Sect. I. Introductory view of the latest Publications relating to Egypt.—II. Pantheon.—III. Historiography.—IV. Calendar.—V. Customs and Ceremonies.—VI. Analysis of the triple Inscription.—VII. Rudiments of a Hieroglyphical Vocabulary.—VIII. Various Monuments of the Egyptians.

SECTION I.—Introductory view of the latest Publications relating to Egypt.

The antiquities and literature of Egypt have always been considered, on account of the very early progress which its inhabitants had made in the arts of civilised life, as objects of the highest interest and curiosity, though involved in inextricable obscurity; but we have acquired, in the course of the last twenty years, and are still continuing to acquire, such additional information respecting them, as promises, if completely confirmed by future researches, to establish the whole of our knowledge respecting this marvellous country on a new and a sure foundation.

A considerable portion of the labours of the French Institute at Cairo has been communicated to the public in a work of unexampled splendour and magnificence, the ponderous Description de l'Egypte, about one half of which only has hitherto appeared. Many of the monuments brought by the British army to England have also been accurately and elegantly engraved in this country; and a variety of travellers of different nations have published accounts of their numerous observations and discoveries made in Egypt and in its neighbourhood.

The first in order of these, that it will be necessary to notice, is Mr William Hamilton's volume, entitled Remarks on Several Parts of Turkey. Part I. Ægyptiaca, 4to, London, 1809. It appears that, the power of the French in Egypt having terminated in September 1801, the temporary possession of the country was at first divided between the Turks, the Mamelukes, the Arabs, and the English, a circumstance which afforded some convenience to a European traveller, although it had no tendency to enlarge the sphere of his observations. In the beginning of October, Captain Leake and Lieutenant Hayes were appointed, by General Hutchinson, to make a general survey of Egypt, and of the country beyond it, if it should be found practicable to penetrate further south. Mr Hamilton, who had resided at the British head quarters for the purpose of corresponding with Lord Elgin upon the events of the war, was now at liberty to join these gentlemen in their expedition; and the various information which, with their assistance, he collected, respecting the remains of the ancient Egyptian magnificence, bears ample testimony to the good taste, as well as to the industry and accuracy of the whole party. On account, however, of the disturbed state of the country, and of a multitude of other difficulties, both moral and physical, they were unable to proceed further south than a few hours' journey beyond Syene, to a village called Debôd, opposite to which they observed the ruins of Barembre, the Parembole of the ancients; and among these they found a Greek dedication of a temple to Isis, by Ptolemy Philometor and his queen. They collected, also, a variety of inscriptions from other parts of Egypt, to which they added drawings and descriptions of the remains of the buildings to which they belonged; and, at Alexandria, in particular, Mr Hamilton was enabled, in company with some other gentlemen, by examining the inscription on Pompey's pillar, in different positions of the sun, to ascertain the name Diocletian, as that of the emperor to whom it was dedicated; and to find some traces of the name of Pompeius, who has been shown by Mr Quatremere to have been a prefect of Egypt under that emperor. It is, however, to be regretted, that the Coptic inscriptions, which are sometimes found mixed with the Greek, have not been more generally copied by travellers, since it is only among these that we can hope to find any traces of the vernacular nomenclature of the Egyptian mythology; although, from the few specimens which have been hitherto examined, it seems probable that the introduction of the Coptic character was only coëval with that of Christianity.

Mr Badia, a Spaniard, who is supposed to have been sent into the east on the business of the French government, has published two volumes of his Travels, under the name of Ali Bey. They contain some documents relating to the recent history and present state of Egypt, but very little information respecting its antiquities.

Mr Legh and Mr Smelt visited Egypt in 1812. They extended their tour as far as Ibrim, and observed, in their way, many remains of ancient buildings, some of which were in perfect preservation; but they were unable to attain the second cataract, which was said to be three days' journey further south. At Cairo, they paid a visit to the Pasha Mohammed Ali, under whom they "found Egypt in a state of greater tranquillity than it had enjoyed for many years, a change for which it is entirely indebted to the vigorous administration of the present Pasha." It appears that soon after the English had evacuated the country, the Mamelukes were driven by their rivals into Upper Egypt; they, however, regained a momentary influence in Cairo after the deposition of Mohammed Pasha by his Albanian soldiers; but they were soon again expelled by these same troops, with whom they had formed a temporary alliance; and the present Pasha, Mohammed Ali, who had been formerly captain of a pirate boat in the Archipelago, was made chief of these insurgents, whom, according to Ali Bey, he was at first obliged to indulge in all their licentiousness; but he promised that, in a few years, it should be safe to walk the streets of Cairo "with both hands full of gold," and Mr Legh found that he had completely kept his word. He was then occupied in prepara- tions against the Wahabees, and his intercourse with England materially assisted him in his various pursuits.

Besides some other interesting antiquities which he collected, Mr Legh obtained in the island of Elephantine a few Thebaic manuscripts, written with a chalybeate ink on skins of leather, which he has deposited in the British Museum. They appear to be principally conveyances of estates, dated at Cyrshe or Gyrshe, a place 50 or 60 miles beyond Essoout or Syene; and, though unimportant in themselves, they tend to illustrate the history of the kingdom of Nubia in the middle ages. This kingdom seems to have been almost forgotten by some late travellers and geographers, although it was formerly remarkable for having been, according to an old tradition, one of the first that embraced Christianity, even in the time of the Queen Candace, one of whose servants was baptized by St Philip (Acts, viii.). and who appears to have been one of the immediate successors of the Candace, mentioned by Strabo, as having attacked the province of Egypt, and having been conquered by Petronius in the time of Augustus. The kingdom of Nubia extended as far north as Syene, which continued to be the boundary of the Mussulman power in the tenth century, and probably much later. To the south it originally comprehended Ethiopia, its capital, Meroe, being placed in latitude 17°, on an island in the Nile, or rather on a peninsula formed by its principal branches. Candace had also a palace at Napata, which Pliny makes about 500 Roman miles beyond Syene, and 360 short of Meroe. In the seventh century, the Nubi- ans seem nominally to have been made tributary to the Arabs; but they remained, in fact, almost wholly independent of them in their government, and their religion was entirely subjected to the spiritual direction of the patriarchs of Alexandria. Early in the tenth, the Nubiens attacked Syene, not as rebels, but as legitimate enemies. They were, however, repulsed soon afterwards. A little later, we find that George, king of Nubia, was a mediator between the king of Abyssinia and the patriarch, whom he persuaded to send bishops from Alexandria into Ethiopia. In the eleventh century, Solomon, king of Nubia, abdicated in favour of his nephew George, and retired to a monastery, within three days' journey of Syene; whence he was brought by the Saracens to Cairo, and there treated with great attention as a sort of state prisoner. It is also said, that a king Cyriac once raised 100,000 men to assist the Christians against the Mussulmen; but the magnitude of the number renders the whole story more than doubtful. We learn from Hartmann's notes on Edrisi, that Abulfeida in the fourteenth century, and Bakui in the fifteenth, spoke of the Nubiens as still Christians; and it seems highly probable that they continued to exercise their religion till about the time of Sultan Selim, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, if not still later; for Vansleb, who was at Siut in 1673, tells us, that the churches were then still entire, though they were shut up, Christianity having become completely extinct for want of pastors. He gives us the names of seventeen bishopricks, which had constituted three provinces; the first province he calls Maraeu, and attributes to it the bishopricks of Korta, Ibrim, Bucoras, Dunkala or Dungala, Sai, Termus, and Scienhur; the second province seems to hold a middle place: and, in the third, he mentions Soper as the capital of the kingdom, without noticing Nuabah, which is the name given to the metropolis by the Arabic authors. D'Herbelot, who died in 1695, speaks of a patriarch still resident at Dungola, and appointed by the patriarch of Alexandria. There can, at any rate, be little doubt that the " King John," mentioned in the manuscripts of Gyrshe as a Christian, must have been a king of Nubia, and rather a predecessor of the Mek of Dungola, than a Greek emperor, whose authority was probably never acknowledged in this country, and least of all when Egypt was in the possession of the Arabians. (Strabo, Book XVII. Pliny, Book VI. Chap. xxix. Hist. Byzant. Vol. XXI. Ancient Universal History, fol. Vol. VII. Modern Universal History, Vol. I. Vansleb, Hist. de l'Egl. d'Alexandrie, Par. 1677, p. 29. D'Herbelot, Bibl. Orient. Narrative of a Journey in Egypt, and the Country beyond the Cataracts. By Thomas Legh, M. P. 4to. Lond. 1816. Sepulchral Inscriptions from Nubia, Archæologia, XIX. p. 169.)

The remains of the churches mentioned by Vansleb were observed, in many parts of Nubia, by Captain Light of the Royal Artillery, covered generally with paintings of scriptural subjects, and not uncommonly appearing to have been originally built for pagan temples. The Pasha of Egypt, he says, "was named as sovereign" of the country, "in all transactions" between Cairo and Assouan; beyond this, as far as Ibrim, which was the extent of his expedition, "the reigning Sultan Mahmoud was considered as the sovereign," though the neighbouring "cashief's power was plainly feared more." At Dakki Captain Light found the name of Hermes inscribed as that of the deity to whom the temple situated there must have been dedicated; and it will be interesting to inquire if any hieroglyphics can still be found on this remarkable edifice, which will bear a similar interpretation. (Memoirs relating to European and Asiatic Turkey. Edited by R. Walpole, M.A. 4to. Lond. 1817. P. 402, 465.)

Captain Light has more recently published a separate volume of his Travels, 4to, London, 1818. He informs us, that after the expulsion of Mohammed Pasha, two others were elected by the troops to the same dignity, each of whom remained in power a few weeks only. The last of them had appointed Mahommied Ali as his general, to command an expedition against the Mamelukes, but having succeeded in checking the enemy, the victorious general returned to expel and take place of his master. This remarkable person was originally a Thracian; and he has certainly given sufficient proofs of the " vigour" of his character in his transactions with the Mamelukes, with whom he concluded a treaty of alliance against the Wahabees; for when they had sent the stipulated force of 1500 men to co-operate with him, he put to death every man of them in a single morning. He succeeded, however, in rescuing the holy cities from the power of the Wahabees, and the possession of the keys of these cities ostensibly ob- tained him the favour and countenance of the Porte, notwithstanding the general insubordination of his proceedings.

Mr Walpole's collection contains also some older papers of the late Mr Davison, who was British consul at Algiers, and accompanied Mr Wortley Montague to Egypt in 1763. Mr Davison discovered, in the great pyramid, a room before unknown, immediately over the chamber which contains the sarcophagus; and he descended the three successive wells, to the depth of 155 feet. He also describes the catacombs of Alexandria, which seem to have been principally employed by the Greek inhabitants of that city. The same volume contains a very interesting account of the customs and manners of modern Egypt, from the journal of Dr Hume.

A considerable addition has been made to our knowledge of the geography of Egypt, by the publication of Lieutenant Colonel Leake's accurate and elegant map of that country, comprehending also a sketch of Nubia, as far as the southern cataract, which appears to be the limit of the existing remains of antiquity. Besides the results of his own personal survey, Colonel Leake has employed the observations of the French astronomers for the determination of the situation of the different places; and, with respect to the remoter parts, he has had the advantage of consulting the manuscript papers of the late lamented Mr Burckhardt, who unhappily fell a victim to a dysentery at Cairo, in October 1817, after having obtained, by a long residence in the country, under the name of Shekh Ibrahim, an intimate acquaintance with every thing, that could have tended to facilitate the further prosecution of his projected expedition, into parts of the continent still more remote. Besides the ruins of Greek churches, scattered throughout this country, the principal points of Nubia, which are remarked as exhibiting remains of still greater antiquity, are the Parembole of the Itinerary of Antonine, near Debod, and Tzitzi, now Klitzie, both of which had been visited by Colonel Leake and Mr Hamilton; Kardassy or Gartaas; Taphis and Contra Taphis, now Tafa; Kalabshe, the ancient Talmis; Merowan, the ancient Tutzis, near Gyrsh; Pselcis, now Dakki, and Corte, still Korti; Maharraka, supposed to be the Hierosyamimon of the Itinerary, and which may, very possibly, have been the Maracu mentioned by Vansleb as an archbishoprick; Seboua; Hasséya; Derr; Ibrim, the Premnis of the ancients; Ebsámabal, perhaps the Aboccis, with its two temples, still better known by the labours of the active and ingenious Belzoni; Beylany, or rather Fereyg; Serra, probably Phthuris; Sukkoy, perhaps Cambusis; Samne, not improbably the Acina of Nero's spies; Aamara, possibly Stadyasis; and Soleb, not far short of the southernmost cataract, where the author is disposed to place the Napata of the ancients, in latitude about \(19^{\circ} \frac{1}{2}\): a situation which would agree very well with the distances of Napata from Syene and from Meroe; but it is impossible to admit that this cataract can be so far south as even \(20^{\circ}\), consistently with the testimony of other geographers respecting the latitudes of Mosho and Sukkot; and, indeed, the course of the river is laid down more nearly north and south than the description of Burckhardt requires. We may, however, expect much information on this subject from the observations which have been more recently made in the lower parts of Nubia, by Captain Corry of the Navy, who has visited them in company with his brother Lord Belmore. (Map of Egypt, 2 Sheets. Lond. 1818.)

The Quarterly Review has afforded us, in several late numbers, a highly interesting and gratifying detail of the operations and discoveries, which have been conducted in Egypt, by several of our spirited and enterprising countrymen. Among these Mr Bankes has proceeded the furthest south, in the steps of Mr Burckhardt, and has made collections and drawings of a great number of striking remains of antiquity (Quarterly Review, No. 31); and he has sent home to this country a variety of statues and bas reliefs, as well as large manuscripts on papyrus, in the epistolographic character. Mr Salt has been indefatigable in his exertions, and he has most fortunately found an assistant of Herculean strength of body, and of proportional energy of mind, in the person of Mr Belzoni. The head called a young Memnon, now in the British Museum, which weighs eight or ten tons, and which is one of the very finest specimens of Egyptian sculpture now in existence, was a joint present of Mr Salt and Mr Burckhardt; and Mr Belzoni has the merit of having conducted the very difficult operation of bringing it down to the Nile. Mr Hamilton has conjectured that it may have belonged to the statue described by Philostratus as a Memnon of great beauty (Q. R. No. 36); but the remaining fragment of the hieroglyphical inscription agrees better with the name of another sovereign, apparently of the same family, who is represented in several other magnificent monuments at Thebes and elsewhere.

Captain Caviglia, the master of a mercantile vessel in the Mediterranean, has exerted himself with singular activity and perseverance in examining the interior of the great pyramid of Cheops. After having retraced the forgotten steps of Mr Davison, he succeeded in pursuing the principal oblique passage 200 feet further downwards than it was before practicable, and in discovering at this point a communication with the well, which descends from the floor of the upper chamber. This communication affording him a freer circulation of air, he was enabled to proceed 28 feet further in the passage, when he found that it opened into a spacious chamber, 66 feet by 27, but of unequal height, immediately under the centre of the pyramid, which Mr Salt supposes to have been the place of the THECA, or sarcophagus, mentioned by Strabo as situated at the end of the oblique passage, though at present no sarcophagus is to be found in it. The floor is elevated 30 feet above the level of the Nile, so that the water could never have flowed into this part of the pyramid, to surround the tomb of Cheops, as Herodotus imagined. Some passages leading out of this chamber appear to terminate abruptly, without opening into any others. The dimensions of the upper chamber, which still contains a sarcophagus, are only \(35\frac{1}{2}\) feet by \(17\frac{1}{4}\), and \(18\frac{1}{2}\) high.

In six pyramids which have been opened, the principal passage preserves the same inclination of about to the horizon: but if this construction was intended to facilitate the observation of the pole star, as has been conjectured, it was at least extremely ill contrived for the determination of time, on account of the very slow apparent motion of that star. In a small pyramid, south of that of Mycerinus, two chambers were found, but both were empty.

Captain Caviglia proceeded to examine a number of detached mausoleums, more or less dilapidated, in the neighbourhood of the pyramids: he found their embellishments chiefly in the style of the Theban catacombs; and they sometimes contained images too large to have been brought in through the doors or windows. Some of the stones with sculptures were placed upside down; and it was conjectured that these might possibly have been portions of the original casing of the pyramids, which is said to have been sculptured, but which is now fallen down.

His next undertaking was the very arduous task of digging away the sand in front of the great sphinx; a share of the expenses of this labour, which amounted to eight or nine hundred pounds, being contributed by Mr Salt and some other gentlemen. The body of the monster is principally formed out of the solid rock; the paws are of masonry, extending forwards fifty feet from the body: between them were found several sculptured tablets, so arranged as to constitute a small temple or chapel, and further forwards a square altar with horns, which seems to have been employed for burnt offerings. Several little liens, painted red, which had been placed on the neighbouring walls, are also among the antiquities which Captain Caviglia has very liberally presented to the British Museum, as a testimony of respect to the nation whose flag had formerly protected him in his voyages.

Mr Belzoni, at his own risk and expense, succeeded, after many fruitless efforts, in discovering the entrance into the second pyramid of Chephren, in which Herodotus had asserted that there were no chambers. The passage, descending at first obliquely from the north side, proceeds afterwards horizontally to the principal and central chamber, which measures 46 feet by 16, and is 23½ high, containing a sarcophagus of granite, with some bones, which, from a specimen brought over by Major Fitzclarence, have been ascertained to be those of a bullock. An Arabic inscription testifies that the pyramid had once been opened in the presence of the " Sultan Ali Mahomet the First, Ugloch," who may possibly have been the Ottoman emperor, Mahomet the First, in the beginning of the fifteenth century. (Quarterly Review, No. 36, 37, 38.)

Among the Theban catacombs, Mr Belzoni has discovered six new tombs; the most remarkable of them, which, with all its galleries, is 309 feet long, he calls the tomb of Apis, from having found the mummy of a bullock in one of its chambers. In another apartment was a magnificent sarcophagus of white alabaster, almost as transparent as crystal; and the whole excavation, sculptured and painted in the most finished style of art, was found in the most perfect preservation. Mr Salt observes, that the colours are generally pure and brilliant, but intermixed with each other nearly in the proportions of the rainbow, and so subdued by the proper introduction of blacks, as not to appear gaudy, but to produce "a harmony that in some of the designs is really delicious." Mr Beechey, a son of the celebrated painter, professes himself, in a private letter, to be completely fascinated with the effect of these combinations. "One would think it was in Egypt," he observes, "that Titian, Giorgione, and Tintoret, had acquired all that vigour and magic of effect, which distinguishes them so remarkably from all other painters, in point of arrangement, and principally in the happy disposition of their darks. The new tomb," he continues, "lately discovered here by Mr Belzoni, is about to be transferred by him from Thebes to London. Belzoni has made moulds of every individual object in the tomb; accurate drawings of the whole have been executed on a small scale; the greater part are already finished, and coloured by a young Italian of the name of Ricci, whom Belzoni has employed for that purpose. The tomb will be built on the same scale with the original, and will be seen by candle light; so that the effect cannot fail to be precisely that of the excavation itself."

In Nubia the spirit and perseverance, with which the little band of excavators pursued the attempt to penetrate into the temple of Ebsambal, were not less worthy of admiration. Mr Belzoni and his servant, accompanied only by Mr Beechey, were abandoned on some futile pretence by the Arab workmen whom they had employed, and were unable to procure for many weeks any other food than durra or millet; they had resolution, however, to proceed with their enterprise as manual labourers, and they were at last amply rewarded for their perseverance. In front of the temple there were four colossal statues, sixty feet high, one of which had been thrown down; but it was only after digging for three weeks through 150 feet of sand, that our adventurers succeeded in entering the temple, consisting of fourteen chambers and a great hall, cut out of the solid rock, and ornamented with sculptures superior, in point of execution, to the greater part of those which are found in Egypt; besides eight colossal statues thirty feet high, which are placed in the hall. Mr Belzoni also found at Thebes a colossal head and arm, supposed to have belonged to a Horus; and his lady discovered, during his absence in Nubia, a fine statue of white marble, supporting a ram's head on its knees.

Though Burckhardt's untimely end interrupted his further progress in Africa, yet with respect to Nubia his observations were complete, and he had himself prepared his journals for publication, in a form which does equal credit to his diligence and judgment in observation, and to his candour and good taste in the simple and elegant narration of that which he has observed. He informs us, that the tragedy of the Mamelukes was not confined to Cairo; but that 400 more of them were decoyed out of the mountains near Assouan, and fell victims, together with 260 of their slaves, to the treachery of Ibrahim Bey, the son of the Pasha.

