probably formed with Egyp- tian help. It is rather more modern than the Coptic; and the letters so far resemble the hieroglyphics as to be used for sylla- bles. They are seven times twenty-six in number. Every one of the twenty-six letters has seven forms according to its syllabic sound. This alphabet, though called Ethiopic, belongs to Abys- sinia, and was never known so far north as the country usually called Ethiopia. INTRODUCTION. 3 We find hieroglyphics wherever the Egyptian language and religion were cultivated ; from Alexandria to the island of Meroe, and from the Oasis of Ammon to Feiran at the foot of Mount Sinai. We have hieroglyphical inscriptions from Thebes of the reign of Osirtesen I., and from Memphis while the great pyra- mids were being built, before the country was under one sceptre ; and we have others two thousand years later, in the reign of the Homan emperor Commodus, when Egypt was the ruined pro- vince of a sinking empire. In all of these the system of writing is the same. In the last, as in the first, some characters are letters, and some are syllables. The sacred writing never arrived at the simplicity of an alphabet, though it had given birth to the alphabets used by Moses and by Homer : it had changed less than the language itself. To the last it was written indifferently from right to left, or from left to right, while all other languages had taken up with a fixed direction. The sentences are usually in horizontal lines, with the charac- ters often arranged in small vertical groups. But the lines are sometimes arranged in vertical columns, and are so short that the sentences may then be said to be written from top to bottom, like the Chinese. In all cases, with very few exceptions, the reader, in following the order of the words, meets the faces of the animals, and the points and openings of the other letters. This is the reverse of the rule in the neighbouring alphabets, the Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, and Ethiopic, and even in the Egyptian enchorial writing. In all of these the reader follows the backs of the letters. So in our own printed alphabet, which is taken from the Greek and Roman, the reader seldom meets the points of the letters : he follows the backs of the C, E, F, G, K, L, P, Q, and R. Of these two rules however, that of the hieroglyphics, to judge by our own habits, seems to be the most natural ; and accordingly, in our hand- writing, without altogether altering the forms of the letters, we often throw the points and openings to the other side, so that they meet the reader as he pi’oceeds, as in the J2, <53, /f, y, and y. The hieroglyphics are not picture-writing like the Mexican pictures brought to Europe by Humboldt, which represent ac- 4 INTRODUCTION. tions and thoughts directly without the use of words. But the Egyptian hieroglyphics represent words and the parts of words. The agent, the verb, and the object require three words in hiero- glyphics, and often call for the further help of pronoun, article, and preposition ; whereas in picture-writing the action is ex- pressed by the position of the agent and the object, without the help of a verb or particle. Nor are the hieroglyphics formed on any philosophical plan. Wilkins, in his Essay towards a Real Character, which might be used without regard to language, expresses an idea, as a natu- ralist describes a plant, by pointing out first its class, then its genus, then its species. Thus, to write the word king by signs which may be called letters, he expresses first a man ; secondly, related to us in our character of citizens ; thirdly, the highest in rank of those so related to us. This order of ideas, which is very suitable for a mode of picture-writing, is directly the reverse of what we find in the construction of all languages. In these the root of a word rarely expresses that most important circumstance of whether a man, an action, or an object he the thing meant. Thus, for instance, in sacrificer, sacrificing, and sacrificed, the root of the word belongs equally to each of those three great classes of ideas ; and it is only by a little syllable added to the root that we are enabled, in the language of the naturalist, to de- termine the class to which it belongs, although we were already acquainted with its specific character. In No. 350, libations, and No. 354, a priest, the resemblance in the characters tells us that the words were alike in sound. Of all known modes of writing the Chinese comes nearest to this philosophical system. It can he read by nations and tribes that cannot understand one another when they speak. The cha- racters, like our numerals, represent ideas, not words. When modified by prefix or affix, it is in agreement with a modification in the- idea, but very often not in agreement with the change in sound ; and while, in some Chinese dictionaries, the words are arranged according to the characters, in others they are placed according to the sound. The hieroglyphics, unlike these modes of writing, truly repre- INTRODUCTION. o sent the Egyptian language, its nouns, its verbs, its pronouns, its articles, and its prepositions. To this the Egyptian numerals form no exception. The only clear exception is in the case of the written names of the twelve months. These are formed philo- sophically. Every name expresses, first, that it is a month ; se- condly, to which of the three seasons of the year it belongs ; and thirdly, by. means of a numeral, its place in that season. These written names of the months arc older than any remaining Egyp- tian monuments : they are older than the pyramids, and they arc not the same as the spoken names. And this disagreement between the written and the spoken names goes far to prove that, like our numerals, they are not of native growth. They may, perhaps, have been brought from Clialdma to Heliopolis ; but it must have been loug before the arrival of the Israelites. Horne Tooke, in his Diversions of Purley, has beautifully di- vided words into those which are necessary for the communica- tion of our ideas, and those abbreviations which are found con- venient for the sake of precision and dispatch. Now, when in hieroglyphical insci’iptions we meet with conjunctions and pro- nouns, which belong to the latter class, they are never abbrevia- tions of hieroglyphical nouns or verbs, but in many instances they arc spelt laboriously and at full length, even while the nouns and verbs in the same sentences are expressed shortly by means of symbols. Thus, those words which in all languages, Coptic included, are short and of frequent use, are, in this mode of writing, more cumbersome than the other words, and for that reason are frequently omitted at the risk of bringing obscurity into the sentences. The hieroglyphical characters are for the most part syllables ; and no doubt they were originally all so. But of the remaining inscriptions we have none so old as to be written without any words spelt by means of letters. So we are left to imagine the number of centuries that must have passed since this mode of writing first came into use, when the characters were used for the objects only. The first great change in the art was to use the characters for the names of the objects ; and thus they got the power of representing a syllable or part of a long word. The 6 INTRODUCTION. names of these objects were mostly monosyllabic ; and, by means of these syllables, they represented the names of thoughts and feelings which cannot themselves be copied in a picture. In making this step the Egyptians were helped by the nature of their language. In English our monosyllables have usually two well-sounded consonants, as bat, bet, bit, boot, but. In Coptic, on the other hand, they have more often only one, as ma, me, mi, mo, mu. And it is clear that it would be much more easy to write words by means of characters with these Coptic sounds than with our English monosyllables. Thus these characters would come into use for mere convenience sake much more often than others in their language which are like ours. Had the writers chosen their characters upon any system, they might, at this stage of their progress, have formed an alphabet like the Ethiopic, with about seven times twenty-six letters. The next step was to use some of these simplest characters, not for the syllables, but for the consonants, and to make a syl- lable by placing another character for a vowel before or after it. This is the plan of a perfect alphabet. But though the Egyptian priests, even before the pyramids were built, had arrived at this use of some of the characters, they never discovered the supe- riority of the alphabetic over the syllabic writing. The Hebrews learned their alphabet from them ; the Greeks learned their al- phabet from them ; but even in the latest hieroglyphical inscrip- tions, like the earliest, we find some characters for syllables of two consonants, and others for syllables of one consonant; though certainly the alphabetic use of the characters for consonants only was always increasing. Thus the hieroglyphics seem to disclose to us the origin of writing, that most wonderful of arts, with every important step in its progress, from pictures of objects to pictures of words, pic- tures of syllables or sounds, and characters for letters or parts of a sound. Thence also all the neighbouring alphabets seem to have been copied. The Hebrew annals teach us that their great lawgiver and earliest known writer had been educated at or near Heliopolis, in Egyptian learning. The Greek antiquaries believed in the tradition of their nation that Cadmus and the INTRODUCTION. 7 other founders of their cities and civilization came from Sais, in the west of the Delta. The Hebrew and the Greek alphabets confirm this tradition, and most clearly declare their Egyptian origin. More than half of the letters in each, notwithstanding the changes they may have since undergone, retain enough of their hieroglyphic form to prove then’ descent. The Arabic let- ters also seem to have been formed from the enchorial alphabet, which was more common in Lower Egypt. The arrow-headed characters of Persia and Assyria are formed from the square Hebrew characters. In the reign of Commodus, one of the last of the Roman em- perors whose name and titles we now read carved in sacred characters on the temples, lived the Christian writer Clemens of Alexandria. He has left to us, in a few words, an account of the Egyptian writing, which must have been given him by one of the learned priests, who was fully acquainted with the subject. His words are as follows : “ Those who are educated among the Egyptians learn first that mode of writing which is called Epistolografhic [or enchorial, common] ; secondly, the Hieratic, which the sacred scribes use; and lastly, the Hieroglyphic. Of this, one method is Kuriologic [not figurative, but spelt] by means of the first letters ; the other is Symbolic. Of the symbolic, one is express, or written Imitatively , another is written Figuratively , and the third is Allegorical, like some riddles.” This division of the subject agrees pretty closely with the re- sults of modern inquiry. The Kuriologic words are those spelt alphabetically by means of the first letters of the monosyllabic names of the objects represented. And in this method of forming an alphabet, the class of suitable syllables before spoken of was further increased by the omission of the last consonant, in other words, through careless pronunciation. Thus the word ton had the force of a T, the word men of an M, the word noun of an N, and so forth. 8 INTRODUCTION. Of the Imitative class of characters we find a large number. Ox, goose, temple, obelisk, mummy, are mere pictorial imita- tions of the objects themselves. For the Figurative class it is not easy to produce certain ex- amples. A landmark, No. 1419, when used for permanence, and a bull. No. 1G24, for brave, seem to be used figuratively ; but as in the Coptic language the words sound nearly the same, they need not be so considered. A sceptre, No. 1425, for power, a crown on a man’s head for gold, No. 1201, and for kingdom, seem figurative. Of the Allegorical class, or of words used in two senses, we have numerous instances. A mallet. No. 268, means God, be- cause the two words sound nearly alike, or the one word has two senses. For the same reason a goose, No. 1789, means son-, a vulture. No. 1826, mother-, a palm-branch, No. 955, year-, with many others. But these Imitative, Figurative, and Allegorical words seem all at the same time to be phonetic. And though we have found instances which support the classification proposed by Clemens, yet they by no means contradict our general remark that all words are written by means of objects whose names give us the sounds required. There are no divisions or breaks between the words in a sen- tence ; but the characters run on in a continual stream from the beginning to the end of an inscription however long. This would cause no more trouble to the reader than it does in a Greek or Latin inscription, if the words were spelt with the same careful regularity. But unfortunately, in the hieroglyphical writing, there are peculiarities which must often have made the reading doubtful to the most learned of the priests. First, there was the uncertainty before mentioned of the force belonging to some characters ; as, for instance, whether one was the letter M, the syllable AM, ME, or MEN. There was also an entire want of regularity in the spelling of the words. To remove these causes of uncertainty they often made use of what we call a determi- native sign ; that is, after a noun spelt by characters, they placed a picture of the object, to give to the word an exactness which INTRODUCTION. 