It appears that the Nile, between the first and second cataracts, runs chiefly through a country of sandstone, and is navigable throughout this extent; but at the cataract of Wady Halfa, a little above Ebsambal, the sandstone terminates, and the district of granite and other primitive rocks begins, extending a hundred miles further upwards: and in this space the course of the river is interrupted by frequent shallows and small falls. The roaring of the fall at Wady Halfa, sometimes called by way of distinction Jenadel, or the cataract, may be heard at the distance of a mile or two; but the part of the river that falls is only about 20 yards over: there are, however, three falls in succession, and the neighbouring scenery is very romantic. Immediately beyond this country is Kolbe, the principal place in the district of Sukkot, for there is no town of that name: then the island Say, probably the Sai of Vansleb; and, 450 miles above Assouan, according to Mr Burckhardt's reckoning, is Tinareh, in the district of Mahass, the furthest point to which he penetrated, within 15 or 20 miles of the remotest cataract, and a day and a half's journey only from Mosho, by the shortest road. The country through which he passed is supposed to contain a population not exceeding 100,000, and is governed by three Kashefs, who are brothers, and tributary to Egypt, but inclined to favour the Mamelukes, who seem to be pretty firmly established in the neighbourhood of Dongola: Hassan Kashef lives principally at Derr; his brothers further south. At Mahass a series of more than 20 little kingdoms begins, which extend to Sennaar; their kings are independent, but have scarcely the power of life and death; the people are generally slave merchants, and those of Mahass are the nearest that send caravans to Cairo. At Mosho begins the kingdom of Dongola; and near it is the island of Argo, a long day's journey in length, with a brick castle in it. There are many other islands in the course of the river through Dongola, which extends for five days' journey: the country is celebrated for a very fine breed of horses, like the Arabian, but much stronger, and fed, as Bruce observed of the horses in the same neighbourhood, on straw only. The city of Merawe, singularly resembling the ancient Meroe in name, is the metropolis of the Sheygya Arabs, beyond Dongola, and is remarkable for schools, of high reputation, and particularly celebrated for their penmanship. These Arabs ride, like their distant neighbours the Abyssinians, with a toe only in the stirrup.

The languages spoken in Nubia are the Kensy and the Nouba, the former being confined to the northernmost parts of the country: these languages somewhat resemble each other, but they differ essentially from the Arabic, although the people are supposed to be the descendants of Bedouin Arabs, who spread from the East in the middle ages, with the exception of a few of the original inhabitants, who remain about Tafa and Serra, having become Mahometans. However this may be, it is certain that the languages exhibit no traces whatever of any dialect of the old Egyptian; and this circumstance affords a very strong argument in confirmation of the author's assertion, that the Christians had in general been expelled from Nubia before the time of Sultan Selim; the three garrisons of Bosnian soldiers, whom this prince established, in Assouan, Ibrim, and Say, having been sent by the express invitation of one of the rival factions of Arabs, who occupied the country, and remaining still distinct from the rest of the population, and being governed by their own Agas. We can only reconcile these facts with the testimonies in favour of the existence of Christianity in Nubia down to about the same time, by supposing that its extinction must have been gradual, and that the Thebaic language, and the ancient religion of the country, dwindled away by degrees, not "for want of pastors" only, but from the hostility of the Arabian intruders.

A concise but clear and satisfactory description of the various temples, noticed in Colonel Leake's map, is inserted in Mr Burckhardt's relation: and he conjectures that the order of their antiquity is nearly this: 1. Ebsambal; 2. Gyrshe; 3. Derr; 4. Samne; 5. Ballyane; 6. Hasseya; 7. Seboua; 8. Aamara and Kalabshe; 9. Dakke and Maharraka; 10. Kardassy; 11. Merowau; 12. Debot; 13. Korty; and, 14. Tafa. The small temple at Ebsambal has a head bearing a temple for the capital of its columns, like those at Dendera, but with a lock of hair hanging down on each side. The statues before the great temple, which is supposed to have been dedicated to Osiris, are of remarkably fine forms. In a small temple at Kalabshe there are some good historical sculptures of a victory over the southern countries, beyond Meroe. But the sculptures at Dakke Mr Burckhardt thinks superior to any others of the Egyptian school, and such as might have been considered as fit ornaments for a Grecian building. In a small temple at Samne, there is still an image with the attributes of Osiris, and there are figures of a Paamyie on the walls.

Mr Burckhardt has given us several Greek inscriptions, many of which had been copied by Captain Light a little differently. One of these begins with "This is the homage of Caius Cassius Celer;" not Vulsilins, as it had been read from Captain Light's manuscript. At Maharraka, the writer of one inscription has very benevolently included "the reader" in his petition, for a blessing from "Isis, the goddess with ten thousand names, and from the sun Sarapis." At Kardassy, an inscription dated under the Philips, the successors of the Emperor Gordian, records the munificence of Psentuaxis, who gave to the temple "twenty pieces of gold in his first priesthood, and thirty in his second." A Thebaic tombstone, lying at Assouan, seems to contain only these words: "JS + CHT. This day, in memory of the late John Panokae. Indict. xvi. 15. Meehir 6." In fact, there is scarcely any trace of the old Egyptian language to be found in any existing monument, employed upon any other occasion than for the most unimportant memorials of the most insignificant personages.

An article has lately appeared in one of the French journals, announcing the discovery of a ruined city, situated a few leagues from the Red Sea, by a young French traveller, Mr Caillaud, nearly in the latitude of Assouan, and called by the Arabs, Sekelle. It has still many temples, palaces, and private houses standing, so that it may in some respects be com- pared to Pompeii: the architecture is Greek, with some Egyptian ornaments; several inscriptions prove that it was built by the Ptolemies; and one of the temples was evidently dedicated to Berenice. The situation agrees sufficiently well with that of the ancient city Berenice, so called in honour of the mother of Ptolemy Philadelphus, notwithstanding that several ancient authors agree in describing this city as a port on the Red Sea; for the city may easily have been at some little distance from a harbour bearing the same name: and no other town of any magnitude seems to have existed in the neighbourhood. It was through Berenice, according to Pliny, that the principal trade of the Romans with India was conducted, by means of caravans which reached the Nile at Coptus, not far from the point at which the present shorter route by Cosseir meets the river; and by this channel it is said that no less than L.400,000 of Roman money was sent to India, while merchandises were returned, that ultimately sold for a hundred times as much. Mr Burckhardt seems to have heard some vague reports respecting these ruins; but it was reserved for Mr Cailliard to obtain ocular evidence of their existence, and of their magnitude.

While so much has been done abroad for the recovery of the lost treasures of Egypt, it appears that no less labour has been silently employed in the pursuit of the investigation at home: and it seems to have been partly with a view to perpetuate the continuance of these efforts, that an association has been formed in London, of which the first and immediate object is merely to insure the preservation, and to facilitate the study of all that remains of Egyptian literature, by making a collection of drawings of all the hieroglyphical inscriptions in existence, and printing them lithographically, in a form most convenient for reference and examination, under the title of Hieroglyphics, collected by the Egyptian Society. The plates, which have already been executed, do credit to the manipulation of Mr Ackermann's press, as well as to the extreme neatness and accuracy of the draughtsman who has been employed on them. They can scarcely be said to have been published, as they are only to be distributed among a limited number of subscribers; but as they are to be presented to several public libraries, in different parts of Europe, they may be consulted by the general reader without difficulty.

In the midst of all the zeal and activity displayed by our countrymen who have travelled, or who are resident, in Egypt, it is greatly to be deplored that their attention has not yet been turned to an object, which is paramount to all the rest in its importance, for the substantial advancement of our acquaintance with the ancient history and literature of the country; that is, the recovery of the lost fragments or of some of the duplicates of the "trilingual," or rather trigrammatic Stone of Rosetta; a monument which has already enabled us to obtain a general idea of the nature and subject of any given hieroglyphical inscription, by pursuing the investigations already carried to an unexpected extent by an anonymous author, whose interpretation was communicated to the Antiquarian Society by Mr Rouse Boughton, together with copies of some fragments of manuscripts which this gentleman had brought from Egypt. (Archæologia, Vol. XVIII. p. 61. Museum Criticum, No. VI. and VII.) Mr de Sacy, and more especially Mr Akerblad, had made some progress in identifying the sense of the several parts of the second inscription of the stone; but they had scarcely at all considered the sacred characters, and it was left for British industry, to convert to permanent profit a monument, which had before been a useless, though a glorious trophy of British valour.

We must recollect that every analysis of an unknown object of this nature must unavoidably proceed more or less by the imperfect argumentation sometimes very properly called a circle, but which, in such instances, may be more aptly compared to a spiral, or to an algebraical approximation; since, by assuming certain incorrect suppositions, not too remote from the truth, we may render them, by means of a continual repetition of the calculation, more and more accurate, until at length the error is rendered wholly inconsiderable; and in this manner we often satisfy the conditions of a problem, which it would be impracticable to solve by a more direct method. A process thus tedious and laborious, however, loses the greatest part of its interest when the solution is obtained; and it is no longer necessary to explain in detail every step through which it has passed. The deciphering of the Rosetta stone is fortunately in great measure independent of any hypothesis of this kind extraneous to itself; and the Greek text affords at once the first approximation for beginning the process; but, in order to extend the inquiry to other objects, a variety of authorities must be compared and appreciated; we must select from the Greek authors an abstract of the religious superstitions and of the civil ordinances of the Egyptians; but it will be necessary, in making this selection, to have some regard to the results which have been obtained from an examination of the principal hieroglyphical monuments still extant, in order that we may avoid the confusion, which would be the necessary consequence of adopting indiscriminately the whole mass of contradictory matter, which various mythological authors have collected or invented upon the subject; and considering how absurdly and monstrously complicated the Egyptian superstitions really were, it becomes absolutely essential to separate that which is most fully established, or most generally admitted, from the accidental or local varieties, which may have been exaggerated by different authors into established usages of the whole nation, and still more from those which have been the fanciful productions of their own inventive faculties. Unfortunately, by far the greater number of the existing monuments of Egypt are of a mythological nature; so that their pantheon, or rather pantheon, acquires an interest altogether foreign to its real character, on account of the utility of a general knowledge of the subject, in developing the nature of the language employed. The accounts, which have been preserved, of the customs and civil ordinances of the country, are still more discordant than those which relate to their deities; but they may still in some instances be illustrated from monuments which remain in existence. Respecting the early history and chronology of Egypt, we can do little more than appreciate the various degrees of plausibility of the different fables that have been related, and the comparative credulity of the authors who have appeared to believe in them; for hitherto no hieroglyphical records have been discovered, which can afford as much assistance in this department of the investigation; though it is by no means impossible that a continued series of the sovereigns of Egypt, from the earliest times, may have been chronicled in more than one of the innumerable multitude of inscriptions hitherto uncopied and unexamined.

SECTION II.—Pantheon of Egypt.

In the selection of authorities respecting the principal deities worshipped by the Egyptians, it will be most convenient to consider the respective personages in their chronological, or rather genealogical order, as far as any evidence can be obtained to ascertain their places in the mythological system.

1. AGATHODAEMON, Cneph, or Chnuphis, appears to be the oldest representative of the divine power admitted by the Egyptians, although his attributes are not distinctly ascertained, except as the parent of Ptah, whose origin is referred, in the works of the spurious Hermes, to an egg of Cneph or Eneph, which is perhaps the Coptic ιιινιφι, genius of spirit. Even before this Cheph, we are told of the existence of an Eicton or Icton, which has been supposed to mean ιιιιιθο, genius of the whole world; but this seems to have been a sort of chaos, and the personification is not generally admitted. Eusebius makes Cneph distinctly synonymous with Agathodaemon; and this interpretation seems to identify the term with the Cnuphis, of whom Strabo mentions a temple in Elephantine; since ιιιιιυι would naturally mean good genius, the word ιιιιιι occurring frequently in other compounds. In a Greek inscription lately brought to the British Museum, the emperor Nero is called the "good genius" of the world, and the winged globe hovering over the inscription seems to be allusive to this piece of flattery: but the Chnuphis or Chnumis of the amulets of later times is a serpent or a dragon raising itself on its tail, having rays about its head, and surrounded with stars. The name of Agathodaemon is inserted by Manetho among the fabulous kings, immediately before Cronus.

2. The same authority attributes a still higher antiquity to PHTHAN, whom it places as the first of the fabulous kings of Egypt; and he is universally considered as the great ancestor of the other deities, and is especially called the father of the sun, as we learn from various chronologers, and from Callisthenes and others. He seems to have been a personification of the creative, and perhaps of the generative power, designated under the character of a workman, or an architect. He is sometimes compared to Prometheus, as the discoverer of fire: but Hephaestus or Vulcan is his common representative in the Greek and Roman mythology; although it must always be remembered, that BETWEEN THE IMAGINARY PERSONAGES OF DIFFERENT NATIONS THE IDENTITY MUST NATURALLY BE ACCIDENTAL AND IMPER-

fect. Cicero and Eusebius mention Phthah as the same with Vulcan; and Eratosthenes, on the authority of the Egyptian priests, interprets —ΜΟΕΦΗΘΑ, Philephaestus, or loving Vulcan, which in Coptic would be exactly expressed by ΜΑΙΡΦΗΘΑΗ, as ΜΑΙΣΟΝ is loving a brother. Mr Akerblad quotes, from a Coptic sermon of Sinnethi, the words, "Hephaestus, who is Ptah," and this remarkable passage proves, as he justly observes, how much Jablonsky was mistaken in his orthography of Phthash, on which he founded one of his fanciful etymologies.

3. NEITH, the Minerva of the Egyptians, had a celebrated temple at Saïs, in which was the well known inscription on the goddess of universal nature, whose offspring, in the translation of the inscription, as preserved by Proclus, is said to be the sun. It seems therefore natural to call Neith the wife of Ptah; as Plato also observes, that arts were invented by Vulcan and his wife; but we are told that Neith is to be considered as both male and female. The name is mentioned by Plato as synonymous with Minerva, and Eratosthenes explains Nitoteris, Minerva the victorious.

4. RE, or PHRE, the Sun, otherwise called On, is mentioned by Manetho as the son of Vulcan. He married Rhea, and having discovered her infidelity, condemned her to bear no offspring on any day or any night of the whole 360 that then made the year. Plutarch says that he was represented by a young child rising out of a lotus; but this emblem is more probably attributable to Horus, who is another of the forms of the solar power, and is sometimes improperly confounded with Apollo. The word Phre is often found in Greek letters on the amulets, accompanied by emblems of the sun.

5. RHEA, the wife of the Sun, may perhaps have derived her name from Re; she appears to be identical with the Urania, or female Heaven, of Horapollo, the Coptic φηε being feminine. Jablonsky makes Rhea the same with Athor, but he adduces no sufficient authority for the opinion. She is said to have been familiar both with Cronus and with Thoth; and Diodorus calls her the wife and sister of Cronus.

6. IOH, the Moon. Plutarch tells us that Hermes played at dice with the Moon, probably as presiding over the calendar, in order to gain a time for the birth of Rhea's children, and to evade her husband's curse; so that the Moon must be considered as one of the oldest deities. The Egyptian name being masculine, the Moon can scarcely have been worshipped as a goddess; and whatever relation may have been imagined to exist between Isis and the lunar influence, the two deities were certainly not identical.

7. APOPIS, a brother of the Sun, is mentioned by Plutarch as having made war against Jove. But the Jupiter of Manetho stands much later in the list, the order being Vulcan, the Sun, Agathodaemon, Cronus, Osiris with Isis, **, Typhon, Horus, Ares, Anubis, Hercules, Apollo, Ammon, Tithoes, Sosus, and Jove; the last nine being denominated semi-gods.

8. CRONUS, or Saturn, is only known from his connexion with Rhea, the wife of the Sun. His character probably bore some relation to a personification of Time and Antiquity.

9. THOTH, Theuth, or Tanut, one of the most celebrated of the Egyptian deities, is sufficiently identified with Hermes or Mercury, by the testimony of a variety of authors. Diodorus mentions him as the scribe, or secretary, and privy counsellor of Osiris. He is generally considered as the inventor of letters, and of the fine arts. Plutarch and Horapollo observe, that he was typified by the ibis, which was sacred to him. Plutarch also says, that he had one arm shorter than the other.

10. OSIRIS, properly Oshiri, meaning in Coptic energetic, or active, which is precisely one of Plutarch's interpretations of the name, was the deity most universally adored throughout Egypt, and possessing the principal attributes of Bacchus, Adonis, and Pluto; besides being often compared to the Nile, and sometimes to the Sun. He was genealogically considered as the son of the Sun and of Rhea: at his birth, on the first of the supplementary days of the calendar, a voice was heard, proclaiming that he was Lord of all. He married his sister Isis, and, according to Diodorus, left her to govern his kingdom during his military expeditions, resembling those of Bacchus; being accompanied by Pan, Hercules, and Maccdo, having a ship which was the prototype of the Argo of the Greeks, with Canopus for his pilot. He was at last treacherously shut up alive in a coffin by Typhon, aided by seventy two conspirators, together with an Ethiopian queen Aso. The coffin, being thrown into the Nile, was carried to one of its mouths, and there left on shore; it became afterwards inclosed in the trunk of an erica, which grew round it, and which constituted one of the columns of King Malcander's palace: but the body escaped from its confinement, and was found by Typhon as he was hunting: he divided it into fourteen parts, which were afterwards found, scattered in different places, by Isis, and buried separately. Osiris, however, returned from the dead, to console his wife, and to conduct the education of his son Horus. There was a mystery in his identification with Pluto, of which the old authors affect to speak with reverence. His dress was generally white, but sometimes black. He is represented as carrying a whip, which is supposed to be intended for the punishment of Typhon. Plutarch says, that he is typified by a hawk, and denoted hieroglyphically by an eye and a sceptre.

11. ARUERIS, a twin-brother of Osiris, and, like him, the son of the Sun and of Rhea, was born on the second supplementary day. He is also called the elder Horus, and is considered by some of the Greeks as their Apollo.

12. TYPHON, the spurious son of Rhea and Cronus, was born on the third supplementary day, and married his sister Nephthe. He is characterized by a red colour, and is supposed to have been a personification of the effects of scorching heat. He is also compared to the earth's shadow, as causing eclipses of the moon. The celestial habitation of his soul was supposed to be in the Great Bear. According to Plutarch, his Egyptian names were Seth, Bebon or Babyn, and Smy; the word Typhon being apparently of Greek origin.

13. ISIS, Isi, or Esi, was supposed to be the offspring of Thoth and Rhea, born on the fourth supplementary day; she was also sometimes called the daughter of Prometheus. She is generally compared to Ceres, or the Earth, and is made the deity of fertility and of maternal love. She was also esteemed analogous to Proserpine, as the queen of the lower regions, and the wife of Pluto; thus she is called, by Aristides, "the saviour and conductress of souls;" and, in some Roman inscriptions copied by Zoega, she is made "the guardian of the ashes of the dead." Horapollo says, that her head was sometimes adorned with vulture's plumes; but Herodotus tells us, that she was represented with cow's horns, like Io; other authors however say, that, after Horus, in revenge for his father's death, had made Typhon prisoner, Isis imprudently set him at liberty, and Horus, therefore, tore the regal diadem from her brow, but that Thoth or Hermes substituted for it a helmet made of a bullock's head. Her soul was supposed to have its residence in the Dog star, the Sothis of the Egyptians. Her dress was of many colours. She is sometimes compared to the moon; but this idea appears to be foreign to the oldest mythology, as well as to the genius of the Egyptian language. She has also been somewhat arbitrarily confounded with Minerva by Plutarch, in speaking of the inscription of the temple of Saïs, which confessedly related to the Egyptian queen Minerva, who was indisputably the goddess Neith; although, in consequence of this inattention, the "robe" mentioned in the inscription has been called the "robe of Isis," and the expression has been almost proverbially employed as denoting mystery and secrecy.

14. NEPTHHE, rather than Nephthys, the spurious daughter of Rhea and Cronus, was born on the fifth supplementary day. She is sometimes called by the Greeks Teleute, that is, consummation; and sometimes Venus and Victory. She is mentioned by Firmicus as the sister and companion of Isis; and Plutarch says, that the face of Isis was sometimes represented on the sistrum, and sometimes that of Nephthe.

15. THUERIS, a concubine of Typhon, is only noticed as having been pursued, on her way to visit Horus, by a huge snake, which was killed by Horus's people.

16. BEBON, who is sometimes confounded with Typhon, is also mentioned as one of his companions.

17. ARES is inserted among the fabulous kings of Manetho. Vettius Valens says, that the planet Mars was called by the Egyptians Artes; and Cedrenus makes the name Ertosi. Herodotus tells us, that Mars was worshipped at Papremis.

18. SOMUS, or Shom, was probably the personage called the Egyptian Hercules by the Greek writers. Thus, the great Etymologicon has Chon for this deity, and Eratosthenes writes his name Sem, both of these having been probably intended to express the Coptic jom or sjom, strength, which seems sometimes to have been written jem or sjem. Diodorus mentions this Hercules as a general of Osiris, whom he left behind with Isis. He is said to have been killed by Typhon, but to have been revived by the smell of a quail. Herodotus asserts, that the word Heraclès is originally Egyptian; but in this, as in many other instances, his interpreters must have misinformed him, perhaps from misunderstanding his questions; for his Egyptian etymologies are almost uniformly erroneous. Thus, when the priests had shown him, or rather Hecataeus, whose original story he seems to have copied and disfigured, the statues of 341 successive generations of high priests, who were neither gods nor heroes, but each a piromis, the son of piromis; he tells us, that piromis means beautiful and brave; while, in fact, the literal sense of piromi, in the modern Coptic of Lower Egypt, which is simply a man, restores to the observation of the priests an intelligible and consistent sense.

19. Buto, the nurse of Horus and of Bubastis, compared to the Latona of the Greeks, must be considered as anterior to the birth of Horus.

20. Horus, Hor, Or, or Horsiesi, was the son of Isis and Osiris. Jablonsky observes, that a king Ur is mentioned by Manetho, and that Or was, in later times, the name of a certain monk, and Taor of a nun: the Egyptians having always, as Lucian informs us, had a propensity to adopt the names of their deities for their own, so that they may have become current in families without any immediate reference to their origin. Akerblad has also found Horsiesi as an Egyptian name, and conjectures, not without probability, that it may have meant originally Horus, the son of Isis; si being an abridgment of sheri, as it appears also to have been in the name Siphos, or rather Siphtas, which is explained by Eratosthenes, the son of Vulcan. Horus is often confounded with the Sun, perhaps from the resemblance of his name to the Hebrew aor, light; while Suidas makes him rather analogous to Priapus. He was nursed by Buto, in the city Butus. The most remarkable exploit of his youthful days was the pursuit and conquest of Typhon, in revenge for his father's death. The constellation Orion was supposed to be the habitation of his soul. His dress was white. Damascius, as copied by Photius, informs us that he was represented with his finger on his mouth.