9 the spelling failed to give. We may explain this by an example in English. If after the letters SP we add the picture of a boat, it means ship ; if the picture of a quadruped, it means sheep ; if the figure of a man, it means Esop. The rude spelling, or the rude picture, could neither of them alone declare with certainty what the word meant, but together they do it perfectly. This determinative sign is one of our chief helps in reading the hieroglyphics ; but unfortunately it is not used so often as it might be. On the other hand it is sometimes used very un- necessarily, when the word to be explained is itself a picture, and needs no such explanation. Thus, in No. 1771, we have two human figures, the first is a soldier, the second a simple man, and the whole group may be translated soldier-man. We have the same two figures in the names of several foreigners, any one of which might be translated a foreigner -man. See No. 1933. There is, of course, only a small number of words in the lan- guage that can be explained by the help of the determinative sign. All verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns must be left in the uncertainty in which a loose mode of spelling places them. Sub- stantives denoting abstract ideas must be often read with the same doubt. In short, the meaning of every liieroglypliical word must be determined very much by the context, and not so much by the spelling, as with us. It seems probable even that the very priest who wrote an inscription would often be puzzled to know the meaning of a word, if it were taken away from those words which surround it. And this remark may guide us when we now attempt to read the hieroglyphics. It may teach us that we must, in the first place, depend on the art of deciphering by means of the context, and only in the second place on our knowledge of the language. We must begin by determining from the context the approximate meaning of a word, as that it is a title, or an adjective, or a liquid placed in bottles; and then only can we trust to the spelling, and thereby learn that it is king, or holy, or wine. Some of our scholars seem to have been often misled by venturing to rely too much upon the spel- ling, instead of confining themselves to those sentences in which the meaning of a word is proved by the context. 10 INTRODUCTION. The kings’ names, however, are removed from this uncertainty by being written within an oval ring, which sometimes, though less frequently, contains also some of the titles. We might almost suppose that when the ring was first introduced these names were the only words spelt alphabetically. These kings’ names, which include even the first fifteen of the Roman emperors, form a safe foundation for our knowledge of the al- phabet. The habit of contracting words and sentences has also added great difficulty to our attempts to learn their meaning. Articles, pronouns, prepositions, and the other smaller parts of speech are very much dropt. The inflections of nouns and verbs are often omitted ; and we find one character made use of for either gift, give, gave, giver, or gifted ivitli. Words are also very much shortened by the omission of characters, particularly if one is of a pictorial nature. Even a man’s name, which is spelt with six letters at the beginning of an inscription, will have four in the middle, and at the end will be represented by the first letter only. There is, however, a second help to the reader, not unlike the use of the determinative sign, which arises from the pictorial use of the characters having been more or less attended to, even after they had gained a syllabic and alphabetic force. And this choice of character was also attended to in words where they can have no pictorial meaning. Thus the words beloved, deceased, place, water, born, all begin with M, but Avitli letters of a different form ; and these letters are seldom changed one for the other in these words ; although, as they are followed by vowels, it is not necessary to attend to the syllabic force of the character. There are also some characters which are only used in sacred and royal subjects, and seem to be too important to be introduced into smaller matters, or into particles and terminations of words. Nouns are made feminine by having the feminine article either postfixed or inserted before the last letter; whereas in Coptic the article is prefixed to the noun. This has preserved for us an m Vil/ King Amunothph I. INTRODUCTION. 11 older form of the language, of which we see a trace in the word mout, a name mentioned by Plutarch for the goddess Isis, which in modern Coptic would be temau, the mother. But the artist seems often to have added the feminine termination rather to convey an idea than a sound. The TS at the end of the names of Queen Berenice and Queen Arsinoe were most probably not sounded. The same remark applies to the personal pronoun I, which is sometimes followed by a feminine termination, though not so in Coptic. Nouns are made dual by being repeated twice. They are made plural by being repeated three times, and occasionally even nine times ; hut more often by the addition of tlii’ee small strokes. These plural forms were of course at first symbolic, hut they were afterwards phonetic, and carried the sound as well as the meaning of a plural termination. The name of the god Anepo or Anubis has a plural sound in Coptic, and therefore a plural form in hieroglyphics, as the words Charles and James have in English, without carrying any plural idea with them. The possessive pronouns sometimes vary with the gender in a double sense; first, as in English, like Ids, her-, and secondly, as in Latin, Ids masculine, and his feminine. Even the personal pronoun I, as before remarked, is sometimes written with a fe- minine termination. The sign denoting abstraction, or the state of being, may be seen in kingship, No. 623; priesthood, No. 355; and liturgies, or priesthood-things, No. 357. Year is made yearly, No. 957, by a syllable prefixed, which prefix is the same as that in the Coptic words having the same meaning; thus, LAMPI, year, ETELAMPI, yearly, and, with the same prefix, month, No. 968, becomes monthly, No. 969. Several adjectives have a duplicate form, in which they resem- ble the Coptic ; thus, two twigs is the word splendid, No. 660, probably solsel ; two landmarks, remaining , No. 1420, proba- bly tashtash ; so also thousand-thousand means numerous, No. 1079. We are able to detect in the writing several peculiarities in the Egyptian pronunciation, or perhaps slovenly habits of utte- 12 INTRODUCTION. ranee. They did not use the sound of D, and wrote the first letter of Darius by NT. They had one sound wdiicli was either an L or an R, for they knew no difference between those two letters. When a vow'el was at the beginning of a word, they sounded it but slightly, and therefore often omitted it in writing. Thus Serapis ought to be written Osirapis; Mnevis, the name of one of the sacred bulls, should be Amunevis ; our word Naph- tha should begin with an E. And this may explain why the patriarch Joseph was called Zepli, as we find him in the book of Genesis; Zeph-net-Phcenick, Josejih the Phoenician. Their use of a guttural sound shows itself in the confusion