21. Harpocrates was a son of Osiris, from a visit paid to Isis after his death. He was also born prematurely, and was weak in his lower limbs. Eratosthenes seems to have called him Phrurocrates; and phuokhirat, in Coptic, would mean dried or withered feet.

22. Anubis was the offspring of Osiris and Nephthe, whom he had mistaken for Isis, and who exposed the child; but Isis recovered him, and he became her faithful attendant. He was considered as belonging both to the upper and the lower worlds, and was therefore compared to the horizon: and he seems to have been typified by a dog, or figured with a dog's head. He attended Osiris in his military expedition; and he is sometimes erroneously confounded with Mercury, and even with Saturn. A cock was usually sacrificed to him; and Pliny tells us, that his images were properly made of gold, in allusion to his name; a remark which is amply explained by the Coptic word nub, which still signifies Pantheon, gold.

23. Arsaphes is mentioned by Plutarch as a son of Isis; but the same name is said to have been sometimes applied to Osiris.

24. Athor, or Athyr, was the Venus of the Egyptians, according to the Great Etymologicon. Herodotus mentions a temple of Venus at Atarbechis, which might be translated the city of Venus, baki in Coptic meaning city; although Plutarch enumerates Athyri among the different names of Isis. Strabo informs us, that at Momemphis, a sacred cow was fed in honour of Venus.

25. Amun, the Jupiter of the Egyptians, though apparently a personage of much less importance than the Greek and Roman Jupiter, was worshipped by the Ammonians, under the form of a human figure, with a ram's head. Hecataeus, as quoted by Plutarch, denies that this term is the proper name of the deity, and observes, very truly, that it is an Egyptian word meaning come, by which the god was supplicated to appear. The word, however, implies also glory, or splendor. If there was a more appropriate term for this deity, it may possibly, as Mr Akerblad has observed, have been Ho, which was the Egyptian name of the city, called by the Greeks Diospolis the Less. It is remarkable, that Manetho gives us a Zeus distinct from Ammon, interposing Tithoes and Sosus as intermediate kings.

26. Antaeus, Entes, or Mendes, is said to have been left by Osiris as a viceroy or lieutenant governor, together with Busiris, for the assistance of Isis, during his absence. He is generally identified with Pan, though Diodorus mentions Pan as having accompanied Osiris on his expedition. At Mendes a goat was fed in honour of this deity, and Plutarch seems to say, that this goat was called Apis, as well as the bull fed at Memphis. He was also generally represented with the face and legs of a goat. Herodotus calls him one of the eight gods, older than the twelve; but Diodorus makes the eight senior gods of the Egyptians the Sun, Cronus, Rhea, Ammon, Juno, Vulcan, Vesta, and Mercury. Out of these, however, Juno and Vesta cannot easily be identified in the Egyptian mythology.

27. Busiris is only mentioned by Diodorus as a colleague of Antaeus in his government.

28. Macedon, according to Diodorus, was a companion of Osiris in his expedition.

29. Bubastis was a sister of Horus, preserved and nursed with him by Buto in the city of Butus. She is compared, by various authors, to Artemis or Diana: Apuleius gives us Bubastis for the Egyptian name of the plant Artemisia; and Bubastis is addressed in a Greek epigram in the place of Diana, considered in her obstetrical capacity.

30. Sarapis, an ancient deity of the Greeks, was raised into a more distinguished rank by the honours paid him, as identical with Pluto, by Ptolemy Soter, who had found an image of Pluto at Sinope, accompanied by Cerberus and a dragon, which he brought to Alexandria, and established in the Serapeum there, as belonging to Sarapis. Some of the ancients were, however, of opinion, that the word Sa- rapis meant only the feast of Apis; and, indeed, the Coptic shairi, which signifies to feast, agrees tolerably well with this etymology, however improbable the opinion founded on it may be esteemed. Sarapis is also supposed to have had some relation to the regulation of the Nilometer, which consisted of a column with different heights marked on it, in the centre of a bath or well, into which the water of the river was admitted.

31. Esmunus, or Shmun, was the eighth son of Sadycus by one of the Titanides, and brother of the Dioscuri and Cabiri; all of them names which seem as foreign to the Egyptian mythology, as the word shumun is familiar to the language, meaning simply eight. He is, however, said by Damascus to have been the Egyptian Aesculapius, although Manetho gives the name Tosorthrus to this deity, making him a son of Pan and Hephaestobule.

32. Paamyles is mentioned by Hesychius and Plutarch as a Priapic deity; he is also made by Cratinus synonymous with Socharis.

33. Tithrambo, according to Epiphanius, was analogous to the Hecate of the Greeks.

34. Thermuthis, though generally understood to be only a name of the sacred serpents worn in the crown of Isis, is distinguished by Epiphanius as an independent deity; and if we may judge by the signification of the Coptic word, which means moriferous, her character must have been somewhat analogous to that of Nemesis.

35. Canopus, or Canobus, had a temple which is mentioned by Dionysius Periegetes. The jars called Canopi were often made porous, to serve as filters, and are mentioned by Hesychius, in the word Stactice; but we are not exactly informed how far they were connected with this deity.

36. Menuthis was the wife of Canopus, and seems to have given her name to a village near the town Canopus, which is mentioned by Stephenus. Epiphanius calls her Eumenuthis.

37. Besa is only known from Ammianus Marcelinus, who mentions an oracle dependent on him.

38. Proteus, though noticed as a king of no very high antiquity, is said to have had a temple erected to him as a hero. Diodorus says that his Egyptian name was Cetes; though Herodotus, as in other instances, fancies, from some misapprehension, that the Greek and Egyptian names were identical; and he observes, that similar honours were also paid to Perseus, another hero known to the Greeks.

39. Nilus, whether as a king or merely as a river, appears to have received divine honours. The Egyptian name of the Nile seems to have been simply Phiaro; the Ethiopians called it Siris; the Ameri of Kircher's vocabulary was probably a name of later date.

40. Apis, a bull consecrated to Osiris, was fed, with divine honours, at Memphis, the principal burying place of that deity, of whose soul he was considered as the living image. He was all over black, except some small white spots, and some other particular marks not of common occurrence. He was sometimes said to be the offspring of a cow and a ray of moonlight.

41. Mneuis, or Mnyis, was also a black bull, sacred to Osiris, kept at Heliopolis; although some authors assert that he was sacred to the sun. Aelian mentions also a black bull called Onuphis; and Macrobius speaks of a bull named Pacis, or Bacis, and kept at Hermuthis. For the cow that was consecrated to Venus, it does not appear that any particular name has been recorded.

SECTION III.—Historiography of Egypt.

The early history of Egypt claims a much higher antiquity than that of almost any other nation; and is consequently involved in darkness more impenetrable. It is utterly impossible to reconcile the accounts of various authors with each other; and even the same authors are not always consistent with themselves. But some little idea may be formed of the comparative value of the different catalogues of sovereigns, by observing which of them is confirmed by the testimony of the greatest number of respectable and unconnected writers, and by inquiring, at the same time, what internal evidence they afford of truth or falsehood.

The only original authorities on which we can depend, for the early history of Egypt, are those of Herodotus, Manetho, Eratosthenes, Diodorus Siculus, and Strabo; all of whom had been more or less in the country. Herodotus lived soon after the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses, when the names of the later monarchs could not easily have been forgotten. The earlier part of his history is of a much more apocryphal nature: he does not, however, continue the series of the kings further back than Sesostris and Moeris: so that almost all his names are sufficiently recent to be considered as completely within the province of legitimate history. Manetho lived under Ptolemy Philadelphus, to whom he dedicated his three books of the History of Egypt; and there is little doubt that the extracts, preserved by Josephus, Eusebius, and Syncellus, although some of them have passed in succession from one compiler to another, are in general perfectly authentic. How much of the work was originally fabulous, and how much has been distorted by transposition and anachronism, it is impossible accurately to determine: but besides the original inadmissibility of the existence of so long a series of successive generations, the invention of which may possibly have been derived from the same national vanity, that led the priests to boast to Herodotus of 330 kings between Menes and Sesostris, there are several coincidences, which Marsham has pointed out, in the names and qualifications of princes mentioned as having lived at very remote times, tending strongly to encourage the opinion, that the originals of the stories were respectively one and the same person; there are also other instances, in which it is not improbable, that several of the persons enumerated may have been contemporary sovereigns of different subdivisions of the country, although this part of Marsham's theory has perhaps been carried a little too far: and amidst so much confusion, it must be confessed that all his learning and all his ingenuity have been inadequate to the establishment of any satisfactory result. He holds the catalogue of Eratosthenes in high and just estimation, although he was not acquainted with the strong argument in favour of its authenticity, which has been deduced from the agreement of many of the etymologies with the acknowledged meaning of the terms in the Egyptian language; an agreement which makes it more than probable that Eratosthenes, who lived in the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes, did actually receive these names and their interpretations from the priests of Diospolis. This interesting catalogue has been successively copied by Apollodorus, Africanus, Eusebius, and Syncellus; but how many of the names contained in it were really those of actual sovereigns of Egypt, and how many had been negligently or ignorantly read and pronounced, it is by no means easy to ascertain: it can only be observed in general, that scarcely any of them are found in the works of other chronologers or historians. Diodorus is, on the whole, a very candid and judicious writer, and we shall hereafter find some remarkable evidence of his correct knowledge of the Egyptian institutions; although some of the most approved critics of modern times have entertained considerable prejudices against him. The accuracy and good sense of Strabo are so well known, that we can only lament the paucity of the historical facts that can be collected from him. Besides these authors, there is an anonymous chronicle copied by Africanus, and from him by Syncellus, which affords a series of kings somewhat shorter than that of Manetho, and more regularly filled; it seems, however, to be principally a compilation from Manetho, with some regard to the contemporary events of the scriptural chronology.

That Menes, whom many suppose to have been Misraim, the son of Ham, was the first king of Egypt, is fully agreed by all authors; and both Manetho and Eratosthenes make his immediate successor Athothes; and, together with Herodotus, mention Nitocris as one of the early queens. Besides these coincidences, there are slight resemblances in the names of six or seven of the intermediate personages of the respective lists; but it is impossible to pronounce with confidence, that the circumstance is any thing more than accidental: and, in fact, we find little or no collateral confirmation of the accuracy of any others of the appellations, till we come down to the 18th dynasty of Manetho; the Phenician shepherds, who are referred to the 17th, being little mentioned by other historians, and very few, even of their supposed names, having been preserved by Manetho. But we find a particular catalogue of the 18th dynasty both in Josephus and in Eusebius, bringing us down to the time of Sesostris, with whom the histories of Herodotus and Diodorus may be said to begin. So far, therefore, as the chronology of the kings of Egypt can be recovered from these documents, it will stand nearly as in the subjoined table; the dates being deduced from the lengths of the several reigns as given by Manetho alone, taking the means of the different readings of the numbers, and setting out with the presumption, that the conquest of Psammenitus by Cambyses happened 525 years B. C.

According to Manetho.

<table> <tr> <th>XVIII Dynasty.</th> <th>Diospolitan.</th> <th>B.C.</th> <th>Historiography.</th> </tr> <tr><td>1. Thuthmosis, or Amosis</td><td>reigned 24 years</td><td>1874</td><td></td></tr> <tr><td>2. Chebron, his son</td><td></td><td>13</td><td>1750</td></tr> <tr><td>3. Amenophis</td><td></td><td>20</td><td>1737</td></tr> <tr><td>4. Ammessis, sister</td><td></td><td>18</td><td>1717</td></tr> <tr><td>5. Mesphres, son</td><td></td><td>16</td><td>1699</td></tr> <tr><td>6. Misphragmuthosis</td><td></td><td>23</td><td>1683</td></tr> <tr><td>7. Thmosis, or Thuthmosis, s.</td><td></td><td>9</td><td>1660</td></tr> <tr><td>8. Amenophis, s. ("Memnon.")</td><td></td><td>31</td><td>1651</td></tr> <tr><td>9. Horus, s.</td><td></td><td>41</td><td>1620</td></tr> <tr><td>10. Achenches, d.</td><td></td><td>23</td><td>1579</td></tr> <tr><td>11. Rathosis, sist.</td><td></td><td>15</td><td>1556</td></tr> <tr><td>12. Achencheres, s.</td><td></td><td>17</td><td>1541</td></tr> <tr><td>13. Achencheres, ii. s.</td><td></td><td>11</td><td>1524</td></tr> <tr><td>14. Armaïs</td><td></td><td>6</td><td>1513</td></tr> <tr><td>15. Ramesses, s.</td><td></td><td>68</td><td>1507</td></tr> <tr><td>16. Armesses Miamun, s.</td><td></td><td>15</td><td>1439</td></tr> <tr><td>17. Amenophis, or Amenoph</td><td></td><td>15</td><td>1439</td></tr> </table>

<table> <tr> <th>XIX Dynasty.</th> <th>Diospolitan.</th> <th></th> <th></th> </tr> <tr><td>18. Sethosis, or Sesostris</td><td></td><td>53</td><td>1424</td></tr> <tr><td>19. Rapsaces</td><td></td><td>63</td><td>1371</td></tr> <tr><td>20. Ammenemphes</td><td></td><td>60</td><td>1308</td></tr> <tr><td>21. Ramesses</td><td></td><td>15</td><td>1248</td></tr> <tr><td>22. Ammenemes</td><td></td><td>7</td><td>1233</td></tr> <tr><td>23. Thurios</td><td></td><td>7</td><td>1233</td></tr> </table>

<table> <tr> <th>XX Dynasty</th> <th>Diospolitan.</th> <th></th> <th></th> </tr> <tr><td>24. . 35. Twelve kings</td><td></td><td>125</td><td>1226</td></tr> </table>

<table> <tr> <th>XXI Dynasty.</th> <th>Tanite.</th> <th></th> <th></th> </tr> <tr><td>36. Smendes</td><td></td><td>26</td><td>1101</td></tr> <tr><td>37. Psusennes</td><td></td><td>41</td><td>1075</td></tr> <tr><td>38. Nephelcheres</td><td></td><td>4</td><td>1034</td></tr> <tr><td>39. Amenophis</td><td></td><td>9</td><td>1030</td></tr> <tr><td>40. Osochon</td><td></td><td>6</td><td>1021</td></tr> <tr><td>41. Psinaches</td><td></td><td>9</td><td>1015</td></tr> <tr><td>42. Psusennes</td><td></td><td>35</td><td>1006</td></tr> </table>

<table> <tr> <th>XXII Dynasty.</th> <th>Bubastite.</th> <th></th> <th></th> </tr> <tr><td>43. Sesonchosis</td><td></td><td>21</td><td>971</td></tr> <tr><td>44. Osorhon</td><td></td><td>15</td><td>950</td></tr> <tr><td>45. . . . .</td><td></td><td>25</td><td>935</td></tr> <tr><td>46. . . . .</td><td></td><td>25</td><td>935</td></tr> <tr><td>47. . . . .</td><td></td><td>25</td><td>935</td></tr> <tr><td>48. Tacelothis</td><td></td><td>13</td><td>910</td></tr> <tr><td>49. . . . .</td><td></td><td>42</td><td>897</td></tr> <tr><td>50. . . . .</td><td></td><td>42</td><td>897</td></tr> <tr><td>51. . . . .</td><td></td><td>42</td><td>897</td></tr> </table>

<table> <tr> <th>XXIII Dynasty.</th> <th>Tanite.</th> <th></th> <th></th> </tr> <tr><td>52. Petubastes (I. Olymp.)</td><td></td><td>30</td><td>855</td></tr> <tr><td>53. Osorhon</td><td></td><td>9</td><td>825</td></tr> <tr><td>54. Psammus</td><td></td><td>10</td><td>816</td></tr> <tr><td>55. Zet</td><td></td><td>31</td><td>806</td></tr> </table>

<table> <tr> <th>XXIV Dynasty.</th> <th>Saïte.</th> <th></th> <th></th> </tr> <tr><td>56. Bocchoris</td><td></td><td>44</td><td>775</td></tr> </table>

<table> <tr> <th>XXV Dynasty.</th> <th>Ethiopian.</th> <th></th> <th></th> </tr> <tr><td>57. Sabacon</td><td></td><td>10</td><td>731</td></tr> <tr><td>58. Sevechus</td><td></td><td>13</td><td>721</td></tr> <tr><td>59. Tarachus</td><td></td><td>19</td><td>708</td></tr> </table> XXVI. Dynasty. Saite.

<table> <tr><th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th></tr> <tr><td>60.</td><td>Ammeres</td><td>-</td><td>12 years</td><td>689</td></tr> <tr><td>61.</td><td>Stephinates</td><td>-</td><td>7</td><td>677</td></tr> <tr><td>62.</td><td>Nechepsus</td><td>-</td><td>6</td><td>670</td></tr> <tr><td>63.</td><td>Nechao</td><td>-</td><td>8</td><td>664</td></tr> <tr><td>64.</td><td>Psammitichus</td><td>-</td><td>48</td><td>656</td></tr> <tr><td>65.</td><td>Nechao ii.</td><td>-</td><td>6</td><td>608</td></tr> <tr><td>66.</td><td>Psammuthis</td><td>-</td><td>12</td><td>602</td></tr> <tr><td>67.</td><td>Vaphres</td><td>-</td><td>22</td><td>590</td></tr> <tr><td>68.</td><td>Amosis</td><td>-</td><td>43</td><td>568</td></tr> <tr><td>69.</td><td>Psammecheritus</td><td>-</td><td>0</td><td>525</td></tr> </table>

According to Herodotus.

1. Sesostris, M. 18. 2. Pheros, s. 3. Proteus. 4. Rhampsinitus. 5. Cheops (Pyr.) 6. Chephren (Pyr.) 7. Mycerinus (Pyr.) 8. Asychis, M. 40? 9. Anysis, M. 41? 10. Sabacus, M. 57.

According to Diodorus.

(After Osmandyas, and many more.) 1. Sesooisis, M. 18. 2. Sesooisis, ii. s. (Nuncoreus another son.) 3. ...Many others. 17? Ammosis. 18. Actianes. 19. Mendes or Marus (Lab.) M. 36? Interregnum of five generations. 20. Cetes or Proteus, H. 3.

It is only in the name and order of the nine last sovereigns, that the three catalogues agree so well as to be considered as fully confirming each other: Before these, the Asychis and Anysis of Herodotus are not unlike the Osochon and Psinaches or Sianachae, which stand together at a much earlier period, in the longer list of Manetho. The Cheops, or Chemmis, Chephren, and Mycerinus of the two Greek historians, supposed to be the builders of the pyramids, are no where found in Manetho, who attributes some of these extraordinary edifices to the fourth dynasty, in which we have Suphis, Suphis, and Mencheres, each supposed to have reigned more than sixty years, the names having so much of general resemblance to those of Herodotus, that they may easily have been corruptions of the same originals. It is impossible to conjecture what date we ought to assign to this dynasty, although it is remarkable that the names and characters of several of the kings agree sufficiently well with those of Sesostris and his immediate predecessors, which occur much later in the catalogue. But, considering that not a single hieroglyphical representation has yet been discovered about the pyramids, there is no reason to induce us to bring down their date so low as to this period, much less to believe, with Herodotus, that they were built only twelve generations before the time of Cambyses. The third pyramid, in Africanus's extract from Manetho, is attributed to Nitocris, who is referred to the sixth dynasty. The different passages of Manetho, which Syncellus has copied from Africanus and from Eusebius, exhibit many other variations, both in names and dates, which would require the catalogue to be considerably extended, if we admitted into it all the personages enumerated; while, on the other hand, a comparison with other authorities makes it more desirable that we should abridge the whole period by about 300 years out of the 1350 which it occupies, in order that Thuthmosis or Amosis might become contemporary with Moses, as Josephus makes him. But it is obvious that this degree of anachronism is not enough to vitiate the general truth of Manetho's statement of the names and order of succession of the sixty or seventy sovereigns preceding Cambyses; at the same time we must admit the accuracy of the respective dates with considerable latitude, and the more as their antiquity becomes greater. Thus the taking of Troy is mentioned as having happened in the time of Thouris, the commencement of whose reign our catalogue makes 1233 B.C., that is, only 50 years earlier than the date assigned to this event from other authorities; and Petubastes, who is said to have been reigning at the institution of the Olympiads, stands full 50 years too far back for the commencement of the Olympic era, though he is somewhat more modern than the date at which Iphitus is said to have instituted the games. It would, however, be unreasonable to expect, considering the imperfect nature of the evidence that we possess, a coincidence much more accurate.

SECTION IV.—Of the Egyptian Calendar.