between K, c H, th, and H. The name of the god Khem, No. 66, no doubt be- gan -with that indistinct sound, as it is sometimes spelt with an H, and sometimes with th. In the name of the Hebrew patri- arch Ham, we have the same word; and it is still less easily recognized in the name of the city Tlioum or Etham. The hieroglyphic words have also furnished us with several etymologies which we could not have traced by the help of the Coptic. We thus learn that Osiris-Apis is the origin of the name of the god Serapis; Amun-Ehe became with the Greeks Mnevis, one of the sacred bulls; Nen, No. 1639, a dwarf, is the root of the Greek and Latin Nanus ; IIino, No. 1673, the eternal ones, on changing the Egyptian plural termination into a He- brew form, became Hinnum ; and thence, perhaps, the spot near Jerusalem, in wdiicli the bodies of the dead were burned, w r as called the Valley of the children of Hinnum, and in the Greek Testament Ge-henna. Uk, No. 976, seems the original of our word week. Mum, No. 1672, is our word mummy. Before we can hope wholly to overcome the difficulties of this language, in part lost, we naturally attempt to master its mode of writing. In the case of another language w r e usually separate the two studies. But in the case of hieroglyphics this seems im- possible. It is probable that no knowledge of the subject would allow r us to make a vocabulary of the words in Homan or Coptic letters. Such is the variety in modes of spelling, and in the writer’s choice of characters, that it is necessary to collect many forms of every word. The two thousand hicroglyphical groups INTRODUCTION. 13 in tlic following plates do not represent perhaps more than about five hundred words. But, by comparing together the several forms, we learn what letters are interchangeable, and how words arc gradually shortened down to a single letter. Besides attending to the rules of writing, the sculptor was a good deal guided in the choice of what characters he should use by his taste as an artist. 'When his sentence formed part of the ornaments over the portico of a massive temple, he chose those which were more full and less linear : he chose figures of men and animals. When, on the other hand, his aim was to save his labour, he chose the more simple forms. As to the greater or less completeness of a sentence, and the number of words which he ventured to omit, he was guided by the subject matter of the inscription. If it were one of the common sentences, recording the titles of the king, or the deceased person’s offerings to the gods, all prepositions and smaller parts of speech were omitted. If, on the other hand, the inscription related to any less usual topic, like the decree on the Rosetta Stone, more prepositions and pronouns were used. The less simple taste of the later artists is shown in the kings’ names. For the great kings who ruled in Thebes, when Egyp- tian art was in its purest state, we usually find three or four cha- racters within the first oval, and perhaps six within the second. (®iu\ [wj /s?h m ii Chebra. Xerxes. Ptolemy. Cleopatra Trypkaena. In M Vespasian. But for the later Ptolemies, when bad taste rioted in the palace, and flattery corrupted the people, we find as many as thirty cha- racters crowded within the oval ring. 14 INTRODUCTION. Although several inscriptions are published which were cer- tainly sculptured before the time of M oses, yet all of them con- tain many words spelt with letters ; none of them are sufficiently ancient to show the oi’iginal introduction of letters among the symbols. But, as none of them contain any peculiarities which would lead us to suppose that they were among the first speci- mens of carved hieroglyphics, it seems probable that future re- search may throw light upon this interesting subject, by making us acquainted with inscriptions of a more primitive form. It is not impossible that we may find inscriptions in which we may perceive the absence of letters felt as a want, and the mode in which that want was first supplied. In the later inscriptions, however, the number of words writ- ten by means of letters certainly increased, as also the number of letters used to form a word ; and indeed the number of letters, and the complexity of the words, may at all times be admitted as strong evidence in proof of the modernness of an inscription. We may be sure that, when in any language we find a word written iu a longer and shorter form, the longer is the original, and the other has been shortened by hasty or slovenly utterance. There arc very few cases in which it would be true that the shorter was the original word, and that the other was lengthened for euphony’s sake. Guided by this rule, we must suppose that the Egyptians pronounced but slightly, and often dropped, the final consonant ; and by those means they more readily formed con- sonants out of monosyllables. A palm branch, benne, or bet, was first pronounced bai, and then used for the letter B. Meri, love, became mei. Siiel, a son, is in hieroglyphics spelt SHE; and was then used for an S. Tiial, a hill, became tau, and was used for a T. The N in particular was often dropt, as siien, wood, became SHE. The hieroglyphic NOUN, water, became MOUME, and then MOOU. IlEMSI, a chair, became ISI in hiero- glyphics, as in the name of the goddess Isis. It was from this mode of pronunciation that an R, No. 1950, was sometimes used in hieroglyphics for the word RAN, a name; that the same cha- racter, No. 1711, was used for K, and for kame, black; and the same for men and m ; and again the same for TON and t! INTRODUCTION. 15 Helped, perhaps, by this mode of pronouncing, the Egyptian language possessed a good many monosyllables which, having only one consonant, readily became used in the place of a letter. Unlike our Saxon rat , cat, dog, which could not often be made use of as syllables in writing the longer words, the Coptic cha- racters for pee, MEE ; kee, ree, would find admittance on all occasions, and gradually become the consonants of an alphabet. They became like letters, from the greater frequency with which they got used, to the exclusion of others less suitable. Thus we have in the hieroglyphics clear traces of how an alphabet was formed out of a syllabic mode of writing by means of the pictures of objects. The Egyptians, however, did not complete their great discovery; they did not, even in their less ornamented running- hand, fix upon one character, and one only, for each consonant and vowel sound. That improvement was left to be made by the Hebrews, the Phoenicians, and the Greeks, who learned the use of the alphabet from Egypt, through the Phoenicians. The Chinese characters, which have some points of resem- blance with hieroglyphics, are in other respects too unlike to suppose that either of them came from the other : the Egyptian and the Chinese, perhaps, both began with picture-writing. The more ancient Chinese characters, as used in some of their books, evidently represent the objects themselves. The Chinese cha- racters for water, an eye, a field, a man, a mountain, the sun, the moon, are the same as the hieroglyphics for those objects. These pictorial Chinese characters were in use, according to Dr. Morrison, as late as five or six centuries before our era, when the other alphabets were already formed. But in improving upon the first rude idea, these two nations at once took different routes. The hieroglyphics, as we have seen, were soon used for the sound or name of the object, while the Chinese character, in all its improvements, continued to mean the idea or the object itself. It must, however, be left to those who have studied the antiquities of China, to explain the origin of the Chinese cha- racters ; but it seems possible that the Chinese and the Egyp- tians may both have gained their knowledge of the art of writing from the same source. 