From the chronology of Egypt, we may pass very naturally to the consideration of its calendar, which has often been a subject of speculation both with critics and with astronomers. The inquiry is in itself somewhat intricate; but the principal difficulties have arisen from the ignorance or carelessness of the Greek authors, who have written on the Egyptian mythology. The Baron Alexander von Humboldt and Mr Jomard have displayed great learning and research in collecting authorities on this subject; and nothing is wanting, to establish the propriety of their acquiescence in the opinion of Petavius, except a little less indulgence for the extreme inattention of Plutarch, and a more marked deference to the important testimony of Erastosthenes, a writer whose catalogue of the Egyptian kings has already been noticed, as bearing intrinsic marks of the authenticity of his information, and whose competency, as an accomplished astronomer, to discuss the regulation of the calendar, is of still greater notoriety. Geminus, a Greek astronomer of the Augustan age, has very distinctly stated, that the later Greeks had been in the habit of mentioning the Egyptian festivals as connected with particular seasons of the year, in spite of the clearest evidence that their my- thological year consisted of 365 days only, and that their anniversary festivals must necessarily have passed in succession through every part of the natural year. "It is a common and inveterate error among the Greeks," says Geminus, "to believe that the festival of Isis happens at the winter solstice. This was indeed true 120 years ago; but it is now a month earlier; and such a mistake betrays the grossest ignorance of the Egyptian calendar. In former ages, this festival was celebrated not only as late as the winter solstice, but, at an earlier period of time, even at the summer solstice; as Eratosthenes expressly states, in his Commentary upon the Octaetrides." (Geminus in Petav. Uranologia. Par. 1680, f. p. 33.)

The later inhabitants of lower Egypt, and especially the Greeks of Alexandria, had certainly a stationary as well as a wandering year; but this was no other than the Julian year, which was introduced here some little time after its establishment in other parts of the Roman empire; and which was probably the only year ever employed by the Coptic Christians, although it can scarcely have been adopted at any time by the Pagan Egyptians. The common opinion is, that the Julian calendar was established at Alexandria, in the year 25 B. C., the first month Thoth then beginning on the 29th of August, as the Coptic year continued to do ever after. Thus Vansleb found, in the seventeenth century, that Thoth began on the 8th of September N. S., which was the 29th of August O. S. A passage of Theon, in his Commentary on Ptolemy, would rather incline us to fix on the 1st September for the beginning of the Alexandrian year; but the ecclesiastical authority is more direct, and it is confirmed by the present usage of the Abyssinian church. The quadriennial intercalation of a sixth supplementary day took place, according to the Abbé Boyer, at the end of the second year after the Julian bissextile; so that, in the year preceding the bissextile, the first of Thoth happened on the 30th of August. From these authorities, we have no difficulty in ascertaining the beginning of the ancient or moveable Egyptian year for any earlier or later period; reckoning both ways, for the sake of simplicity, in Julian years.

<table> <tr> <th>B. C. 1500</th> <th>2d Sept. O. S.</th> <th>B. C. 400</th> <th>1st Dec.</th> </tr> <tr> <td>1400</td> <td>8th Aug.</td> <td>300</td> <td>6th Nov.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1300</td> <td>14th July.</td> <td>200</td> <td>12th Oct.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1200</td> <td>19th June.</td> <td>100</td> <td>17th Sept.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1100</td> <td>25th May.</td> <td>B. of C.</td> <td>23d Aug.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1000</td> <td>30th April.</td> <td>100</td> <td>29th July.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>900</td> <td>5th April.</td> <td>200</td> <td>4th July.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>800</td> <td>11th March.</td> <td>300</td> <td>9th June.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>700</td> <td>16th Feb.</td> <td>400</td> <td>15th May.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>600</td> <td>21st Jan.</td> <td>500</td> <td>20th April.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>500</td> <td>26th Dec.</td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> </table>

It is of importance, in the discussion of some representations of astronomical objects, to determine at what time of the year the sun entered the respective signs, according to the Egyptian calendar, or, more particularly, what was the sun's place in the starry zodiac at the commencement of the year, for different periods of time. Taking, then, 6 h. 9' 8" for the excess of the sidereal above the Egyptian year, we find that 1424 Julian years were required for a complete revolution of the sun's place on the 1 Thoth, and 119 for each sign. Now since, about a century before the establishment of the Julian calendar, the sun entered Libra on the 24th of September; and since the Egyptian year began on that day, in 120 B. C., it follows that Libra had been the first constellation during the whole of the preceding century; for, at this period, the beginning and end of the signs of the ecliptic agreed very nearly with those of the corresponding constellations of the zodiac. The first constellation of the Egyptian year will therefore stand nearly thus:

<table> <tr> <th>From 1552 B. C.</th> <th>484 Β</th> </tr> <tr> <td>to 1433 με</td> <td>365 Ί</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1314 Σι</td> <td>247 Π</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1196 ως</td> <td>128 Δ</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1077 Π</td> <td>9 Ιη</td> </tr> <tr> <td>958 Σ</td> <td>A. C. 110 Σι</td> </tr> <tr> <td>840 Ρ</td> <td>228 ως</td> </tr> <tr> <td>722 Χ</td> <td>347 Π</td> </tr> <tr> <td>603 ≡</td> <td></td> </tr> </table>

We may take, for an example of an Egyptian date, that of the Rosetta stone, in the ninth year of Ptolemy Epiphanes, or 196 B. C., when the Egyptian year must have begun on the 11th of October; consequently, the first of the sixth month, Mechir, was the 9th of March, and the 18th of Mechir, which is made synonymous with the 4th of Xanthicus, the 26th of March: so that Xanthicus must constantly have begun on the 22d of March, if the intercalations were properly adjusted; and this agrees sufficiently well with Usher's table of the Macedonian "lunar" months, which may therefore be supposed to have been generally employed by the Greeks in Egypt.

If we attempt to determine the date of a given monument from astronomical symbols contained in it, we must suppose that they represented the state of the heavens with respect to the Egyptian year at the time in question. Thus, in the zodiacs of the ruins at and near Esne or Latopolis, the constellation Pisces seems to be the first sign, as it really was, about 800 B. C. or in the time of Bocchoris and of the Ethiopian dynasty. It is, however, equally possible, that Virgo may have been intended for the first sign, and this would answer either to the century immediately preceding the birth of Christ, or to a period fourteen centuries earlier. The zodiac at Dendera appears to begin with Leo; and unless we suppose its antiquity extravagantly great, we must refer it to the time of Tiberius, as Visconti has indeed already remarked. Mr Hamilton has confirmed this opinion by the collateral evidence of inscriptions in honour of the Roman emperors: although, with respect to the difference of time implied by the difference of a sign in the beginning of the zodiacs, he is rather inclined to adopt the sentiments of Lalande, who refers it to the effect of the precession of the equinoxes; imagining, without any kind of authority, that the division of the signs corresponded to the period of the solstices, a period which never constituted a marked feature in the Egyptian calendar. In the zodiac at Esne, the sign Libra is denoted, as is usual in the Roman representations, by a female holding the balance; while the Egyptian constellation, in most other instances, is without the female. Servius, however, informs us, that the Romans borrowed this sign from the Egyptians, the Greek astronomers having considered it as a part of the Scorpion; so that there is no reason to question the antiquity of the ceiling, from the occurrence of this constellation in it. The sign Cancer, both here and elsewhere, has eight feet, and it has certainly no connexion with the figure of the sacred beetle, which occurs many thousands of times in other places, but never with more than six feet.

The beetles in the zodiac of Dendera have a very different signification, and the whole representation is much more of a mythological than of an astronomical nature. The beetle near the beginning of the zodiac is the well known symbol of generation, and he is in the act of depositing his globe: on the opposite side, at the end of the zodiac, is the head of Isis, with her name, as newly born; both the long female figures are appropriate representations of the mother; and the zodiac between them expresses the "revolving year" which elapsed between the two periods. This explanation is completely confirmed by a similar representation of two female figures on the ceiling of the first tomb of the kings at Byban El Molouk; one with the beetle, the other with the name of the personage just born: between them, instead of the zodiac, are two tablets, divided into 270 squares, or rectangles, corresponding to the number of days in nine Egyptian months, with ten circles placed at equal distances, probably intended to represent full moons, and relating to the ten incomplete lunations to which these days must belong. The number 270 is too remarkable to be supposed to have been introduced by mere accident; and when the argument is considered as a confirmation of other evidence, in itself sufficiently convincing, the whole must be allowed to be fully conclusive.

There is indeed little chance of our discovering any astronomical records of importance among the profusion of hieroglyphical literature which is still in existence. Herodotus tells us, that the Greeks derived their acquaintance with astronomy from the Babylonians, though they were supposed to have learned the elements of geometry from the Egyptians: and it is well known that Ptolemy the astronomer, who lived at Alexandria, and who must have had easy access, as well as Eratosthenes before him, to all the knowledge of the Egyptian priests, refers to no Egyptian observations, but employs the Babylonian records of eclipses which had happened a few centuries before his time; records, which, as Pliny informs us, were preserved on a particular kind of bricks, the same, perhaps, that have been brought to Europe in our own times, as undeciphered specimens of the nail, or arrow headed character. But a certain degree of geometrical knowledge can scarcely be denied to a people, who had made very considerable progress in sculpture and architecture, at a time when all Europe was immersed in the profoundest barbarism, and who must necessarily have had frequent occasion for the employment of agrarian measurements. The Egyptians must also have been good practical chemists; so far, at least, as was required for the preparation of brilliant and diversified and durable pigments: and even their devotion to alchemy, which derives its name from having been the secret or dark study of Egypt, must have led them to make some little progress in experimental philosophy, although neither their manufacturers nor their magicians could have any right to boast of solid acquirements in genuine science.

The months of the fixed or Alexandrian year were these:

<table> <tr> <th>1. Thoth</th> <td>began 29th August, O. S.</td> </tr> <tr> <th>2. Paopi</th> <td>28th September.</td> </tr> <tr> <th>3. Athor</th> <td>28th October.</td> </tr> <tr> <th>4. Choeak</th> <td>27th November.</td> </tr> <tr> <th>5. Tobi</th> <td>27th December.</td> </tr> <tr> <th>6. Mechir</th> <td>26th January.</td> </tr> <tr> <th>7. Phamenoth</th> <td>25th February.</td> </tr> <tr> <th>8. Pharmuthi</th> <td>27th March.</td> </tr> <tr> <th>9. Pashons</th> <td>26th April.</td> </tr> <tr> <th>10. Paoni</th> <td>26th May.</td> </tr> <tr> <th>11. Epip</th> <td>25th June.</td> </tr> <tr> <th>12. Mesore</th> <td>25th July.</td> </tr> </table>

The years are commonly dated from the era of the martyrs of Diocletian, beginning in the autumn of 284.

SECTION V.—Egyptian Customs and Ceremonies.

Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, and Plutarch, have entered at large into an account of the manners and opinions of the ancient Egyptians; but it is difficult to ascertain in what precise proportion we ought to consider their information as accurate. A few insulated observations are, however, sufficiently striking to attract our attention; and there are some passages of Strabo, whose veracity, with respect to what he had seen, is undoubted, that will serve to afford us an introductory view of some of their usages. He gives us, for example, an interesting description of the usual form of the Egyptian temples, and of the habits of the sacred animals, which were frequently kept in them. "At the entrance of the sacred inclosure," he says (Book 17), "there is a paved area, about a hundred feet wide, or a little less, and three or four times as long, or sometimes even more: this area is called the dromus, or course, as in the line of Callimachus, 'This sacred course the great Anubis claims.' On each side of the whole length of this area is a row of sphinxes of stone, at the distance of 30 feet, or a little more, from each other; one row on the right hand, and the other on the left. Beyond these is the first great propylon; then, as you advance, a second and a third; their number not being limited, any more than that of the sphinxes, but both varying in various temples, as well as the length and breadth of the dromus. Next to the propyla is the temple, properly so called, consisting of a large and splendid pronaoe, and a moderate cella or secos, without any image, at least in a human form, but commonly with the representation of some animal. On each side of the pronaoe Customs and there is a projecting wing; that is, a wall of equal height with the temple; at the beginning of the wings, their distance from each other is a little more than the breadth of the extreme border of the temple, but as we advance forwards, they incline till it becomes about 80 or 90 feet. The walls are sculptured with the representations of large figures, in the style of the Etruscan, or the very ancient Greek decorations. Some of their buildings are encumbered with a multitude of columns, as at Memphis, in a barbarous style of architecture; for, besides that the columns are heavy, and numerous, and in a variety of rows, they have nothing graceful nor picturesque about them, but merely exhibit ill directed labour, without good taste.

"At Heliopolis we saw some large buildings appropriated to the accommodation of the priests; and it is said that this colony or college was formerly remarkable for the residence of philosophers and astronomers; but their habits and studies are no longer of so refined a nature. It was here, that Plato and Eudoxus passed a considerable time; and, as some say, not less than thirteen years; for the priests were very cautious of imparting their knowledge; and though courted patiently by all sorts of attentions, would at last only communicate to them a small part of the theorems which they had discovered. They taught them, however, the true length of the year, as exceeding 365 days; but the Greeks were not accurately acquainted with its magnitude, until they had obtained translations of the sacred commentaries of the Egyptians.

"At Memphis, the capital of Egypt, there are several temples, among which is that of Apis, or Osiris, where the bull Apis is fed, in a sacred stable, being honoured as a deity: he has white spots on his forehead, and on some other small parts of his body, but with this exception he is completely black. In front of the stable is a court, with another stable appropriated to his mother: into this court the bull is turned at certain hours, especially when he is to be exhibited to strangers, who, however, are allowed to see him at other times through a window of his stable: when he has leaped about and taken his exercise, he is soon shut up again. In the dromus of the temple of Vulcan it is usual to exhibit combats of bulls, the animals being fed for this express purpose. There is also a temple of Aphrodite or Venus, and another of Serapis in a very sandy place, where we saw some of the sphinxes already buried up to the necks by the effect of the winds."—"In the city of Arsinoe, which was formerly called Crocodilopolis, the crocodile is worshipped, and a sacred crocodile is kept in a pond, who is perfectly tame, and familiar with the priests. He is called Suchus; they feed him with corn, and meat, and wine, which are continually brought him by strangers. The friend who conducted us had provided a cake, and some meat, and a vessel of water and honey: we found him on the bank of his pond; the priests held open his mouth, while one of their number put the cake and the meat into it, and then poured the liquor on them; the animal then jumped into the pond, and crossed to the opposite side, where he was again fed in a similar manner, with the offerings of another visitor." It appears, therefore, that in Customs and the days of Augustus these sacred animals were not Ceremonies regarded with much more awe than the inmates of a menagerie in modern times.

The stories of Herodotus, though told with an elegant simplicity, and with every appearance of good faith, are by no means free from a frequent mixture of fable; and, with respect to his Egyptian etymologies, he is almost universally mistaken; but his account of the ceremonies observed in the preparation of the mummies has many marks of authenticity, and he is perfectly correct in asserting that the most splendid of the coffins are formed in imitation of the figures of Osiris; a circumstance which he could not easily have conjectured without direct and accurate information.

There is, however, a still stronger confirmation of the veracity of Diodorus Siculus, from the coincidence of a number which he mentions, with a variety of Egyptian monuments still existing. He tells us that a talent of silver was sometimes expended on the funeral of an individual. "The relations of the deceased announce," he says, "to the judges, and to all the connexions of the family, the time appointed for the ceremony, which includes the passage of the deceased over the lake or canal of the nome to which he belonged. Two and forty judges are then collected, and arranged in a semicircle, which is situated beyond the canal; the boat is prepared, and the pilot is called by the Egyptians Charon; whence it is said that Orpheus borrowed the mythological character of this personage. Before the coffin is put into the boat, the law permits any one that chooses to produce his accusations; and if it is proved that the life of the deceased was criminal, the funeral is prohibited, while all false accusations are severely punished. If there are no accusations, or when they have been repelled, the relations of the deceased lay aside their lamentations, and pronounce his encomiums; asserting that he is about to pass a happy eternity with the pious, in the regions of Hades; and the body is finally deposited in the catacomb prepared for it." The history of so extraordinary a ceremony certainly required some confirmation to make it appear consistent with probability; but the number of forty two judges is found in a great variety of pictural representations, and in some inscriptions, so that the account must have been given by a person well acquainted with the practice of the country; and, when thus established, it demonstrates also the truth of the received opinion, that the Egyptians believed in a future state of rewards and punishments. (Phil. Trans. 1819.)

In cases of civil law suits, the number of judges, according to the same author, was only thirty; their president wearing a breast plate adorned with jewels, which was called Truth. The eight books of the laws were placed near the judges: the pleadings of the advocates were all conducted in writing only, in order that the feelings of the judges might not be improperly biassed by the too energetic eloquence of an impassioned orator; and the president delivered the sentence of his colleagues, by the form of touching the successful party with the symbol of justice which he wore. SECTION VI.—Analysis of the triple inscription of Rosetta.

Having acquired some preliminary notions of the mythology and history, and chronology and institutions, of ancient Egypt, we may proceed to the discussion of its written language and literature, as far as they are likely to be recovered from existing monuments; and, first of all, we must inquire into the best mode of obtaining some satisfactory conclusions from the invaluable inscriptions in honour of Ptolemy Epiphanes; which contain the only authentic specimen in existence of hieroglyphical characters expressly accompanied by a translation.

The block or pillar of black basalt, found by the French in digging up some ground at Rosetta, and now placed in the British Museum, exhibits the remains of three distinct inscriptions; and the last, which is in Greek, ends with the information, that the decree, which it contains, was ordered to be engraved in three different characters, the sacred letters, the letters of the country, and the Greek. Unfortunately a considerable part of the first inscription is wanting: the beginning of the second, and the end of the third, are also mutilated; so that we have no precise points of coincidence from which we can set out, in our attempts to decipher the unknown characters. The second inscription, which it will be safest to distinguish by the Greek name enchorial, signifying merely the characters "of the country," notwithstanding its deficiencies near the beginning, is still sufficiently perfect to allow us to compare its different parts with each other, and with the Greek, by the same method that we should employ if it were entire. Thus, if we examine the parts corresponding, in their relative situation, to two passages of the Greek inscription in which Alexander and Alexandria occur, we soon recognise two well marked groups of characters resembling each other, which we may therefore consider as representing these names; a remark which was first made by Mr de Sacy, in his Letter relating to this inscription. A small group of characters, occurring very often in almost every line, might be either some termination, or some very common particle: it must, therefore, be reserved till it is found in some decisive situation, after some other words have been identified, and it will then easily be shown to mean and. The next remarkable collection of characters is repeated twenty nine or thirty times in the enchorial inscription; and we find nothing that occurs so often in the Greek, except the word king, with its compounds, which is found about thirty seven times. A fourth assemblage of characters is found fourteen times in the enchorial inscription, agreeing sufficiently well in frequency with the name of Ptolemy, which occurs eleven times in the Greek, and generally in passages corresponding to those of the enchorial text in their relative situation: and, by a similar comparison, the name of Egypt is identified, although it occurs much more frequently in the enchorial inscription than in the Greek, which often substitutes for it country only, or omits it entirely. Having thus obtained a sufficient number of common points of subdivision, we may next proceed to write the Greek text over the enchorial, in such a manner that the passages ascertained may all coincide as nearly as possible; and it is obvious that the intermediate parts of each inscription will then stand very near to the corresponding passages of the other.

In this process, it will be necessary to observe that the lines of the enchorial inscription are written from right to left, as, Herodotus tells us, was the custom of the Egyptians; the division of several words and phrases plainly indicating the direction in which they are to be read. It is well known that the distinct hieroglyphical inscriptions, engraved on different monuments, differ in the direction of the corresponding characters: they always face the right or the left of the spectator according as the principal personages of the tablets, to which they belong, are looking in the one or the other direction; where, however, there are no tablets, they almost always look towards the right; and it is easily demonstrable that they must always have been read beginning from the front, and proceeding to the rear of each rank. But the Egyptians seem never to have written alternately backwards and forwards, as the most ancient Greeks occasionally did. In both cases, however, the whole of the characters thus employed were completely reversed in the two different modes of using them, as if they were seen in a glass, or printed off like the impression of a seal.

By pursuing the comparison of the inscriptions, thus arranged, we ultimately discover the signification of the greater part of the individual enchorial words; and the result of the investigation leads us to observe some slight differences in the form and order of some parts of the different inscriptions, which are indicated in the "conjectural translation," published in the Archaeologia and in the Museum Criticum. The degree of evidence in favour of the supposed signification of each assemblage of characters may be most conveniently appreciated, by arranging them in a lexicographical form, according to the words of the translation; the enchorial words themselves not readily admitting a similar arrangement: but the subject is not of sufficient interest for the public, to make it necessary that this little lexicon should be engraved at length.

It might naturally have been expected that the final characters of the enchorial inscription, of which the sense is thus determined with tolerable certainty, although the corresponding part of the Greek is wanting, would have immediately led us to a knowledge of the concluding phrase of the distinct hieroglyphical characters, which remains unimpaired. But the agreement between the two conclusions is by no means precise; and the difficulty can only be removed by supposing the king to be expressly named in the one, while he is only designated by his titles in the other. With this slight variation, and with the knowledge of the singular accident, that the name of Ptolemy occurs three times in a passage of the enchorial inscription, where the Greek has it but twice, we proceed to identify this name among the sacred characters, in a form sufficiently conspicuous, to have been recognised upon the most superficial examination of the inscriptions, if this total disagreement of the frequency of occurrence had not imposed the condition of a long and laborious investigation, as an indispensable requisite for the solution of so much of the enigma: this step, however, being made good, we obtain from it a tolerably correct scale for the comparative extent of the sacred characters, of which 'it now appears that almost half of the lines are entirely wanting, those which remain being also much mutilated. Such a scale may also be obtained, in a different manner, by marking, on a straight ruler, the places in which the most characteristic words, such as god, king, priest, and shrine occur, in the latter parts of the other inscriptions, at distances proportional to the actual distances from the end; and then trying to find corresponding characters among the hieroglyphics of the first inscription, by varying the obliquity of the ruler, so as to correspond to all possible lengths which that inscription can be supposed to have occupied, allowing always a certain latitude for the variations of the comparative lengths of the different phrases and expressions. By these steps it is not very difficult to assure ourselves, that a shrine and a priest are denoted by representations which must have been intended for pictures of objects denoted by them; and this appears to be the precise point of the investigation at which it becomes completely demonstrative, and promises a substantial foundation for further inferences. The other terms, god and king, are still more easily ascertained, from their situation near the name of Ptolemy.

The most material points of the three inscriptions having been thus identified, they may all be written side by side, and the sense of the respective characters may be still further investigated, by a minute comparison of the different parts with each other. The last line of the sacred characters, with the corresponding parts of the other inscriptions, will serve as a fair specimen of the result that has been attained from these operations. (Plate LXXVIII. M.)

In thus comparing the enchorial with the sacred characters, we find many coincidences in their forms, by far too accurate to be compatible with the supposition that the enchorial could be of a nature purely alphabetical. It is evident, for example, that the enchorial characters for a diadem, an asp, and everliving, are immediately borrowed from the sacred. But this coincidence can certainly not be traced throughout the inscriptions; and it seemed natural to suppose, that alphabetical characters might be interspersed with hieroglyphics, in the same way that the astronomers and chemists of modern times have often employed arbitrary marks, as compendious expressions of the objects which were most frequently to be mentioned in their respective sciences. But no effort, however determined and persevering, had been able to discover any alphabet, which could fairly be said to render the inscription, in general, at all like what was required to make its language intelligible Egyptian; although most of the proper names seemed to exhibit a tolerable agreement with the forms of letters indicated by Mr Akerblad; a coincidence, indeed, which might be found in the Chinese, or in any other character not alphabetical, if they employed words of the simplest sounds for writing compound proper names.

The question, however, respecting the nature of the enchorial character, appears to be satisfactorily decided by a comparison of various manuscripts or papyrus, still extant, with each other. Several of these, published in the great Description de l'Egypte, have always been considered as specimens of the alphabetical writing of the Egyptians, and certainly have as little appearance of being imitations of visible objects, as any of the characters of this inscription, or as the old Arabic or Syriac characters, to which they bear, at first sight, a considerable resemblance. But they are generally accompanied by tablets, or delineations of certain scenes, consisting of a few visible objects, either detached, or placed in certain intelligible relations to each other; and we may generally discover traces of some of these objects, among the characters of the text that accompanies them. A similar correspondence between the text and the tablets is still more readily observable in other manuscripts, written in distinct hieroglyphics, slightly yet not inelegantly traced, in a hand which appears to have been denoted by the term hieratic; and by comparing with each other such parts of the text of these manuscripts, as stand under tablets of the same kind, we discover, upon a very minute examination, that every character of the distinct hieroglyphics has its corresponding trace in the running hand; sometimes a mere dash or line, but often perfectly distinguishable, as a coarse copy of the original delineation, and always alike when it answers to the same character. The particular passages which establish this identity, extending to a series of above ten thousand characters, have been enumerated in the Museum Criticum; they have been copied in adjoining lines, and carefully collated with each other; and their number has been increased, by a comparison with some yet unpublished rolls of papyrus, lately brought from Egypt. A few specimens from different manuscripts will be sufficient to show the forms through which the original representation has passed, in its degradation from the sacred character, through the hieratic, into the epistolographie, or common running hand of the country. (Plate LXXVIII. N.)

It seems at first sight incomprehensible, that this coincidence, or rather correspondence, should not be equally observable in the two inscriptions of the Rosetta stone, which, if the enchorial character is merely a degradation of the sacred, must naturally be supposed to be as much alike as those of the different manuscripts in question; while, in reality, we can but seldom trace any very striking analogy between them. But the enchorial character, having been long used in rapid writing, and for the ordinary purposes of life, appears to have become so indistinct in its forms, that it was often necessary to add to it some epithet or synonym, serving to mark the object more distinctly: just as, in speaking Chinese, when the words are translated from written characters into a more limited number of sounds, it is often necessary, on account of the imperfection of the oral language, to add a generic word, in order to determine the signification, and to read, for example, a goose bird, when a goose only is written, in order to distinguish it from some other idea implied by a similar sound; and even in English we might sometimes be obliged to say a yew tree, in order to distinguish it from a ewe sheep, or you yourself, or the letter u. The enchorial character, therefore, though drawn from the same source, can scarcely, in this form, be called the same language with the sacred hieroglyphics, which had probably remained unaltered from the earliest ages, while the running hand admitted all the variations of the popular dialects, and bore but a faint resemblance to its original prototype. Indeed, if it had been completely identical, there could have been no propriety in repeating the inscription with so slight a change of form.

The rituals and hymns, contained in the manuscripts which have been mentioned, are probably either of higher antiquity than the inscription of Rosetta, or had preserved a greater purity of character, as having been continually copied from older originals. It is also remarkable, that, in one of these rolls of papyrus, engraved by Denon, the introduction is in the sacred character, and some of the phrases contained in it may be observed to be repeated in the subsequent part of the manuscript, which is in a kind of running hand, though somewhat less degraded than in most other instances.

It was not unnatural to hope, that the comparison of these different manuscripts would have assisted us very materially in tracing back all the enchorial characters to the corresponding hieroglyphics, as far as the parts of the respective inscriptions remain entire, and even in filling up the deficiencies of the sacred characters, where they are wanting; and something has certainly been gained from it with respect to the names of several of the deities; but on account of the differences which had crept in between the forms of the language, expressed by the sacred and the cursive characters, the advantage has hitherto been extremely limited. It seems, indeed, to have been a condition inseparable from the whole of this investigation, that its steps should be intricate and laborious, beyond all that could have been imagined from our previous knowledge of the subject; and that, while a number of speculative reasoners have persuaded themselves, at different times, that they were able to read through a hieroglyphical inscription in the most satisfactory manner, beginning at either end, as it might happen, the only monument that has afforded us any real foundations for reasoning on the subject, is more calculated to repress than to encourage our hopes of ever becoming complete masters of the ancient literature of Egypt; although it is unquestionably capable of serving as a key to much important information, with respect to its history and mythology; nor is it by any means impossible, that a careful consideration of other monuments already known, or of such as are now discovered from day to day, may enable us to detect a number of unknown characters, so situated with respect to others, which are already understood, as to carry with them their own interpretation, supported by a degree of evidence far exceeding mere conjecture. We are now to proceed to an enumeration of the principal characters, which have already been rendered intelligible.

SECTION VII.—Rudiments of a Hieroglyphical Vocabulary.

A. DEITIES. (Plate LXXIV.)

1, 2. The word God is always represented in the inscription of Rosetta, and often in many others, by a character resembling a particular kind of hatchet, which is delineated repeatedly at Medinet Abou, as a weapon in the hands of warriors, and is even found among the modern weapons engraved by Denon, (Plate XCV.) This character is frequently exchanged, in parallel passages of different manuscripts, or of the same, for a figure sitting or standing without distinct arms or feet, either with a human head or a hawk's head; or sometimes, by a deviation from the correct nature of an abstract or general term, with the heads of different animals, according to the character of the deity to whom it is applied. But in the inscription of Rosetta, this symbol appears to be exclusively appropriated to the gods in their judicial capacity; and it occurs several times in the term meaning layful, n. 151. This interpretation is also fully justified by the testimony of Plutarch, that "the figures of judges were represented without hands."

3. A GODDESS is denoted by the hatchet or sitting figure, with the addition of the female characteristic, generally as a termination; but sometimes the simple character is applied to gods and goddesses indifferently. The semicircle and oblique oval, distinguishing the feminine gender, are observable in almost all well marked names of females found in different tablets, and the crooked line, which corresponds to them, in the enchorial character of the stone of Rosetta, may be distinguished at the end of each of the five names of females that occur in the inscription, n. 58, 60, 69, 70, 71. Occasionally the characteristic is prefixed, and this position agrees better with the Coptic τι, which distinguishes a female: nor must we omit to observe, that a semicircle seems to answer to the τ in some other cases, and is always expressed in the running hand by the character which Mr Akerblad calls τ or δ, and which is also exactly the Syriac τ. The asp or basilisc standing erect is a symbol of divinity, which occurs on the green sarcophagus, called the tomb of Alexander, and elsewhere, instead of the more ordinary character. In a few instances, the semicircle is found without the oblique oval, (n. 57.)

4. The plural, Gods, is formed by repeating the character three times, or by placing three dashes after, or sometimes before it. In the enchorial inscription, the dashes are united into a crooked line, and are placed in this instance both before and after the principal character; but, in general, the second line is straighter than the first. The dual is expressed by a double character only, (n. 57.)

5. A winged globe, sometimes flattened, as if intended for an egg, but often coloured red, is very commonly represented as hovering over a hero, and generally occupies the lintel of some of the doors of a temple. A globe nearly similar is also sometimes connected with the head and tail of a serpent, bearing the symbol of life, which is the common charac- Hieroglyphic teristic of a deity. There can, therefore, be no objection to considering these representations as belonging to the Agathodemon, or Chnuphis of the Greek authors; and the same symbol is sometimes found in the text of an inscription, in the neighbourhood of the pictural representation; so that its sense may be considered as tolerably well ascertained; but the evidence being somewhat indirect, the name is inserted in smaller characters, the same distinction being also observed in other instances. Mr Bruce informs us, in his letter to Wood, that in some parts of the Tunisian dominions, serpents are still regarded as a kind of good angels. The Chnubis, or Chnumis, of the amulets, is generally represented as a serpent with a human head, or with that of a lion; and the former combination is not uncommon in the tablets of the manuscripts; but the hieroglyphic denoting it is a long undulated line, totally distinct from this character.

6. The symbol, often called the Hieralpa, or sacred A, corresponds, in the inscription of Rosetta, to PhthaH, or Vulcan, one of the principal deities of the Egyptians; a multitude of other sculptures sufficiently prove, that the object intended to be delineated was a plough or hoe; and we are informed by Eusebius, from Plato, that the Egyptian Vulcan was considered as the inventor of instruments of war and of husbandry. In many other inscriptions, the pedestal or pulley is used indifferently for the plough. Horapollo tells us, that Vulcan was denoted by a beetle; and the Monticelion obelisc of Kircher has the plough on three sides, and the beetle on the fourth: Horapollo, however, is seldom perfectly correct; and the names of different divinities are frequently exchanged on the banners of the same obelisc; nor is there any clear instance of such an exchange of the plough for the beetle as occurs perpetually in the case of the pedestal. The beetle is frequently used for the name of a deity whose head either bears a beetle, or is itself in the form of a beetle; and in other instances the beetle has clearly a reference to generation or reproduction, which is a sense attributed to this symbol by all antiquity; so that it may possibly sometimes have been used as a synonym for Ptahth, as the father of the gods. The plough is very rarely found as the name of a personage actually represented, and it is difficult to say under what form the Egyptian Vulcan was chiefly worshipped; but on the tablet of a Horus of bad workmanship, belonging to the Borgian Museum, he is exhibited with a hawk's head, holding a spear; while in the great ritual of the Description de l'Egypte, Ant. II. Pl. 72. Col. 104, he seems to be represented by a figure with a human head; an exchange, however, which is very common in some other cases, with respect to these two personifications, though it does not extend to the substitution of the heads of different animals for each other.

7. Ammon, the Egyptian Jupiter, is sufficiently identified by a combination of evidence of various kinds, although no single link of the chain extends very far. A figure with a ram's head is denoted, both on the green sarcophagus, and on the temple at Elephantine, by a water jar, sometimes, but not always, accompanied by a bird: now a water jar of this form is constantly converted, in the running Hieroglyphic hand of the manuscripts, into a character like a z; and this character, in the enchorial text of Rosetta, is made to express the name of Jupiter; a fact which confirms the testimony of the Greek authors, who consider the Egyptian Jupiter as having been represented with a ram's head. A similar figure is found at Edfou, or Apollinopolis Magna, and at Esne or Latopolis: the temple at Edfou seems to have been dedicated by Amenophis or Memnon; and he appears to be called lover of Ammon, that is, miamun, which is not unlike the name memnon.

8. The common astronomical diagram for the sun, O, seems to have been adopted by the Latin astrologers from their masters in Egypt; since it is not very probable that both should have employed a point in the centre of the circle, without some communication with each other; the circle alone having been mentioned by some of the Greek authors, who say, that it was the symbol of the sun. The deity Re or Phre is indicated by this character followed by an upright bar; and the circle is often enveloped in the coil of the body of a serpent; an oval and an arm also often follow the circle. The enchorial name of the sun is extremely like that which corresponds in the manuscripts to this hieroglyphic: and a similar circle, with rays diverging from it, though seldom exactly in straight lines (N. 160), is used in the sense of "enlightening," or "rendering illustrious;" and it has also been observed by some of the French, who have been in Egypt, to stand in several inscriptions with a manifest reference to light. The circle occurs also as a part of the terms month and day (N. 178, 179). In the great Hieratic Ritual, and in some other manuscripts, this name of Phre occurs very frequently under or near the tablet which contains a representation of the sun shining, as well as under the next to it, which exhibits a head rising out of a lotus, an emblem, mentioned by Plutarch as relating to the sun, which here is made to spring from the pedestal (No. 6), as the sun is said to have been the offspring of Ptahth. Whatever plant this lotus may have been, it certainly does not much resemble the nelumbo of the east, which some imagine to have been the original emblem of fertility. The name Phre is almost the only intelligible combination of letters that ever occurs on the Abraxas or amulets; and the monster, to which it relates, has generally radiations from its head, and is surrounded by six stars. The tablets of the sun in the manuscripts exhibit also little genii worshipping him, each of which is always marked "star god."

9. The name of Rhea may, without impropriety be assigned to a female personage very commonly accompanying the sun, and distinguished by many of his attributes; although the evidence would have been somewhat more conclusive, if the name had been found attached to the figure of the mother in the tablet of the birth of Isis. On the coffins of the mummies, this personage is generally represented with outstretched wings; in other tablets without wings: but she carries in both cases a circle on her head, emblematic of the sun. If we considered the analogy of the hieroglyphic name only, we should be disposed to interpret it as meaning the wife or sister of Ammon.

10. Ioh, the Moon, is not a deity of very frequent occurrence; but the character is easily interpreted, both from its form, and from its being found, in a different position, as a part of the word month. (No. 179.) At Dendera, this character is accompanied by the epithet God, and without any female termination, as well as in several passages of an epistolographic manuscript sent home by Mr Bankes; a circumstance which is favourable to the opinion that Ioh was considered as masculine in mythology as well as in grammar, just as Men or Lunus was sometimes made masculine by the Greeks and Romans; the fact, however, is not absolutely decisive of this question, since the character is not accompanied by the delineation of any personification of the deity.

11. The historical description of the god Thoth, or Hermes, as the scribe, or secretary of Osiris, and the inventor of writing, sufficiently identifies him with the person who is perpetually represented standing before Osiris, and writing with a quill or a style on a square or oblong tablet. He has always the head of an ibis, and this bird, standing on a perch, constitutes his hieroglyphical name, as the ibis is known to have been the emblem of Thoth; the hieroglyphic for letters, N. 103, is also frequently found among his titles; and all these circumstances abundantly confirm the opinion of his true character, which Zoega and others have already advanced from conjecture only. The enchorial name is much disfigured, but the manuscripts exhibit a character which may serve to supply the connecting link, and another abridgment of the name which deviates still more widely from the original, being simply the common substitute for a feather, which here seems to stand for the whole bird, or perhaps merely for a feather which is often found projecting from the end of the perch. Next to Osiris, we find that Thoth is of more frequent occurrence than any other deity in the great ritual; and it is probable that the mummies of the ibis, which are so commonly found, were preserved in honour of him. The semicircle with two oblique dashes, under the perch, seems to correspond to the epithet "great and great" of the Rosetta inscription; this character being generally significative of a dual. The scale, with eight dashes, and two other characters, is also very frequently employed as an epithet, and sometimes as a synonym of Thoth; it seems to mean "dispenser of the eight treasures, or laws, of the country;" for Diodorus informs us that the principal laws of Egypt were contained in eight books.

12. The name of Osiris is found, with the epithet "divine," in a great majority of all the mythological inscriptions that have yet been discovered; so that this circumstance alone is sufficient to show that it must have been that of the principal deity of Egypt. The enchorial character of the inscription of Rosetta is readily identified, and it agrees perfectly well with that of the manuscripts, answering to the eye and the throne; so that the manuscripts here completely supply the want of that part of the stone which contained the name in the sacred character. This name is also universally annexed to the great figure which is found at the end of almost all the manuscripts, and on the coffins of mummies, holding a hook and a whip or fan, and of which the small detached images are also extremely common. In the sculptured inscriptions, the eye generally precedes the throne; in the running hand of the manuscripts, and on the coffins of some mummies, apparently of later date, the eye sometimes follows. Plutarch had perhaps been rightly informed respecting this character, but by a mistake, which was easily committed from a want of perfect recollection, he has called it "an eye and a sceptre;" and this combination has not been recognised as the name of a deity, though a symbol something like it occurs in some of the tablets. The pictured delineation of Osiris has indifferently a human head or that of a hawk; but never that of any other animal. The tear, N. 100, seems also sometimes to have been used as an emblem of Osiris, as well as of Apis and Mneuis, who were considered as representations of him. The name is found perpetually on monuments of all kinds as an epithet of a departed person; and this is one great reason of the frequency of its occurrence.

13. Arueris, the Apollo of the Egyptian mythology, is sufficiently identified by the comparison of various inscriptions with the fragment of Hermapion, preserved by Ammianus Marcellinus, as the translation of the inscription on a particular obelisc, with which, however, it does not exactly agree, although its style completely resembles that of the Egyptian inscriptions in general, and the beginning corresponds perfectly well to the beginning of almost all the obelisks in existence, supposing only the hawk to be part of the name of Arueris; which is, besides, an inference extremely probable, from the tablets of several of the obelisks, representing a deity characterized by a hawk with two bars, and styled the son of another personage who seems to be the sun, as Apollo is called by Hermapion, and Arueris by Plutarch. Mr Hamilton has also given us a Greek inscription at Ombos, in which Arueris is made synonymous with Apollo; although the hieroglyphics, which have been copied from this temple, afford us no assistance in the inquiry. The sort of ladder, which occurs as a second name of Arueris, is found prefixed to the hawk in its usual form, on the obelisc at Wanstead figured by Gordon, and on the frize of Montagu and Ficoroni (Hierogl. Eg. Soc. 7 Eo p.; 9 Lk); and it follows it on a statue of Pococke (Vol. I. p. 212). Arueris is commonly represented either with a human head, or with that of a hawk, bearing a disc, as that of the sun is also generally depicted; and in Plate 138 of Denon, the two deities seem in some measure confounded. The Egyptian name may be interpreted "evening sun," as emblematic of the repose of victory; ER RUHI RE.

14. Isrs, the sister and wife of Osiris, is very naturally denoted by the throne with the female termination; and, in more than one instance, the female figures, which have been long recognised as representations of Isis by other attributes, are distinguished by bearing the throne on the head, which is a common Hieroglyphic mode of characterizing the different personages of the Vocabulary. tablets. The manuscripts, again, enable us to discover the connecting link between the sacred and enchorial characters, and to supply the defects of the stone of Rosetta; though the resemblance is somewhat too imperfect to have satisfied us without their assistance. The goddess, thus distinguished, is very generally represented as standing at the head or feet of a corpse, with another female figure opposite to her; and we find the same personages at the opposite ends of several of the sarcophagi; so that the analogy of Isis to Proserpine, and her character as the guardian of the remains of the dead, are sufficiently consistent with these representations. On a scarabaeus, brought from Egypt by Mr Legh, and in a hieroglyphic inscription at Philae, she appears to be called the offspring of Phthah. She often bears in her hand a sceptre forked at the foot, with a lotus for its head, while Osiris has more commonly a similar sceptre with the head of an animal; but these attributes are sometimes assigned to other deities. In one of the boats on the green sarcophagus, and on Letheuillier's mummy, both in the British Museum, she is personified as a basilisc. Mr Hamilton has published some Greek inscriptions from Philae, and from the small temple at Dendera, which show that Isis was the principal deity of these temples; and the hieroglyphics, as far as they have been copied, are precisely of the same import. The great temple at Karnak seems also to have been dedicated to Isis, and probably the small southern temple. On a medal, of Greek workmanship, in the Borgian Museum, we have a figure of Isis, with the word ἡσι, which may probably have been intended for ἡσι, the Egyptian name with the feminine article.

15. The constant companion of Isis can be no other than Nephthie; her name somewhat resembles that of Isis, with a scale or basin annexed to it, but the square surrounding the throne is completed, and the scale is sometimes detached from it, with a circle interposed; and, in this form, the name comprehends one of the characters denoting a temple. (N. 87.) It seems also to be a head of Nephthe that is found at Dendera and elsewhere, supporting a little temple or shrine, in the place of the capital of a column; nor is it improbable that the great temple at Dendera was dedicated to Nephthe; for the Greek inscription has Aphrodite, which is mentioned by Plutarch as a synonym of Nephthe. It is true that the birth of Isis is represented on one of the ceilings; but it does not, therefore, follow that Isis was the principal goddess of the temple. A head bearing a shrine is not an uncommon ornament of a sistrum; and this agrees perfectly with the remark of Plutarch, that the head of Nephthe, as well as that of Isis, was sometimes represented on these instruments.