16 INTRODUCTION. As the hieroglyphics have certainly given us one instance of an original discovery of a mode of -writing, it will be interesting to inquire what neighbouring nations made use of this discovery. The Israelites, the Greeks, or the Assyrians might have made the same discovery for themselves. But it is more natural to suppose that when one nation heard that another nation had already learned a method of expressing their thoughts or words on stone or other materials, the second would inquire how it was done, and would make use of that experience which the former had already been ages in gaining, rather than set about to make the same discovery for itself. On a comparison of the alphabets such seems to have been the case, and it is not improbable that, on future inquiries, it may be shown that every nation using an alphabet is indebted for it to the Egyptians. The following wood-cuts show the hieroglyphics from which, as we may conjecture, were borrowed the Hebrew alphabet, the Greek alphabet. If F TiTi F. W. and those few Coptic letters which, when a St the Coptic alphabet P F— 1 n b was formed from the 8' 3 Greek, were not there to be found. d t T i e n n n f * — z tli t 13 i i k u ^ P 1 r m 72 n /ywv\ 2 sh s D li V V s sh in a t s=> n INTRODUCTION. 17 GREEK. A fft M — * n V N Jt r O A A iF P w E 6 l, Til F LJt c r z a n ii T Q 0 T i I & LJ K T X >4 A L JL T COPTIC. 3,1 s IS a k i> h 2 a j S x sli s O It must, however, he remarked that the borrowed letters by no means keep the same position with their hieroglyphic origi- nals. Thus the Roman L is the same as the Greek, Hebrew, and hieroglyphic, though in every case in a different position. The Hebrew H has its mouth downwards in hieroglyphics, as in the Greek n. In the hieroglyphic originals the Hebrew 3 and the Greek C and E have the mouth upwards ; the Hebrew 2 has its mouth downwards. This derivation of the alphabets from the hieroglyphics is further proved by our finding that the Hebrew names for some of the letters are the Egyptian names for the objects which the hieroglyphics represent; as Nun, water , Pe, the heavens, and Tetli, a hand, are borrowed from the Coptic. We possess so little of hieroglyphic writing accompanied with a Greek translation, beside the foui’tecn broken lines of the Ro- setta Stone, that we naturally seek for help in our studies from every indirect source. The most valuable of these will probably hereafter be the enchorial or common writing on the papyri, which, by the help of several bilingual manuscripts, might pro- bably be made a key to the hieroglyphics. But this is at present even less studied than the characters which we wish to explain by its help. We therefore turn, in the next place, to the few c 18 INTRODUCTION. sentences which the Greek writers have given us as translations from Egyptian ; for though we have not got the hieroglyphics from which they were taken, yet we may sometimes learn from them a phrase, a title, or a mode of expression, which we may recognize in an hieroglyphical group. The longest of these sen- tences, which are translations, but of which the originals are lost, is the other part of the Rosetta Stone. It is published in English among the author’s Egyptian Inscriptions, and it con- tains numerous titles of the young king Ptolemy Epiphanes, which prove that of this valuable triliteral and bilingual decree the Egyptian is the original and the Greek the translation. In the first book of Diodorus Siculus we have three sentences which seem to be of the same class, and may be here given. “ The epitaph on Osymandyas. “ I am Osymandyas the king of kings ; if any body wishes to know how great I am, and where I am lying, let him surpass some one of my works.” “ The epitaph on Isis. “ I am Isis the queen of the whole land, who was taught by Hermes, and whatever I have decreed nobody can unloose. I am the eldest daughter of Cronos the youngest god. I am the wife and sister of Osiris the king. I am the mother of Horus the king. I am she that riseth heliacally with the dog-star. The city Bu- bastis was built for me. Hail, hail, Egypt that nourished me.” “ The epitaph on Osiris. “ My father is Cronos the youngest of all the gods, and I am Osiris the king, who fought against every land as far as the un- inhabited pai’ts of India, and against the parts lying towards the north as far as the sources of the river Danube, and again, against the other parts as far as the ocean. I am the eldest son of Cronos, and was born out of a beautiful and noble egg, a seed related to the day ; and there is no place in the inhabited world to which I have not come distributing; to all of which I was the bene- factor.” In these sentences there are phrases which we know as hiero- glyphical groups, and they explain to us how far we are at liberty to insert the smaller words among the detached hieroglyphics to INTRODUCTION. 19 make a connected sentence ; as tlie student who is familiar with inscriptions will easily see which words have been added by the priest who translated them to Diodorus. Like these, we find many inscriptions speaking in the first person, particularly in Egypt. Inscript, pi. 45, 65, and 75. Euphantus, quoted in Porphyry De Abstinentia, lib. iv., has left us an Egyptian prayer, which, however, is not so like to any of the inscriptions as to help us in our attempts to read them. Theocritus, in his 15th Idyl, has told us the offerings which were presented to the temple of Osiris at the annual feast. These were palm fruits in silver vessels, Syrian myrrh in golden vases, cakes of whitest flour, honey, oil, birds, beasts, green branches, ivory, and gold, most of which we find mentioned on the tablets, as in Egypt. Inscript. 