16. The emblem of a bird in a cage, which is often found in the manuscripts, accompanied by the figure of a child, seems to indicate the character of a nurse, and may without inconvenience be interpreted as relating to the goddess Buto, the nurse of Horus and Bubastis; though it would perhaps have been more correct to engrave the name in smaller letters, as denoting some degree of uncertainty. On the Hieroglyphic sarcophagus called the Lover's Fountain, in the British Museum, she is delineated with a hawk's head; in the western temple at Philae she has a human head with a horned head dress, and she sits near Isis and Horus; a circumstance which strongly confirms the propriety of the denomination.

17. The enchorial name of Horus seems to be derived from the figure of a hawk followed by the character denoting Isis; an arrangement which agrees very well with the supposition that his usual denomination was ὅρσις. The figure of the infant (N. 133), the chain, and the knot, clearly form a part of the name on a Horus engraved by Montfaucon (Ant. Expl. II. p. 302), and on an obelisc from Bosc in the Supplement of the same work. In some cases a feather, following the infant, seems to supply the place of the bird, as in Caylus, Recueil, IV. Pl. 13.

18. Paamyle, mentioned by several authors as the Priapus of Egypt, is sufficiently distinguishable by his usual attributes. He is often figured with one hand only, which is elevated towards the angle of a kind of whip or fan, suspended above him. At Edfou he is once denoted in an inscription by a figure like that of the tablets; and in another place by a distinct name, much resembling that of a female deity, found on some of the cases of the mummies, who might consequently be called Paamyla.

19. The Nile seems to have been reckoned among the deities of Egypt, and the character which appears to be appropriate to a river (N. 82) is found occasionally in the tablets, followed by a vessel and a spiral (N. 7 or 9, and 201), which seem indeed to make a part of the name, and accompanied by epithets of respect. This character has already been considered by Kircher and others as representing a Nilometer; and the deity in question can only be distinguished by the name Nilus.

20. The sacred characters denoting Apis are pretty clearly determined by the triple inscriptions; the enchorial name is perfectly so. If, however, any doubt remained on the subject, it would be removed by an examination of the inscriptions on four vases found by Paul Lucas (Voyage dans la Turquie, 2 v. 12. Amst. 1720, Vol. I. p. 346) at Abousir, the Busiris of the ancients; that is, the Be oshiri, or sepulchre of Osiris, as Diodorus very properly translates it. There is a received tradition that Apis was worshipped and buried here, and Lucas established its truth by finding the mummy of a bullock in the catacombs. Now, all the inscriptions on the vases end with a bullock, preceded by this character, though the angles are turned in a different direction from those of the inscription of Rosetta: so that the two forms of the character seem to have been used indifferently. With this latitude, we have no difficulty in identifying the name as it occurs in almost every line of the inscriptions on the great sarcophagus of granite, formerly at Cairo, called the Lover's Fountain, and now in the British Museum; which, there is some reason to suppose, from the frequency of this name, may have been intended for receiving a mummy of the bull Apis; although it must be confessed, that, in several other monuments, the names of the deities are introduced in a manner Hieroglyphic somewhat similar, with an evident relation to the designation of some human being, whom they are intended to commemorate.

21. The encorial name of Mneuis is very completely ascertained by the inscription of Rosetta: and from a comparison of different passages in the manuscripts, there is reason to infer, that it was intended as an imperfect representation of a basilisc and a tear, emblems which are repeatedly found in the great ritual, connected with the figure of a bullock.

21*. The sacred cow, in the manuscripts sent home by Mr Bankes, is denoted by a serpentine line with two dots, followed by the term goddess. We may venture to distinguish her by the temporary name Damalis: that of Io would imply too great identity with the Greek mythology. (Plate LXXVIII. L.)

22, 23. In the tablets representing the judgment of the deceased, we generally find two personages standing by the balance, and apparently weighing his merits; one with the head of a hawk, the other with that of a wolf; seeming to officiate as the good and evil genius of the person. The former, denoted by a hawk with a bar, and sometimes also a spear, appears, from various monuments, to have some relation to the sun or to Horus, and may therefore be called Hyperion: the other is often observed to be employed in the preparation of a mummy, and may be called from this occupation Cleristes, or the embalmer. He is also frequently represented on the coffins of mummies, and elsewhere, under the form of a wolf, sitting on a kind of altar: and he seems to be an immediate minister of Osiris. His hieroglyphical name is a feather, a wavy line, and a block; or a hatchet under a sort of arch.

24 . 27. Under the bier on which a mummy lies, and in many other situations near the person of the deceased, we find representations of four deities who seem to be concerned in the operation of embalming, and who might even be supposed to preside over the different condiments employed, their heads frequently serving as covers for four jars, of the kind sometimes called Canopi: they may also very properly be considered as attendants of Isis, who seems to be a still more important personage on such occasions. The first of the four has generally a human head, and may be called Tetrarcha; his name contains a sort of forceps, and a broken line: the second and third have respectively the heads of a dog or baboon and of a wolf: and they agree very satisfactorily with the well known character of Anubis, and with that of Macedo his companion, mentioned by Diodorus as having a wolf's head, whose name may possibly have some relation to Manchat, "a worker in silver," as that of Anubis has to nub, "gold." The hieroglyphic name of Anubis differs from that of Apis only in having the angles directed immediately upwards, a circumstance which is not so indifferent to the significance as it at first appeared; that of Macedo has a vulture with a star, and sometimes an arm instead of the vulture. The fourth of these deities is represented with the head of a hawk, and may therefore be called Hieracion: and he is denoted by a water jar, with three plants, somewhat resembling leeks or onions.

28 . 32. Among the many hundreds of deities who are represented in various inscriptions and sculptures, some of the most remarkable are two personages with the heads of wolves, the first characterized by a sort of raised frame or banner, and a pair of horns, which may be expressed by the pseudonymous or temporary term Cerezochus, and the second by a half bow, and a sword or knife, whence he may be called Bixoriphus; a figure with a human head, generally wearing a feather on it, and denoted by a broad feather reversed, which is implied in the name Platypterus; another wearing a cap with a whip in it, who may be called Mastigias; and a fifth in the form of a female, distinguished by a bier, who, at Edfou, bears a tear on her head, and who may be called Soraea.

B. KINGS.

33, 34. We are informed by Pliny, that the Alexandrian obelisc was erected by Mesphres or Mestires, the reading of the different manuscripts being different; and since no king of the name Mestires is mentioned by other authors, we may consider this Mesphres as the Mephres or Mesphris who succeeded his mother Amersis about 1700 B. C., or perhaps a century or two later. The hieroglyphical name of his father contains that of the god Thoth, and may therefore possibly have been intended for the Thuthmosis of the chronologers, who is said to have been the grandfather of Mesphres. The obelisc at Alexandria, now called Cleopatra's Needle, like almost all others which contain three lines on each side, exhibits different names in the middle and the outer lines: from this circumstance, as well as from the greater depth of the sculptures, which is generally observable in the middle line, there is reason to suppose that this line stood at first alone, and that the two on each side were added by a later monarch. The Lateran obelisc, however, is remarkable for exhibiting the name of Mesphres on all the lines of the different sides. The Constantinopolitan obelisc has only one line on each side, with the name of Mesphres the son of Thuthmosis. The same name is also found on the gateway of the fifth catacomb, at Byban El Molouk: on a pillar of the palace at Karnak, and in a splendidly coloured bas relief on one of the interior architraves of the gallery; as well as on a seal of Denon, Pl. 98, and on some others brought from Egypt by Mr Legh.

35. The Iseai obelisc of Kircher has a "son of Mesphres, favoured by Phthah;" we must therefore distinguish this king by the name Misphragmathosis, who is recorded as the son and successor of Mesphres.

37 . 39. A multitude of ancient Greek inscriptions identify the statue of Memnon, celebrated by all antiquity for its musical powers, which, Strabo says, he witnessed in person, though he could not very positively decide that the sound proceeded from the statue, rather than from some of the bystanders. In one of the inscriptions we find the word Phamenoth, Hieroglyphic not as a date, but as a synonym of Memnon, which Vocabulary must be considered as identical with the Phamenoph given by Pausanias as his Egyptian name, and with the Ammenoph or Amenophis of Manetho or others, which differs from it only as wanting the article. There is, however, some doubt to which Amenophis this statue properly belongs. Manetho makes Memnon the eighth king of the eighteenth dynasty, who may be called Amenophis the Second; but Marsham brings him down to the Ammenephthes of Manetho, or Amenophis the Fourth, and principally because he thinks that only a successor of Sesostris could have been well known in Asia; and he even supposes him to have been later than Homer, who, he says, never mentions him, though Hesiod calls him the son of Tithonus and Aurora. But, in fact, the name of Memnon does occur in the Odyssey, where Ulysses alludes to his beauty in a conversation with the shade of Achilles; and Hesiod could scarcely have mentioned a king as descended from a deity, that was not considerably earlier than his own time; so that the tradition of Manetho seems to be preferable to the mere conjecture of Marsham. At the same time, we cannot well call him Memnon the son of Thuthmosis, the name of the father not agreeing with that of this king; and there is another circumstance which seems to lead us to the third Amenophis, intermediate between these two extremes, who was the son of Ramesses Miamun, or Ramesses the lover of Ammon; which is, that Amenophis himself appears to have built a temple to Ammon in the isle of Elephantine, and is called Miamun in several of the hieroglyphical inscriptions still existing there; so that there is little doubt that the name Memnon must have been derived from Miamun. Besides the different statues of the Memnonium, we find monuments of the same personage in almost every part of Egypt, though they are much more frequent at Thebes and in its neighbourhood. The name is marked on all the lion headed goddesses of black granite which are now in the British Museum, and on some others which are in possession of Mr Bankes. The first of this series having been purchased, as Bruce informs us, for a large price, by Donati, for the King of Sardinia, the inhabitants were induced to take some pains in digging the others out of the sand. The building, called by the French the tomb of Osymandyas, bears also the name of Memnon; and it is remarked by Strabo, that Memnon and Ismendes may probably have been the same person. The name is also found in the grottos at Byban El Molouk, on some statues representing Osiris, and in some inscriptions at Ombo, as well as on a seal of Denon, Pl. 98. Mr Bullock has presented to the British Museum a scarabaeus of very hard stone, on which we find the name of Memnon, together with that of his father and mother, whom we may call, in order to preserve the mythological analogy, Tithous and Eoa, although without asserting that this Tithous was the builder of the labyrinth, which some authors have attributed to a king named Tithoes, and others to Ismendes. The mother's name occurs also alone, as "the goddess mother," on the back of a beetle in Gordon's Mummies, Plate 22; a circumstance which removes the Hieroglyphic doubt, that might otherwise arise, from the want of Vocabulary the female termination in the name; the father's is found on a square seal, in the possession of Mr Legh. There is another copy of the inscription of Mr Bullock's scarabaeus, on a scarabaeus belonging to Mr Palin, which had long been used by a Greek priest at Athens, for stamping the paschal bread. (Dubois, Pierres Gravées, Par. 1817, Pl. V. N. 5.) The beautiful head, lately brought from the Memnonium to the British Museum, has only a part of the father's name remaining, which does not appear to be that of the father of Memnon, though the first three characters are the same; but the fourth is the pedestal representing Phthah; and a similar name is found on some other colossal statues and obelises remaining in Egypt, as well as on a smaller figure of red granite, brought by Mr Hamilton from Elephantine.

39. In the principal name on the obelise at Karnak, the final scale of the name of Memnon is exchanged for a pair of arms stretched upwards; a variation which may be expressed by calling it Amenuses or Amenses, from Shesh, a pair. The father's name is also a little like that of Tithous; but, that the difference is constant, may be inferred from its separate occurrence on a seal brought home by Mr Legh, a lion's head making a part of it in both instances. The true name and date of this personage must be considered as wholly unknown; though the resemblance of the name to Memnon makes it convenient to place them together. In Mr Broughton's minute golden image, engraved in the Archeologia, the name appears to be the same, but with the synonymous substitution of the hatchet for the judge.

40, 41. The obelisc at Heliopolis has every mark of considerable antiquity, and the shortness and simplicity of its inscription is appropriate to a remote period. Pliny says, that Mitres or Mestires first erected obelises at Heliopolis; he also mentions Sothis, and apparently Ramesses, as having left similar monuments of their magnificence in the same place. The principal name on the obelisc now remaining at Matareah may also be observed in several other inscriptions, but with the substitution of two other names for that of the father; so that the name of the son must probably have belonged to many different individuals; a circumstance which, as well as the sounds belonging to the different characters, agrees very well with Ramesses, for we have re, "the sun," mes, "a birth," and shesh, "a pair;" so that we may venture to call it Remesses; and we may take Heron for the father of the first Remesses, from Hermapion, though it is possible that he may be the Armais of Manetho; but we have scarcely sufficient evidence to appropriate to him that name. Another Remesses seems to have been a son of Sesostris; a third Ramesses follows Ammenephthes in Manetho, and agrees with the Rhamphinitus of Herodotus, and the Remphis of Diodorus, who is mentioned as the successor of Proteus; and this may, perhaps, have been the Remesses of the frizes of Montagu and Ficoroni (Hierogl. 7 Ou. 9 If), who seems, from the resem- Hieroglyphic blance of the different parts of the work, to have been nearly contemporary with Sesostris. (Hierogl. 7 H. I.) There is also another Remesses on the Lions at the fountain of Aqua Felice, near the baths of Diocletian at Rome, the name of whose father is a little like the name supposed to belong to Arsinoe, N. 60.

42, 43. The obelisc, erected by Augustus in the Campus Martius, is said, by Pliny, to have been the work of Sesostris; and there are sufficient documents of its identity with that which had long remained buried near the Monte Citorio, and of which figures have been given by Zoega and others. The inscription was supposed, in the time of Pliny, to contain a compendium of the physical and philosophical learning of the Egyptians; but, in order to make this opinion credible, it would be necessary to admit that the princes of earlier days entertained very different ideas from those which have since been prevalent, respecting the comparative importance of the abstract sciences, and of national prosperity, and martial glory. If Sesostris was the son of Amenophis, he cannot have been the reigning king mentioned in this obelisc: but it may safely be attributed to Pheron the son of Sesostris, who, according to Herodotus, erected two obelisks; and the occurrence of the name of Sesostris, as the father, may be considered as sufficiently conformable to the testimony of Pliny. The same names are found, with a slight variation, on a small statue of basalt, very highly finished, now standing in the British Museum; and Denon has copied them from an inscription in the Memnonium. (Pl. 118.)

44. Nuncoreus, according to Diodorus, was another son of Sesostris; his name occurs also in Pliny, and we may consider him as the son of Sesostris mentioned in Mr Montagu's frizes. The name is also found at Philae, and, with a slight variation, on an altar of basalt, figured by Caylus (Rec. I. Pl. 19), now in the king's library at Paris. The remains of the same name may also be observed on a block, apparently of white sandstone, in the British Museum, which is figured by Norden, in its old situation, as a part of the foundations of Pompey's Pillar at Alexandria, and it occurs on a fragment of a statue brought by Mr Hamilton from Thebes.

45. The name of Proteus, or Certus, otherwise Ammenephthes, is only known as the predecessor of one of the kings named Ramesses, and we may safely employ it for the father of the Remesses of the frizes of Montagu and Ficoroni, the whole of which are remarkable for the excellence of their workmanship.

46, 47. Until we obtain evidence of a more positive nature, we may give to the two kings mentioned on the sarcophagus of green breccia, the names of Amanuphtes and Anystis, supposing them to have lived about the time of Amenephthes, or Amenophis the Fifth, and his successor Osochon. The father's name might, without difficulty, be read "Menuphthah," supposing some titles to follow it. There are also two obelisks of the same king, brought from Cairo, which stand near the sarcophagus in the British Museum, and the style of the workmanship somewhat resembles that of the times of Sesostris, and his immediate successors. It has been observed, that neither of the names can well be Alexander's, since that of the father is repeated much more frequently than that of the son, which could not have happened if it had been meant for Philip; and Alexander had no son who could have been mentioned in his sarcophagus. Nor is it at all probable, that Alexander should have erected any obelisks at Memphis or in its neighbourhood. The god Ammon is no where mentioned among the titles of the king, and holds only an inferior rank among the innumerable deities represented in the tablets. We find both the names, without any addition, on a dovetail of copper, engraved in Lord Valenta's Travels, which was found at Behbeit, the Atarbechis or Aphroditopolis of the ancients, situated on the branch of the Nile that runs to Damietta.

48...50. We learn from Pliny, that the Flaminian obelisc, now standing near the Porta del Popolo at Rome, which was the smaller of the two formerly in the Circus Maximus, placed there by Augustus, and used as the gnomon of a dial, was the work of Sennesertes or Sennesyrteus, who reigned in Egypt at the time that Pythagoras visited it. This king seems to have been the same with Psammuthis or Psammitis; and the authority of the evidence is so much the stronger, as the period in question is not extremely remote. The father of Psammitis, according to Herodotus, was Necos or Nechao. The two names occur on all the middle lines of the obelisk; and that of the father on the pillar of a colossal Isis in the Supplement of Montfaucon: the Salustian obelisc, which seems to have been partly copied from the Flaminian, has them both. In the middle lines of both the obelisks at Luxor we find a name much resembling that of Psammitis, which we may therefore call Psammetichus, conjecturing that it may have belonged to Psammetichus, who reigned a little earlier: the father's name is not unlike in its import to that of Nechao, both implying "approved by Phthah;" and it is remarkable, that in Manetho's series, the predecessor of Psammetichus is also Nechao.

51, 52. Among the most common of all the names of the kings of Egypt, on a great variety of monuments, are those which were mistaken by Kircher for a sort of amulets or charms, which he denominated the Mophthomendesian tablets. They occur alone on three small obelisks only, the Medicean, the Mahutean, and the Monticelian of Kircher; but they are found in the external lines of the Alexandrian, the two at Luxor, the Flaminian, and the Salustian, while none are ever found exterior to them. They must, therefore, necessarily be attributed to one of the latest kings of Egypt; and there is none so likely to have made such a display as Amasis, a man of considerable magnificence, and at the same time of a cautious and artful character: indeed, we have no alternative left but to choose between him and some of the kings who revolted against the Persians, and who do not appear so likely to have had leisure or finances for public works of splendour. His father's name, like that of Nechao, contains the character denoting Vulcan, and it may be called Maenuphtes; but he was not the son of a king. Both the names are found in one of the middle lines of the Flaminian obelisc; and on that side the king is represented in the tablet as doing homage to his predecessor, who occupies the place of honour on the other sides. The father's name seems to occur on the belt of a colossal statue in the palace at Karnak. On a fragment of stone in the British Museum, the names are repeated in various directions, as if it had belonged to a floor or a ceiling: they also occur on a statue, considerably mutilated, in the attitude of kneeling; and in Montfaucon's Supplement, on the back of a colossal Isis, which seems also to have been begun by Psamnitis. On the eastern colossus at Luxor, there is a name which might be taken either for that of Amasis or for that of the pseudonymous Psammeticus; but the sitting figure is somewhat different: the victor in the naval combat at Medinet Abou, who appears also frequently at Ombos, considerably resembles them both. Lord Mountnorris has a rough seal with the name of Amasis only, the epithet God being prefixed in a smaller character. The names also occur on a small obelisc lying at Tsan, the ancient Tanis, of which a sketch was brought home by Dr Merion.

53, 54. We find at Karnak the name of a king somewhat like Psamnitis, that of his father resembling a compound of Ptolemy and Berenice. Perhaps they are not very correctly copied, but they may stand, under the temporary names of Discozygus and Ptoleberius, as specimens, somewhat singular, of a mixture of different dynasties; and in this point of view they may be placed between the old Egyptian kings and their Grecian conquerors.

55. (Plate LXXV.) The name of Alexander has not yet been identified in the sacred characters; but it will appear hereafter, that a knowledge of the enchorial form may possibly contribute very materially, at some future time, to assist us in determining it.

56. There can be no doubt whatever respecting the signification of the name of Ptolemy, as it occurs on the stone of Rosetta; but it is not quite so easy to determine its identity in some other cases, where it may possibly have been modified by contraction, mutilation, or combination. In this and a few other proper names, it is extremely interesting to trace some of the steps by which alphabetical writing seems to have arisen out of hieroglyphical; a process which may indeed be in some measure illustrated by the manner in which the modern Chinese express a foreign combination of sounds, the characters being rendered simply "phonetic" by an appropriate mark, instead of retaining their natural signification; and this mark, in some modern printed books, approaching very near to the ring surrounding the hieroglyphic names. The enchorial name of Ptolemy appears at first sight to be extremely different from the hieroglyphical; and it would have been impossible to deduce the one from the other, without a knowledge of the epistolographie forms of the separate characters, as ascertained by a comparison of the manuscripts. The beginning and end are obviously parts of the ring, which, in the sacred character, surrounds every proper name, except those of the deities. The square block and the semicircle answer invariably in all the manuscripts to characters resembling the r and t of Akerblad, which are found at the beginning of the enchorial name. The next character, which seems to be a kind of knot, is not essentially necessary, being often omitted in the sacred characters, and always in the enchorial. The lion corresponds to the lo of Akerblad; a lion being always expressed by a similar character in the manuscripts; an oblique line crossed standing for the body, and an erect line for the tail: this was probably read not lo but ole; although, in more modern Coptic, olli is translated a ram; we have also eul, a stag; and the figure of the stag becomes, in the running hand, something like this of the lion. The next character is known to have some reference to "place," in Coptic ma; and it seems to have been read either ma, or simply m; and this character is always expressed in the running hand by the m of Akerblad's alphabet. The two feathers, whatever their natural meaning may have been, answer to the three parallel lines of the enchorial text, and they seem in more than one instance to have been read i or e; the bent line probably signified great, and was read osn or os; for the Coptic shei seems to have been nearly equivalent to the Greek sigma. Putting all these elements together we have precisely ptolemaios, the Greek name; or perhaps ptolemeos, as it would more naturally be called in Coptic. The slight variations of the word in different parts of the enchorial text may be considered as expressing something like aspirations or accentuations.

57. The appellation soteres, as a dual, is well marked in the inscription of Rosetta, and the character, thus determined, explains a long name in the temple at Edfou, which must mean "the two saviour gods," with various titles of honour, such as "the agents of Phtha, the emblems of triumph, the approved of Phre, the favoured of the Nile, the venerable consorts in empire."

58. The wife of Ptolemy Soter, and mother of Philadelphus, was Berenice, whose name is found on a ceiling at Karnak, in the phrase, "Ptolemy and . . Berenice, the saviour gods." In this name we appear to have another specimen of syllabic and alphabetical writing combined, in a manner not extremely unlike the ludicrous mixtures of words and things with which children are sometimes amused; for however Warburton's indignation might be excited by such a comparison, it is perfectly true that, occasionally, "the sublime differs from the ridiculous by a single step only." The first character of the hieroglyphic name is precisely of the same form with a basket represented at Byban El Molouk, and called, in the description, "panier à anses;" and a basket, in Coptic, is bir. The oval, which resembles an eye without the pupil, means elsewhere "to," which in Coptic is e; the waved line is "of," and must be rendered n; the feathers r; the little footstool seems to be superfluous; the goose is ke, or ken; Kircher gives us kenesoi for a goose; but the esou means gregarious, probably in contradistinction to the Egyptian sheldrake, and the simple etymon approaches to the name of a goose in many other languages. We have, therefore, literally birenice; or, if the n must be inserted, the accusative bireni- Hieroglyphic CEN, which may easily have been confounded by the Egyptians with the nominative. The final characters are merely the feminine termination. The enchorial text affords us a remarkable instance of the diversity which was allowed in the mode of representing the same name. The first character has not the least resemblance to the basket; but the first and second together are very commonly used in the manuscripts, as a coarse representation of a boat, which was called BARI, or possibly BERIE, for it is doubtful whether Kircher had any other authority than that of Diodorus for BARI; and the word BEREZOUTS is used for another vehicle. The enchorial s may possibly have been derived from a horizontal line, turned up at one end; we have then the three dashes for the I, and the two angles seem to have answered to the KE, for a bird is not uncommonly scribbled in some such manner; so that we have either BARNICE or BERENICE, by a combination somewhat different from the former.

59..65. The temple at Ombos was dedicated, as we find from the Greek inscription copied by Mr Hamilton, "in the name of the divine Ptolemy Philometor and Cleopatra, and their children, to Arueris Apollo, and the other gods of the temple, by the infantry and cavalry of the nome." We may, therefore, expect to find in it the names of these sovereigns, together with those of some or all of the earlier Ptolemies; and, accordingly, we are able to determine, without difficulty, some epithets which seem to be characteristic of this and the two preceding reigns; but, hitherto, nothing has been observed that can be considered as so clearly denoting either Philadelphus and his queen Arsinoe, or Euergetes and his Berenice, although some assistance might have been derived, in identifying them, from the enchorial text of Rosetta. We have, however, in the same temple, a name, evidently compound, in which a basilic is followed by two feathers and a bent line; and to judge from a comparison of the enchorial text with the manuscripts, a basilic ought to be the emblem of EUERGETES; the part of the name preceding it is, however, not Berenice, and must, therefore, in all probability, be ARSINOE, the daughter of Euergetes. But it seems impossible to attempt to compare the characters employed with the sounds; since they sometimes occur in an inverted order, which the sounds could not do. Indeed, the name seems to be very often repeated in situations where its most essential parts seem to be a quadrant of a circle, two feathers, and a bent or broken line; in other places, as at Dendera, the bird, the hand, and the oval, are added; and it is not impossible that the quadrant may have been meant as a representation of a lentil, which in Coptic is ARSHIN, and which alone may have been sufficient to identify the name. It occurs in the celebrated zodiac at Dendera, and very frequently at Philae, and it may possibly, hereafter, lead us very readily to discover the hieroglyphical name of Philadelphus. That of PHILOPATOR is satisfactorily ascertained by the assistance of the character employed for "father" in the Rosetta stone, though that character is much mutilated, and could not have been positively determined without this coincidence. The name is found in the great temple at Edfou still more distinctly than at Ombos, and it occurs several times at Karnak. EPIPHANES is never distinguished in any other inscription by the characters appropriated to him in that of Rosetta (N. 121); but we continually find a synonymous emblem, which is employed in the Rosetta stone to signify "enlightening," where the Greek translation has EPIPHANES; and this character, placed between two hatelits facing each other, can only have meant the "illustrious deity," or deities. In this form, the name occurs very frequently at Philae, and in the great temple at Edfou, where it seems to be the latest name. For the PHILOMETORES, we have a character which occurs in some other monuments, and means apparently "mother," the name containing it being found several times in the temple at Ombos. At Kous, or Apollinopolis Parva, there is another Greek inscription of the Philometores and their children; but in the hieroglyphics copied by Denon, the names of the sovereigns seem to be wanting, and that of a young prince only remains, a colossal statue of whom is figured by Montfaucon in his Supplement, having the same name in the belt, with the addition of "the son of King Ptolemy;" it will, therefore, be justifiable to distinguish this personage by calling him Cleopatrides. The divine honours, which are so often attributed in these inscriptions to the reigning sovereigns, afford us an explanation of the Greek inscriptions to the "Synthrous gods of Egypt," which repeatedly occur; and of the description "Fraternal gods," as, indeed, Philadelphus and his queen are called in the Greek inscription of Rosetta.

C. PRIVATE PERSONS.

66..71. We find the names of six individuals expressed in the enchorial text of the inscription of Rosetta, though they are wanting in the distinct hieroglyphics; but, as they are clearly ascertained by the context, they are of considerable value in tracing the approach of the hieroglyphic to alphabetic writing. These are AETUS, PHILINUS, DIogenes, PYRRHA, AREIA, and IRENE. In Diogenes and Areia, we discover no traces of the ring which is the usual characteristic of proper names; and on the other hand, we find occasionally, in some of the manuscripts, the parts of the ring applied to a title of Osiris, which is more regularly written without any such distinction.

72. A name of a private individual is inserted from a sarcophagus in the British Museum, engraved by Alexander, in his Egyptian Monuments. Its form is not that of a parallelepiped, but more accommodated to the shape of the body. The pseudonymous appellation Ramuneus has been derived from the elementary characters already observed in the names of RE and AMUN.

D. ANIMALS.

73. A figure sitting on the ground, and stretching out one hand, seems to imply simply a MAN or person; which is certainly the sense of the enchorial Hieroglyphic character that commonly answers to it in the manuscripts; but in composition the figure often appears to lose this sense.

74. The horned snake, creeping along, is clearly meant, in some parts of the inscription of Rosetta, for him or it; although it has other senses in composition. It is very remarkable, that the enchorial character, and that of the manuscripts, resembling a γ, approaches extremely near to the Coptic r, which also means "him;" and nor, or hro, is the Coptic term for a snake; so that this coincidence seems to afford us another trace of the origin of the alphabet.

75.. 78. The bullock, the ram, the antelope, and the tortoise, are proved to be sometimes representations of the things which they resemble, by their occurrence in inscriptions accompanied by tablets; though some of them have probably, elsewhere, a metaphorical sense. The ram is often represented with two pairs of horns; the one natural, the other imaginary.

78*. The crocodile is identified by a very distinct drawing in a manuscript sent home by Mr Bankes, and is repeatedly designated in the text by a figure representing it. (a) The deity with a crocodile's head is a separate personage, and is denoted by a figure of the same animal with the tail turned under it. (b) Plate LXXVIII. (L)

79. The asp or basilisc is so coarsely represented in the stone of Rosetta, that the object intended by it could not have been conjectured without a comparison with other inscriptions; the context was, however, sufficient to determine its meaning from the examination of this monument alone.

E. INANIMATE OBJECTS.

80. The essential parts of the name of Egypt seem to be the square and the wheel, signifying "splendid land." In addition to these, or their rudiments, the enchorial word has at the beginning a character which generally answers to an arm holding a feather, or to the flame of a lamp, an emblem which seems also to relate to Egypt in one of the lines of the inscription of Rosetta. A flame and a heart are mentioned by Horapollo and by Plutarch, as employed in the name of Egypt; but a word occurring so frequently is very likely to have been expressed in a variety of ways. The exact combination of characters generally used on the stone has not been observed in any other inscription.

81. The name of Memphis cannot be determined without some uncertainty; the line of hieroglyphics, in which it is contained, being in several respects obscure.

82. The character, supposed to denote the Nile, as a deity, must also sometimes be understood as merely meaning a river; and there is reason to think that the Nile itself was generally called by the Egyptians "the river" only. The enchorial character, used to denote both the Nile and a river, or canal, sufficiently resembles the hieroglyphic to favour this interpretation; and it is in some degree confirmed by the occurrence of the character alone on a water jar of Peiresc, delineated in Kircher's Oedipus; and, together with other characters, on the five vases found by Paul Lucas at Abousir. By accident, Kircher appears, in this single instance, to have been right in one of his conjectures; for he calls this character a Nilometer, and considers it as emblematic of the Nile.

83. The word Greek, in Coptic uinin or oueinin, in Thebaic oueinein, supposed to have been derived from Ionian, seems to exhibit in its form something like an imitation of the sound. The curl on a stem is sometimes exchanged for the term divine, and appears to mean "glory," in Coptic ouv or ou, which is nearly the sound attributed by Akerblad to the enchorial character, a little like the Hebrew u; the feather, as in Ptolemy and Berenice, may be read i or ei, having the three dashes to express them, as usual, in the enchorial text; the serpent is eneii, "ever;" and the hat, which looks a little like a plough, is equivalent to the waved line (N. 77), and must be read n; so that we have very accurately oueinein, which seems to be near enough to oueinin, to justify us in considering these characters as phonetic.

84. The ladder is well marked as meaning country; it may perhaps be intended to represent a field with its divisions; but it is uncertain whether or no it is the same symbol that enters into one of the names of Arueris (N. 13), the sculptures of the Rosetta stone being by no means highly finished.

85. It is remarkable, that the wheel, signifying land, had been noticed by the Jesuits, as resembling the old Chinese character for the word field; but this is the only one, of a multitude of similar conjectures, that has been justified by more complete evidence. (Phil. Trans. 1760. Pl. 28.)

86. The star is shown to relate to a real star, by inscriptions accompanying the zodiacs. It has also elsewhere a figurative sense, meaning an attendant or ministering spirit.

87. The open square is found in both the combinations of characters, which are most commonly used for expressing a temple; the feather signifies ornament or consecration; the oblong figure, either the sacred inclosure or a sacred seat, the character for a god being sometimes placed within it. The feather is occasionally converted into an inclined oval, the square being at the same time a little altered; a difference which may be observed in other inscriptions, as well as in the Rosetta stone.

88. The character representing a shrine so much resembles the object which it denotes, that it was the most readily identified of all that are found on the stone of Rosetta. The character signifying a priest was the second; and the combination of both afforded a full confirmation of the truth of the explanation. The enchorial character for a shrine is derived from the sitting statue which always accompanies it.

89. The open square, occurring in habitation as well as in temple, must probably have meant house or building; or possibly stone only.

90. The throne, or chair of state, occurs in a great variety of tablets. It evidently bears its most natural signification in the character denoting sta- tue, n. 102, and in some other instances; but it appears to bear, in some inscriptions, the metaphorical sense of a residence or habitation.

91. The column, or pillar, is too much like the object it denotes, to allow us to doubt respecting its meaning, considering the sense of that part of the inscription of Rosetta in which it occurs.

92. The characters denoting a diadem are sufficiently determined by the first inscription of the stone; and they so much resemble the corresponding passages of the enchorial text, that we can scarcely hesitate to admit the intimate connexion of the two modes of writing, without seeking for any further proofs.

93. The sacred ornaments are expressed by three feathers, fixed to a bar, which appears to be held by two arms. The remaining part of the character occurs very frequently as a sort of termination, and seems to answer to . . . ments.

94. . 99. The boat or ship, the spear, the bow, the arrow, the censer, and the bier, are sufficiently identified, by the comparison of various tablets with their inscriptions. The ship occurs frequently as denoting the sacred boats, in which the representations of the deities are conveyed; though they are not always accompanied by water. But it has been observed, that the Egyptians attributed ships rather than chariots to the sun and moon, as gliding smoothly through the skies. The first part of the enchorial word, which has been supposed to be a n, is evidently identical with the character always found in the manuscripts written in the running hieroglyphics, as the first part of the delineation of a ship. It is remarkable, that, in the inscription at Esne, as copied by the French, the point of the arrow is turned towards the back of the Bowman, instead of being directed towards the enemy.

100. The tear, in some of its representations, is very clearly expressive of the thing intended; and this resemblance, together with its frequent attendance on a corpse and a bier, is sufficient to explain its sense. It occurs also sometimes within a border, as a peculiar deity; but it seems to be much more commonly emblematical of Osiris, of Apis, or of Mneus. It is not unfrequently found as a detached figure, in a kind of pottery, with a green glazing; and may perhaps have been worn, instead of a mourning ring, as a memorial of a departed friend. It has most commonly been called the equi sectio, and supposed to represent a horse's head, or the rostrum of a ship, while the ingenious Kircher has made it a phallus oculatus. Among the antiquities collected by Lord Mountnorris in Egypt, is an eye seen in front, and apparently shedding a tear.

101. The character for an image seems to mean a wrought man; the hands, connected with an eye, appear to be holding an ear, as an emblem of labour. The same character, with a slight variation in the form of the eye, means a rower, (n. 136.)

102. The sitting statue has no character to imply wrought; but it is followed by a bent line, which seems to be a term of respect, and may possibly answer to osh, "great." The same bent line occurs on the great sarcophagus of green breccia, as a per-sonification of one of the qualities of Osiris, probably his magnificence. It is often exchanged in the manuscripts for the divided staff; and both are represented in the running hand by a figure like a 9 or a 4. In the enchorial text this character seems sometimes to be expressed by a single line, either straight, or bent sideways into an angle, like part of a k. A similar "divine statue" is decreed to "King Nuncoreus, the son of Sesostris," on Mr Montagu's frize. Hierogl. 7 S l.

103. Letters are denoted by a character which seems to represent some of the materials employed in writing; and which is indeed not extremely unlike an inkstand figured in Caylus's Recueil, and consisting of two parallel tubes at some distance from each other, with a cover connected by a chain instead of a hinge. Besides the very well marked passage in the Rosetta stone, the character occurs in many manuscripts near the representation of a Thoth employed in writing; and the enchorial character, corresponding to it, is also found in the term sacred scribes at the beginning of the inscription.

104. In the numerical tablet of the great French work, believed to have been found at Karnak, a character may be observed which frequently precedes a numeral, and which resembles a weight with its handle. Hence we may conjecture, with considerable probability, that it represents some weight of unknown value.

105. The enchorial character for gold is perfectly well determined; and its resemblance to a little vase under a sort of arch is so strong, that we may safely attribute the same sense to this hieroglyphic, although it appears to be wanting in one or two passages of the sacred inscription of Rosetta, where it ought to be found. In the great ritual, we observe this character immediately preceding a shrine, as if a "golden shrine" were intended; and, in several other places, it is connected with a number, as if it meant pieces of gold; for instance, in the green sarcophagus, with the number 360. Sometimes, also, it appears to be used in a metaphorical sense, as a complimentary epithet of a monarch, or perhaps in allusion to his riches. Thus, on the black frize of Nuncoreus, we have, over the king's figure, the characters, "Joy, Life, Stability, Power, Riches, Like the Sun, for ever." Hier. 7 p.

106. Near to the character for gold, in the margin of the great ritual, is a sort of open box, supported on a flagstaff; and a similar box, with a semicircle under it, seems to mean silver; at least it considerably resembles the enchorial character for silver, which is perfectly well ascertained.

107. We find, in several inscriptions, representations of objects which are also observable in the tablets accompanying them, although it is difficult to say for what they are intended. Two of these are copied from the frize of Ficoroni and Montagu, Hier. 9 okl, rskl, 7 lmq. The former seems to be a sort of cloak, with a fringe at the bottom; the latter is a little like a pear; but this character does not occur so clearly in the inscription. F. ATTRIBUTES AND ACTIONS. (Plate LXXVI.)

108. The crux ansata, sometimes called the Key of the Nile, is usually employed as a symbol of divinity; but its correct meaning is life, as Lacroze rightly conjectured, although his opinion respecting the origin of the character is inconsistent with the form of its oldest and most accurate delineations; and there is no one instance in which it is so represented as to stand in any relation to a sluice or a watercock. According to Socrates and Rufinus, the Egyptian priests declared to their Christian conquerors under Theodosius, who were going to destroy the Serapeum at Alexandria, that the cross, so often sculptured on their temples, was an emblem of the life to come. This passage has been understood by some authors as relating rather to the cross without a handle, which is observable in some rare instances, and indeed twice on the stone of Rosetta; but this symbol appears rather to denote a protecting power, than an immortal existence. It happens, perhaps altogether accidentally, that one of the contractions for the word God, which are commonly used in Coptic, approaches very near to this character, except that the arms of the cross are within the circle.

109. ETERNITY is represented simply by a serpent rising in an oblique arch, and without horns; the serpent devouring its tail, and making a ring, is never found as an Egyptian emblem. Horapollo says that eternity was denoted by a serpent having its tail hidden under its body; and that such serpents were called uraei, meaning in Greek basiliscs, which agrees very well with the sense of the Coptic uro, "king;" but this description answers better to the asp of the inscription of Rosetta, which has also some relation to the representations of the deities, though it does not exactly mean immortality.

110. The cross with the serpent is a very common epithet, in the sense of everliving, or IMMORTAL, AEONOBIAUS: the waved line is in general a preposition, or a termination, meaning of, to, or for; and it appears to be synonymous with the hat (n. 177). Almost all authors have very hastily taken for granted, that this character must relate immediately to water, wherever it occurs, although we find it repeatedly in every line of the inscription of Rosetta, where water is not once mentioned. The fact, however, is, that its prototype seems to have been a stream of water or of any other liquid, flowing from a vessel, and poured on some other object; and that the idea of the liquid was completely dropped in the general employment of the character; while that of the connexion only was retained; and the hat or cap being also similarly forgotten, while its connexion with the head of the wearer only was suggested by its figure. In this compound character, we have two particles nearly alike, the semicircle and the line; for that they cannot be very different is shown by the occasional substitution of two semicircles for the combination. One of them seems to serve for the connexion between life and eternity, "life for ever," and the other to make the new compound an adjective, "living for ever."

111. The triangle or pyramid occurs very commonly among other emblems of prosperity and happiness; and it is found in the frize of Montagu and Ficoroni, in the decided sense of an offering or a present in general, while, in another place, it is made an offering in its own form; so that we can only interpret it as signifying joy, or pleasure, or prosperity. (Hierogl. 7 Mqr, Uqr ; 9 Re, RI ; 7 Uq, Urs.)

112. POWER appears to be indicated by a sceptre having the head of an animal, which is often placed in the hands of the deities, and often stands with the cross, the pyramid, and the altar, as an emblem of the blessings attendant on the favourites of the gods. It is seldom used in the text of inscriptions, but it occurs once in that of Rosetta.

113, 114. STABILITY is denoted, on the Rosetta stone, and elsewhere, by the altar, which seems to have been fixed in the ground as a column. When repeated, it makes the verb establish; but it often occurs singly, and not uncommonly as an unconnected emblem, accompanied by other characters of similar import; and it is sometimes found as a detached figure, formed of glazed porcelain. The two altars are very conspicuous objects in some of the epistolographic manuscripts, and are very useful in comparing them with the hieratic; but the word employed in the enchorial inscription of Rosetta seems to be derived from a different origin.

115. A drop or club over a basin, followed by a bent line, seems to mean great strength; though it is difficult to say what the character is meant to depict. In some other places, it seems somewhat to resemble a kind of head dress.

116. The bullock and the arm, which generally occur at the beginning of the inscriptions on the obelisks, agree very well with the epithet mighty in the translation of Hermapion. The arm is, in many other instances, used in compound characters.

117. VICTORY is denoted by a branch, perhaps a palm branch, with a semicircle and a circle, sometimes preceded by the waved line.

118. The character signifying fortune somewhat resembles that which denotes "gold" (n. 105), but, instead of the arch, we have an angular line, which seems to be intended for a pair of arms grasping the vase. The whole assemblage approaches, also, a little to the form of a pocket, or purse, as it is frequently delineated.

119. The open square, bent inwards, clearly means splendour or glory, though it is uncertain what object it is intended to represent. In some cases, a crescent seems to be substituted for it, as if it bore some relation to the sun, and the moon afforded a parallel sense.

120, 121. ILLUSTRIOUS is expressed, in the inscription of Rosetta, by the open square, for "splendour," the oval, which signifies addition, or respect, making it a kind of superlative, and the pair of legs, which very naturally convey the idea of bearing, or possessing; so that the whole makes the epithet Epiphanes. This assemblage is, in some of the manuscripts, very commonly followed by a bird, or its equivalent, a half arch, apparently serving as an intensive.