39, 9 ; and in other places. The compari- son of the tablets with the poet confirms the translation given to the hieroglyphical groups iu the Vocabulary. But the most valuable of our translations is that which was made from one of the obelisks of Rameses II., by Hermapion an Egyptian, in the reign of Constantine, and has been preserved by Ammianus Marcellinus. It is much the same in style and matter as the hieroglyphical inscriptions on many of the obelisks ; and, to assist the comparison, it is here arranged, as is usual with those inscriptions, in three columns, beginning with the middle one. The king’s name, whether translated or not, has been in- closed in an oval, and the usual square pendant placed under the word Apollo, to complete the resemblance. On compai’ing it with the obelisk in Egypt. Inscript, pi. 42, it will be seen that it is much shorter, but that each line begins and ends with nearly the same words. The king’s name is preceded by the same titles. The whole is headed with the address of the god to the king. The only liberty here taken in the arrangement is dividing be- tween the third verse or line of the first side and the first verse of the second side. The original in Ammianus makes no such division ; but it is easily seen to be wanted by the word Apollo, which heads every verse, as the eagle and sun, No. 629, do in the hieroglyphics. c 2 20 INTRODUCTION. “ The translation begins on the South Side. ' Line the second. “ Line the first. “ Line the third. “ The Sun to “ APOLLO the brave, who stands in truth; I I I I I I lord of the diadem, who gives glory to Egypt; who holds, and who gives splendour to the City of the Sun ; who creates the rest of the world ; who honours the gods that dwell in the City of the Sun ; whom the Sun loves. King Ramestes. I have given unto you to reign with grace over the whole world ; whom the Sun loves ; and APOLLO the brave truth-loving son of Heron, I I I I ! bom of God creator of the world, to whom the earth is subject by his might and bravery ; King RAMESTES, son of the Sun, immortal. “APOLLO I I i i l I I l i l I son of the Sun, all-shining, whom the Sun approved ; whom the Sun approved, strong in battle, King and great Mars endowed ; RAMESTES, whose goodness remains to all time ; whom Ammon loves ; who lias filled with good the temple of the Phoenix. iiermapion’s obelisk. 91 /V 1 “ Another second, line. “ I the Sun, lord of heaven, have given you life unfailing. APOLLO the brave i i i r i mi n III I lord of the diadem; unequalled, who has placed the statues in this place ; lord of Egypt ; and has beautified the City of the Sun like the Sun himself, lord of heaven ; he hath done a good work, son of the Sun, immortal. “To whom the gods have given length of life. APOLLO the brave son of Heron, king of the world RAMESTES, who has guarded Egypt, who has conquered the foreigners ; whom the Sun loves, to whom the gods have given great length of life ; lord of the world RAMESTES immortal. “ Line the third. “ I the Sun, god, lord of heaven, to the king RAMESTES have given strength and power over all ; whom APOLLO truth-loving I I I I I i ! i ! 1 1 1 [ Illiilii lord of times, and Vulcan father of the gods, have approved for his bravery ; king, all-gracious, 6on of the Sun, and loved by the Sun. 22 INTRODUCTION “ On the North Side. “ Line the first. “ The great god of the City of the Sun, heavenly APOLLO, the brave son of Heron, I l l i I I I I whom the Sun begot, whom the gods honoured ; king of all the earth, whom the Sun approved. The king brave in war, whom Ammon loves, and the All-shining has tried, for a king for ever.' CHiEREMON. 23 Tzetzcs tlie grammarian, in liis Exegesis on Homer’s Iliad, has saved for us a fragment from the lost work of Chawcmon on hieroglyphics. It is too valuable to be omitted. Some of his explanations confirm those given in the Vocabulary. Others seem to be mistakes, but they may be of use in our future in- quiries. The words of Tzetzes are as follows : “ For Homer says this, after lie had been taught carefully all the learning of the symbolic iEthiopic letters. For the iEtliio- pians have no elements of letters, but instead of them various animals and their parts ; and when the ancient priests wish to keep concealed the physical nature of the gods, they explain them to their own children by means of allegories and such like symbols and letters. As Chaeremon the sacred scribe says, for joy they paint a woman playing on a drum, and for misfortune, an eye weeping; for not having, two empty hands outstretched; for rising, a snake coming out of a hole ; for setting, the same going in; for return to life, a frog; for the soul, a hawk; the same for the sun, and for God ; for a child-bearing woman and mother, and time, and heaven, a vulture ; for a king, a bee ; for birth and self-born and male, a beetle; for the earth, a bull. The foreparts of a lion signify according to them all government and guard ; a lion’s tail, necessity ; a stag, the year, and a palm- branch the same ; a boy signifies increase ; an old man, decay. A bow, sharp force-, and there are a thousand other such.” Upon this we remark the hands outstretched, No. 1555, mean give ; the hawk means the soul, as in the wood-cut in the Title- page; and it means the god Horns, in No. 114; the vulture. No. 1826, is mother ; the ant or bee. No. 663, is king ; the foreparts of a bon. No. 1587, mean victorious ; a stag, No. 960, the year-, a palm branch, No. 955, the year. The other characters mentioned do not so well agree with the modern interpretation. The work entitled the Hieroglyphics of Horapollo Nilous pro- fesses to have been written in Coptic, and translated into Greek by one Philip ; but in its present state it is Greek in more than its language. It always speaks of the Egyptians as “ they” and “ them,” and sometimes blunderingly attempts to explain Egyp- tian words by the help of the Greek language. Upon the whole 24 INTRODUCTION. it seems more probable that it is a Greek work written by Philip, from explanations given to him by Horapollo, and which he did not understand. He gives, clause by clause, the description of the hieroglyphical characters, and the reasons, founded on figu- rative considerations, for the characters having such meanings. As the greater part of the characters which he describes are not found in any of the numerous inscriptions known to us, and as most of the meanings are such that it is scarcely possible they could have existed on the monuments at all, the work must be, both on external and internal evidence, rejected as of little worth. It is full of puerile reasoning. Out of the one hundred and eighty-nine groups which Horapollo undertakes to explain, it would be difficult to point out forty in which he has a know- ledge of the true meaning ; and in most of these he is remark- ably mistaken in the reasons which he assigns for the meaning. He is not aware that the characters represent sounds, but sup- poses them all to be figurative or allegorical. We are told by Suidas that Horapollo was a grammarian of the reign of Theodosius, who, after teaching for some time in the schools of Alexandria, removed to Constantinople; but we may fairly doubt whether our author is the person he is speaking of. Beyond this doubtful account nothing else is known of him. The following quotations will explain Horapollo’s mode of reasoning and the extent of his knowledge. HORAPOLLO. Book I. Chap 1. To denote an age [or period, alwv], they draw the sun and moon, because their elements are lasting for an age [i aicovia ]. But to write an age otherwise [meaning eternity], they draw a serpent with its tail covered by the rest of its body. Note. Thus in each of the hieroglyphics, for the words ‘ year/ No. 953, ‘ month/ No. 9G8, and c day/ No. 1004, which are the more common periods of time, we find a sun ; and in the word ‘ month/ a moon, as well as in the names of the several months. We find the serpent with a long tail forming part of the words ( for ever/ No. 594 ; HORAPOLLO. and the asp with a twisted tail is the word ‘ immortal/ No. 286. Again, This serpent the Egyptians call Ouraius, which is in Greek basilisk. Note. ChfpO is the Coptic for king, and hence the Greek name for the animal, No. 286, a basilisk. Chap. 3. When they wish to denote the natural year, imavros, they draw Isis, that is to say, ( a woman/ By the same they also represent ‘ the goddess/ And Isis with them is a star, called in Egyptian Sothis, and in Greek the Dog-star, which seems also to rule the rest of the stars. Note. I do not find the word f year’ represented by a woman ; but in the zodiac of the Memnonium, the twelve months are enclosed within two female figures, each of which, as No. 37, represents the heavens; and f the be- ginning of the year/ the heliacal rising of the dog-star, or time when that star rises with the sun, is a woman in a boat. No. 1049; and in the planisphere on the temple of Dendera we have a cow in a boat, No. 1048, for the same part of the heavens, each meaning the goddess Isis. Again, When they write a natural year otherwise, they draw a palm-branch. Note. As we have seen, in No. 953 and No. 954, a palm-branch, &AI, and a T, is the hieroglyphical word f year/ The Egyptian word was bait. Chap. 4. When they write a month, they draw the moon inverted, because they say that on its heliacal rising, when it has come to fifteen degrees [from the sun], it appears with its horns erect ; but in its decrease, after having completed the number of thirty days, it sets with its horns downward. Note. In all the hieroglyphics for c month/ the moon has its horns downward, as in No. 977 ; but on the sar- cophagus of the wife of Amasis, in the British Museum, where the deceased is addressed ‘ Thy name is New Moon/ the horns are upwards, as in No. 962. The resemblance of this figure of the moon rising heliacally, when one day old, to the moon in a boat, seems to be the reason why 2G INTRODUCTION. the other constellations, when rising heliacally, in the zo- diac of Dendera, are all in boats, as Nos. 1018 and 1019. Chap. 5. When writing the current civil year, eros, they draw the fourth part of an aroura [their term in the square measure of land] . Note. No. 954 seems to he the hieroglyphic here meant, and it may be compared with No. 953. But the palm-branch with a square is used when a number of years are spoken of ; and a palm-branch with a ring is used in dates ; which is the reverse of what seems to be Ilorapollo’s meaning. Chap. 7. Moreover the hawk is put for ‘ the soul/ from the meaning of the name; for among the Egyptians the hawk is called baieth. Note. In many sculptures we see a bird over the mouth of the dead man, meaning the soul which has quitted the body. In Coptic, is a hawk. In chapter 34 this bird is called the Phoenix. Chap. 8. When writing Ares and Aphrodite, they draw two hawks. Note. Horns is often drawn as a hawk and as a hawk- headed man, see No. 114; and the name of Athor, here called Aphrodite, is written with a hawk within a house, as No. 173. The word “'Athor’ is obtained from its re- semblance in sound to the Coptic words for ‘ House of Horus/ HI T £/J0p. Chap. 9. To write ‘ mother,’ or ‘ Minerva,’ or ‘ Juno,’ or “ two drachms/ they draw a vulture . . . ; Minerva and Juno, because among the Egyptians Minerva is thought to preside over the upper hemisphere and Juno over the lower, and two drachms, because among the Egyptians the unit [of money] is two drachms. Note. The vulture, as in No. 1826, is the usual hiero- glyphic for ‘ mother.’ In No. 39 we have the two god- desses Neith and Isis, representing heaven and earth. As our author remarks, a didrachm is the unit of money ; and in Coptic there is a close resemblance between HORAPOLLO. 27 mother, and JUULT AAT, alone ; and in No. G35, mean- ing ‘ sole king/ the vulture means sole. Chap. 13. When signifying a mundane god, or Fate, or the number five, they draw a star. Note. We find the star part of the word ‘ God’ on many occasions, as No. 296. No. 1069 is the numeral ‘ five.’ Chap. 16. Again, when signifying the two equinoxes, they draw a cynocephalus sitting. Note. On the ceiling of the Memnonium at Thebes a sitting cynocephalus, or dog-headed monkey sitting on a landmark, marks the summer solstice, as No. 1065. We do not find it meaning the equinox. Chap. 17. When they wish to denote ‘'courage,’ they draw a lion. Note. A lion seems to have this meaning in the hiero- glyphics. See No. 1579 and No. 1584. Chap. 18. When writing ‘ strength/ they draw the foreparts of a lion. Note. No. 1587 is the word XOp, victorious, and the latter half of the word Neit-cori, or Nitocris, ‘ Neitli the victorious.’ It is spelt THOR, but the instances are com- mon of TH and CH being interchanged through the gut- tural sound. Chap. 21. When signifying the rising of the Nile, which in Egyptian they call NOUN, they sometimes draw a lion, and sometimes three large waterpots, and sometimes heaven and earth gushing forth water. Note. In Coptic we still have the word rtOTrt for water-, and the god of the Nile is called Hapinoun, or ‘waterman/ No. 185; though more usually Hapimou, No. 184. We also meet with the title ‘lord of the waters/ as No. 690, with a waterpot. Chap. 24. When they wish to write ‘ protection/ they draw two human heads, that of a man looking inwards, and that of a woman looking outwards. 28 INTRODUCTION. Note. No. 1354 and No. 1357 each mean ' guardian 5 and ' belonging to / and No. 1467 means ' hero.’ Chap. 26. When they wish to denote an opening, they draw a hare. Note. Horapollo probably means a rabbit, as there is a resemblance between the hieroglyphic name of the ani- mal SO AT, No. 1877, and the Coptic word fTcJOTg,, to burrow. When a rabbit occurs in the hieroglyphics it has that syllabic sound, and, with the letter It, it forms the very common word CO'fTert ,just, as in No. 1692. Chap. 32. When they would represent ' delight/ they write the number sixteen. Note. We have a coin of Hadrian, with the figures Sixteen over a reclining figure of a river gocf, to denote that sixteen cubits was the height of rise in the Nile at all times wished for. We have other coins on which the river god is surrounded by sixteen little naked children or Cupids ; and it would almost seem that the Alexan- drian artist had, in this case, had in his mind the simila- rity in sound, in the Latin language, between Cupids and cubits. Chap. 28. To denote Egyptian letters, or a sacred scribe, or a boundary, they draw ink, and a sieve, and a reed. Note. In No. 328 the hieroglyphic for 'scribe’ and ' letters’ we perhaps have these objects. On the Rosetta Stone this character is not used when Greek letters are spoken of. Again, And among the sacred scribes there is a sacred book, called Ambres, by which they judge as to a person lying sick, whether he will live or not. Note. We recognize this word on the Gnostic gems in the word ' cliambre.’ Chap. 39. And again, when they would write 'sacred scribe/ or prophet, or cmbalmer, or spleen, or smelling, or laughter, or sneezing, or government, or a judge, they draw a dog. Note. Anubis was the god of embalming; and the pi’iest whose duty it was to embalm the dead is repre- HORAPOLLO. 29 sented with a dog’s head. See No. 148. He probably wore a mask of that form, for his dog’s head is always large enough to hold a man’s head concealed under it. A dog-headed sceptre, No. 1 125, is also the hieroglyphic for ‘ power.’ But, by the help of the next chapter, we see that our author more particularly meant the dog Cerberus, which is more correctly an hippopotamus, and stands before Osiris in the judgment scene on the papyri, as the accuser of the deceased. Chap. 40. But when they would write ‘ government,’ or a ' judge,’ they place before the dog a royal garment. Note. This is always the case in the judgment scene : it is the skin of some spotted beast, hanging on a pole, as No. 152. Chap. 43. When writing ' purity,’ they draw fire and water. Note. We find a flame of fire and a bucket of water with this meaning. See No. 361, ‘ purifications.’ Chap. 44. When anything unlawful or hateful, they draw a fish. Note. The nearest hieroglyphic to this is the word ‘ dead,’ No. 1655, in which the letter M is a fish. Chap. 46. To denote manliness with prudence, they draw a bull. Note. No. 1624 is the word f brave.’ The arm is only the final vowel. From JULACI, a bull , we get JL*.ACe, to fight, by the similarity of sound. Chap. 52. And when writing f knowledge,’ they draw an ant. Note. The group, No. 663, forms the title of one of the four chief orders of the priesthood, and was also used by the king. Chap. 53. And when they wish to write ‘ son,’ they draw a goose. Note. No. 1789 is f son,’ and No. 1797 ‘ daughter.’ Chap. 54. For an unjust and ungrateful man they draw two claws of an hippopotamus turned downwards. Note. No. 1673 and No. 1475 the hieroglyphical groups for ‘ enemies’ and ‘ fallen’ begin with the charac- ter here spoken of. 30 INTRODUCTION. Cliap. 59. Tlie serpent’s name, among tlie Egyptians, is meisi. Note. We find this name in hieroglyphics, as No. 1848, where it is followed by the determinative sign, to distin- guish it from ‘ born.’ We have the same word in Coptic for ‘ serpent,’ JL*-ICI. Chap. 60. And otherwise, to denote a watchful king, they draw a serpent watching ; and in the place of the king’s name, they draw a watcher. Note. There seems to he a mistake in this sentence ; and I should conjecture that, instead of the last word, < pv\cuca , a watcher , we should read yvira, a vulture ; and that the group meant was No. 653, a ‘ sole ruler,’ or f monarch.’ Chap. 62. When denoting a people obedient to a king, they draw a bee. Note. Our author seems to be thinking of the twig and insect. No. 642, the well-known title of the kings. It is strictly a double title, each used by an order of priests, and one peculiar to the upper, and one to the lower country. Hence it is to be translated ‘ king of Upper and Lower Egypt.’ Chap. 70. When they speak of darkness, they draw the tail of a crocodile. Note. No. 1714 may be meant for a crocodile’s tail. It is the word ( black,’ and has that meaning from the. similarity in sound between ^a/u.yp'r], Herodotus’s name for a crocodile, and KAX*.€, the Coptic for black. Book II. Chap. 3. Two feet joined, and walking, signify the path of the sun in the winter solstice. Note. In the zodiac of Dendera the twelve signs are enclosed within two female figures, represeuting the hea- vens, as in No. 39, where the feet represent the summer, and the hands the winter solstice. Chap. 5. The hands of a man, one holding a shield and the other a bow when drawn, denote the front of the battle. HORAPOLLO. 31 Note . The hieroglyphic nearest to this is No. 1777, a man’s arms, one holding a shield and the other a club. This is the word ‘ brave’ or ‘ victorious.’ Chap. 9. When we would denote the loins or constitution of a man, we draw the backbone; for some say that the seed is brought from thence. Note. No. 1807, which is a thigh-bone with the flesh on it, is the word ‘ son,’ and may be the hieroglyphic here meant. Chap. 11. Two men joining their right hands denote concord. Note. We find this group in the hieroglyphics, as No. 1494, and it seems to mean f friends.’ Chap. 12. A man armed with a shield and a bow denotes a crowd. Note. We find a man with a bow for the word ‘ sol- dier,’ as No. 1 765 ; and a man with an arrow, as No. 1 766, with the same meaning. Chap. 29. Seven letters enclosed in two rings signify a song, or ‘ infinite,’ or c fate.’ Note. This seems to allude to the seven tens in No. 1070, which mean the seventy days of mourning and em- balming between the death and burial, during which the funeral song may have been sung. Chap. 30. A straight line, together with a curved line or a ten, signify pi’ose writing. Note. I know no such group as our author speaks of ; but as we have seen, in No. 1070, a curved line is a ten. Chap. 32. When they wish to draw a woman who remains a widow till death, they draw a black dove. Note. The vulture. No. 1826, which is more often the word f mother,’ is also ‘ widow ;’ as with us, the queen- mother is the queen-widow. Moreover, in Coptic, the words ‘ mother’ and f solitary’ are nearly the same. Chap. 41. When they wish to signify a man that caught a fever and died from a stroke of the sun, they draw a blind beetle. Note. This is a good instance of how our author blun- ders about the meaning of a group, without quite under- standing it. The scarabaeus rolling up a ball of dung 32 INTRODUCTION. between its feet, as in No. 123, is one hieroglyphic for Horus-Ra, the sun. Chap. 56. When they wish to signify a king that governs absolutely and shows no mercy to faults, they draw an eagle. Note. The eagle and globe, No. 629, is the usual title of a king. The eagle is an A, the globe is Ra, the sun, making the word O'tfpO, king ; and, with the article pre- fixed, the well-known word Pharaoh. Chap. 57. When they wish to signify a great cyclical renova- tion, they draw the bird phoenix. Note. We have a coin of the emperor Antoninus, with the word AIUN, the age or period, written over an ibis, with a glory round his head. This was coined at the end of one sothic period, or great year, and the beginning of another. On each of these occasions the ibis or phoenix w r as said to return to earth. In hieroglyphics, the palm- branch, fv
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