122 . . 124. The feather, when alone, seems to Hieroglyphic imply honour, as well as when accompanied by a man stretching out his arm, or by a bird. The bird, also, frequently stands alone in similar passages, and must be translated respect, or respectable. The block with the bird has also manifestly the same sense in the great ritual, and the vase with the bowl is so nearly synonymous with it, that we can only translate it venerable; and these characters are frequently exchanged for a sort of bench, with a dash under it, a symbol which may, however, possibly have been deduced from some different origin. The sense of the feather is peculiarly illustrated by its occurrence with a drop or club, a serpent, and a line, at the beginning of a great variety of inscriptions, apparently signifying immortal honour to. See n. 172.

125. The eye, either with or without the pupil, and either preceded or followed by the undulated line, has a sense somewhat similar to all these, and is often employed at the beginning of the honorary inscriptions. On the Rosetta stone, it means distinctly rite, or adoration. The enchorial character, corresponding to it, expresses also simply doing; as in Greek the same word signifies to "do" and to "sacrifice."

126. Worship, or the Greek therapia, is denoted by a very unintelligible character, resembling a kind of capstan, which is frequently delineated in the boats of the tablets; if it is not intended for some emblematical figure erected in the boats. On the great green sarcophagus, the long bent line is a snake, and the point projecting upwards from the middle is a sword. But these resemblances afford us little or no assistance in tracing the connexion between the whole emblem and its sense.

127, 128. The character denoting father is found in some of the inscriptions of the Ptolemies, in such circumstances that it might as easily be supposed to mean mother; but, by means of Mr Bullock's scarabaeus, compared with some other monuments, another character having been determined for mother, it became easy to identify the symbol for father on the Rosetta stone, where it had been a little injured, and imperfectly copied in the engravings.

129. The frequent occurrence of the Egyptian goose, or sheldrake, with a circle over it, between two proper names, sufficiently points out the meaning of these characters, which can only relate to the connexion between them, and which must naturally mean son; the circle may perhaps be intended for an egg; but in the painted sculptures the disc is red, and the circumference light. The enchorial character nearly resembles the form in which some kinds of birds are usually expressed in the manuscripts (n. 22, 130). Mr Bailey has also observed the occurrence of the bird between two proper names, and has identified it with the chenalopex mentioned by Horapollo, as employed to signify son, on account of its courage in defending its offspring. This quality might rather have been expected to lead to its adoption as a symbol for a parent; but its existence in the bird in question is confirmed by the observations of modern naturalists respecting the sheldrake, the tadorne of Buffon, which has generally been considered as the chenalopex, and resembles very accurately the best of the hieroglyphic delineations of the bird, although the colours, as exhibited in the Hieroglyphic Description de l'Egypte, are not correctly natural.

130. The same bird, with a leg or a dash instead of a circle, seems to mean a minister or attendant, especially in several parts of the inscriptions on the Lover's Fountain. There are also some other characters which seem to be nearly synonymous with these; one of them may possibly be meant for a tail, implying a follower, as sat and sa are nearly alike in Coptic; another is sometimes worn as a collar, perhaps implying subjection, and meaning servant.

131, 132. Instead of the usual character for son, we sometimes find, between two names, a serpent with a globe substituted for the bird, and an oval for the circle; and the context seems to require that the meaning of these symbols should be a daughter, but probably with some particular character of royalty or divinity; and at Philae we find a dual, meaning sons or descendants, as a son and a daughter, expressed apparently by two circles only.

133. A child, or infant, is represented by a figure bent as if sitting, and putting his finger on his lip. This is sufficiently established by the triple inscription; but it is still further confirmed by a plate of the Description de l'Egypte (Antiq. II. pl. 86, f. 1); in which a figure of this kind is represented as immediately derived from the father, who seems to be inspired by a beetle entering his mouth. The manuscripts afford us here some valuable steps, by which the enchorial character is connected with the distinct hieroglyphics. Another figure, which is elsewhere used as corresponding to a beetle, is also found in the enchorial text in the sense of son or offspring.

134, 135. A circle, with an arm holding an angular line, means a director; the angular line is intended for part of a rudder; and the same character, with the addition of the figure of a boat, denotes the pilot or helmsman, as is obvious from many parts of the green sarcophagus. The circle and arm are also found in the character denoting dedicate. (N. 150.)

136. A pair of arms holding an oar, and connected by a sort of sector, signifies a rower; and possibly also a labourer, or workman in general, as in image. (N. 101.)

137. A stem of a plant, perhaps a reed, followed by an insect like a wasp or ichneumon, but probably intended for a bee, and by two semicircles, is the complete emblem for a king; but the reed is often used alone in the same sense, and the insect sometimes occurs without the reed. Plutarch says, that a king was denoted by a leaf, thiron; and Horapollo tells us, that a bee signified a people obedient to a king; hence this symbol might be interpreted king of men. Ammianus Marcellinus, however, asserts, more simply, that a king was denoted by a bee. It appears from the manuscripts, that the beginning of the enchorial character, which Mr Akerblad reads phu, is derived from the elementary traces representing the reed, the semicircle, a waved line, and a sitting deity, meaning the divine king, an assemblage which often occurs on the green sarcophagus, and elsewhere, as applied to a royal person. The remainder of the enchorial character seems to repre- Hieroglyphic sent a termination consisting of a semicircle and a Vocabulary vessel, which is often added to a name, apparently as a demonstration of respect, like the vessel and the spiral in the case of the god Nilus. (N. 19)

138. Condition, or subjection, is denoted by a character which somewhat resembles an altar with an offering of flowers; but which might also be intended for the cup of a flower, with an insect hovering over it.

139. In the term kingdom, the crown is figuratively employed for its wearer; a metaphor common in many modern languages.

140. The character denoting a libation is very indistinctly traced in the sacred inscription of Rosetta, so that it would have been impossible to explain its original form without the assistance of other hieroglyphical monuments. The long water jar, out of which the kneeling figure is pouring a divided stream, somewhat resembles those which a modern Egyptian woman is seen carrying, in a plate of Mr Legh's second edition.

141, 142. The vase with the stream, which frequently occurs in the character for priest, is sometimes found alone, and must therefore probably relate to some particular ceremony performed by the priests, approaching to the nature of a libation. On the stone of Rosetta, the line is a simple curve, not waved; nor is the vase more distinctly represented. Instead of the sitting figure, a foot is sometimes substituted, as in the word attendant (n. 130): and the enchoral character is a more tolerable approximation to this form than to the complete figure.

143. Priesthood is simply the condition of a priest; the character prefixed answering to the Coptic prefix mer, and to the Greek termination eia.

144. The ornaments of the head are very generally used as indicating the person by whom they are worn; and flowers, probably those of the lotus, are frequently found on the heads of the priests, as well as in the inscriptions which accompany them. In the inscription of Rosetta, the sense sacerdotal agrees very well with the context, where this character occurs; though it cannot be deduced with absolute certainty from the comparison with the Greek.

145. It is by no means easy to explain why the figure like a buckle should clearly mean an assembly: perhaps, however, the upper part may originally have been a crescent, implying monthly; and the scale or basin below is occasionally found supporting some offerings, which are set upright in it; so that the whole may have meant a monthly exhibition.

146. The character god is made an adjective by the addition of the waved line, and of the long drop, which seem simply to convert it into the term sacred; or, if the drop has any other meaning, it can only relate to worshipping or honouring; as the character prefixed in the enchoral text, which is equivalent to the scale or basin, is elsewhere employed to signify honour or attention. In some other instances, a circle and a waved line seem to be employed in a similar manner, for connecting one character with another like substantive and adjective.

147. An epithet implying consecrated, or dedicated, is composed of a trident, or triple branch or root, followed by a bent line. It occurs very commonly near the beginning of inscriptions, on obelisks, and elsewhere.

148. A little oblique cross, over an arm with a feather, seems to mean to give, and perhaps to fight and to defend; as, in Coptic, the word ti has both these senses. It is often preceded by a circle and a semicircle.

149. The hand bearing the triangle or pyramid (n. 111) manifestly means, in the frize of Montagu and Ficoroni, to offer, as an oblation to a deity.

150. In the inscription of Rosetta, we find the word dedicate expressed by a bent line and a sitting figure, with the circle and the arm holding the rudder, n. 134; the character already interpreted consecrated precedes, but it is not absolutely certain that it belongs to the same phrase.

151. The term lawful is naturally enough derived from a deity in his judicial capacity; the figure is preceded by a bird, placed between two semicircles, which must here mean according to, answering to the termination ful. Sometimes a curved line, supported by a stem, is substituted as a synonym for the figure of the judge.

152.. 154. The character representing good strongly resembles the figure of a lute, depicted in the chamber of the harps, among the catacombs, and may have alluded to the pleasing sound of music. The plural, with the scale or basin, which implies bestowing, makes the epithet eucharistus, which in Greek is somewhat ambiguous, meaning either grateful or munificent; the latter, however, must be its sense in this inscription, because good gifts or delights may be plural, but gratitude not so easily. The lute is also found denoting good in other parts of the inscription. The enchoral character for the scale could scarcely have been suspected to be derived from it, without the assistance of the manuscripts, which constantly exhibit an intermediate form, intended, perhaps, to comprehend one of the lines supporting the scale.

155. The semicircle, with two oblique dashes, seems to mean great in the name of Thoth, who is called, in the Greek inscription of Rosetta, Hermes the great and great: while, in other places, this character seems almost always to convey the sense of a dual. The enchoral epithet of Thoth is a little like the crown with two semicircles, which is most frequently found among the titles of Osiris, especially when he sits in judgment.

155*. The two kinds of hats, worn by the different deities, seem to be intended by the characters of the Rosetta stone, which express the upper and lower regions or countries. These two characters are also found together in the green sarcophagus as the names of two goddesses; and they occur together in one or two passages of some of the manuscripts, and in an inscription at Philae, so that, although the representation is very indistinct in the particular case of the Rosetta stone, there is little doubt that the cap of Osiris meant, in this case, superior, and that of Hyperion and other personages inferior. (Pl. LXXVIII. L.) 156. A circle and a semicircle stand, in several passages of the inscription of Rosetta, for OTHERS, or remaining.

157. Possibly, the bowl and the bird together mean say or call, and the figure of a man may serve to make the passive CALLED.

158. The second bowl, substituted for the bird, does not appear very essentially to alter the sense, which is still a thing said or proclaimed; a DECLARATION, or a decree.

159. The characters denoting MANIFEST seem to have some analogy to called, though their derivation is obscure. The first character may either be intended for the country (n. 84), or for a kind of flag or banner.

160. The ring, which implies a NAME, and which, elsewhere, distinguishes proper names, seems to be an imitation of the label, called a "phylactery" in the Greek inscription of Rosetta, on which the name of a figure was usually distinguished.

161. A disc, with rays descending from it, is one of the few characters in which the form gives us some assistance towards determining the sense, which is found to be ENLIGHTENING; though the Egyptians do not seem to have been very correct in their delineation of the notion of light, which they make to diverge in curved lines, like those described by a common projectile. See n. 8, n. 63.

162. The square block, the semicircle, and the chain, are employed very clearly in the sense of LOVING or beloved; the Coptic MAI. In the enchorial character the square and semicircle seem to be sometimes transposed, and sometimes changed into an oval.

163. PRESERVER, or saviour, is represented by a sort of trefoil, with a long stem, which answers to a cross or obelisc in the enchorial text; but, in other passages, the character takes the form of a still simpler club; and, in others again, it has something like a bulbous root.

164, 165. (Pl. LXXVII.) A frame like a ladder, supported by a stem, occurs sometimes as a part of a head dress, but it is difficult to say if it represents any other object. Followed by an arm, and a pair of legs, it signifies set up, and this combination of characters is of very frequent occurrence; sometimes also the bent line or divided shaft forms a part of it. In Coptic, set up is expressed by set on foot, which seems to retain the analogy of the hieroglyphical character. The substitution of a pair of feathers for the legs, however, does not appear materially to alter the sense; the context, where it occurs, requiring the word PREPARE or construct.

G. RELATIONS.

166. Two ovals, with a semicircle and an arm, very clearly signify IN ORDER THAT. The ovals seem to mean to or for, and the arm action or doing; as our own that seems to be allied to the German that, which means deed. The same combination of characters appears to denote, in another passage, to add to; and one of the ovals is sometimes omitted. The Coptic may be either HINA or ETHBE.

167. The symbols, employed in the sense WHERE-EVER, seem to mean separately, at, in, one, or in, place, one; and, transposing the two last, we may make a very good Coptic word E-U-MA.

168, 169. The arm and chain signify AND or ALSO; and the oval sometimes takes place of the arm, without much variation of the sense; this combination is also found in the sense of with, or together with. The elementary ideas seem to be put, with, or add, with. Between the names of Ptolemy and Berenice at Karnak, the arm and chain are separate.

170. The half arch, or the fork, which is perfectly equivalent to it, followed by two curls and two semicircles, mean MOREOVER: the reduplication probably resembling that of many of the Coptic verbs, which generally imply a continued action.

171. The combination of the loop or sling, with two semicircles and three ovals, means very clearly LIKEWISE. The loop seems to represent a bucket, intended for one of a pair, to be carried on a pole, as they are frequently delineated in the tablets: so that it must mean a companion; and accordingly we find it in a very common epithet of a king, on obelises and elsewhere, with a circle and a bar, denoting the companion of the sun, or simply resembling the sun. In the enchorial character for likewise, the symbols seem to be transposed, and the loop is doubled.

172. An owl, signifying IN, seems to be nearly synonymous with the half arch, which is also sometimes to be understood in the sense of all; both these characters occur also in many instances where they can only be considered as marks of respect, and not very essential to the sense; and in this they resemble the Coptic prefix M, which is a particle not very distinctly intelligible, nor capable of being translated; it is also not a little remarkable, that the m of Akerblad's alphabet is the enchorial character which answers to both of these symbols. (See n. 123.)

173, 174. A hare over two waved lines is employed, either alone, or together with a head, dash, circle, and dash, which have separately a similar sense, for UPON, OVER, or at; and it is remarkable, that a similar relation exists in Coptic between EHREI, and EJO; JO or DCHO also meaning a head. The enchorial character, in some of it forms, is manifestly a coarse imitation of an animal. The head is always represented in the manuscripts, by a character nearly like a Greek Σ; and this may possibly have been the origin of the Coptic letter JANJA, if it was derived from a hieroglyphic; but it is equally probable that it may have been intended for a combination of a delta and a chi.

175. A semicircle and an oval mean FOR, as relating to time.

176. A ball, with two short appendages, one narrower than the other, occurs several times on the Rosetta stone, and seems to have been intended for a head seen in profile, which is often found on other monuments. This character, together with a dash, seems to signify BY THE, or each; for instance every year, or every month.

177. The hat, interposed between "an image" and "the king," can only mean OF OR FOR; it is often Hieroglyphic substituted, in passages which are frequently repeated, ed., for the waved line; each being probably equivalent to the Coptic nte, or rather n; which also sometimes makes an adjective of a substantive, as nnuB, golden, from nub, gold. See n. 58, 89, 140.

H. TIME.

178. A day seems to be very naturally expressed by splendour of the sun, or sunshine. See n. 119, n. 8.

179. A crescent turned downwards, with a star and the sun, makes up the character signifying a month; to which a semicircle and a scale or basin are sometimes added. Horapollo says, that a month is denoted by a palm branch, or by an inverted crescent; but the crescent is too indistinct, on the stone of Rosetta, to have allowed us to recognise it, without the assistance of the collateral inscriptions.

180. A year is denoted by a bent line with a little projection from the middle, which seems to represent a plant with an annual shoot or bud; it is commonly followed by a semicircle and a block or dash.

181. There is some little uncertainty respecting the exact limits of the characters denoting the first month Thoyth. The name seems to have some relation to gathering the harvest, and the emblem is probably intended for a field of corn: and perhaps, as the year is said to have begun originally with the dogdays, the appropriation of this character to the first month may have been contemporaneous with the origin of the calendar.

182, 183. The sixth month, Mechir, is remarkable for having half as many crescents as the twelfth Mesore: this relation would without doubt be further illustrated, if we could discover any thing like a calendar, among the immense mass of Egyptian literature which is still in existence. The manuscript, which Montfaucon calls a calendar, merely because it is divided into twelve columns, has no pretensions to the name.

184, 185. The symbol for the sun seems to be employed in the designation both of the first day of the month, the neomenia of the Greek inscription, and of the last, or thirtieth day. Of the characters following the sun, the one seems to mean good, or rather new, as in Thoyth, the month of the new year: the other old or last. This character might be taken for a serpent, or for a branch of a tree; but it seems more probable that it is intended for the tail of an animal, since it occurs in several passages of the manuscripts as representing a tail; and the tail of the month is sufficiently expressive of the sense. See n. 130.

I. NUMBERS.

186. Units are denoted by short lines, like the Roman I. Mr Akerblad first noticed the first three numerals in the last line of the sacred characters of Rosetta, where the Greek text is deficient, and the words "first and second" only remain; and this observation alone was sufficient to prove, that the hieroglyphical characters related to a real language, and were not simply ornamental decorations, as some persons have imagined.

187. 196. The twisted line, distinguishing the ordinal numbers, answers to the Coptic man; which is prefixed to the cardinals in the same sense; in the enchorial text the corresponding character follows the number. The three points are more commonly employed, when they follow a word, to make it plural; but when they signify a numeral, they are generally placed immediately above some other character; and, in the enchorial inscription, this numeral is distinguished by making the lines oblique and joining them.

197. For the number ten we have a Greek pi, either square or rounded, not only in the inscription of Rosetta, but in many other places.

198. We find the number seventeen recurring twice as a date in the inscription of Rosetta; the Greek text, in another part, alluding to the same period, has 18; and the enchorial words are too indistinctly marked to allow us to judge of the identity or diversity of the two numbers; but the difference of a day is of no consequence, since the festival of the "assumption of the kingdom" may easily have begun on the 17th of Mechir, and have continued to the next day, which is the date of the decree.

199, 200. The enchorial character for thirty, applied to years, seems to be the same as is elsewhere used in the sense of the thirtieth day; but the numbers are almost always confused in the running hand, and exhibit several deviations from the regular system of the sacred characters; the number forty, for example, in the remarkable passage relating to the 42 assessors of Osiris, seems to be denoted by a single line with a dash on it.

201. 203. The curl, like the figure 9, meaning a hundred, and the notched circle, supported by a cross, denoting a thousand, occur, in several inscriptions, so combined with units and tens, as to leave no doubt respecting the numbers that they represent. This is particularly evident from the consideration of an inscription "believed to have been found at Karnak." (Descr. de l'Egypte. Ant. III. Pl. 38. F. 26. 30.)

204. Plurals are distinguished by writing a character three times, or by putting three dashes after it; and sometimes, perhaps, though very rarely, before it: occasionally also by repeating a part of a collection of symbols once only. In the manuscripts, the three dashes are generally joined into a crooked stroke; which, in the enchorial inscription, sometimes both precedes and follows the word; while, in other cases, the second stroke is converted into a single vertical line, which serves to limit the extent of the characters meant to be made plural; the representation being so imperfect, that this assistance is more required than in the sacred characters: and it may be observed, that this second mark is never wanting in the enchorial inscription, as it must frequently have been, if the character had been alphabetical; since many of the Egyptian plurals end precisely as their singulars do; and even when they differ from them, it is not by the addition of any one uniform termination. K. SOUNDS.

205. . 218. The phonetic characters, according to the traces which may be discovered in the words Berenice, Ptolemy, Greek, and some others (n. 56, 58, 74, 83, 125, 172), will afford something like a hieroglyphic alphabet, which, however, is merely collected as a specimen of the mode of expressing sounds in some particular cases, and not as having been universally employed where sounds were required. The supposed enchorial alphabet, which is subjoined, is applicable to most of the proper names in the inscription of Rosetta, and probably also to some other symbols which have been the prototypes of the characters: it is taken from the alphabet of Akerblad, but considerably modified by the conjectures which have been published in the Museum Criticum.

L. ADDITIONS. Pl. LXXVIII. See n. 21, 78, 155.

M. SPECIMENS OF PHRASES.

The last line of the inscription of Rosetta will serve as a specimen of the way in which the hieroglyphical characters were combined, so as to form a language; and will show at the same time the relation between the sacred and the enchorial texts. At the beginning of the line we find some obscurity, and a want of perfect correspondence in the two inscriptions; but it is clear that the fork or ladder, the arm and the feathers, mean to prepare or procure (n. 165); then follows a column (n. 91); the wavy line, of (n. 177); the semicircle and two dashes, with the arm, probably strong or hard; the block or square below, with its semicircle, stone; the loop or knot wrought or engraven; the half arch in or with; the instrument or case, writing, or letters (n. 103); the wavy line, the hatchet, and drop, with the three dashes making a plural, appropriate to the gods, that is, sacred (n. 146); the case again, letters; the hat, of (n. 177); the ladder, arm, and feathers, the country; the serpent and bent line, approaching to the sense of perpetuity and greatness, seem to be a mark of respect to the country, though it is barely possible that they may be substituted for the repetition of the instrument or case, and may mean the language, and belong to the following curl on the stem, the feathers, the serpent, and the hat, which signify Greek (n. 83). The headdress of flowers meaning probably a priest, the following curl with the dashes probably ornamental or honorary, or perhaps collective, and the two bowls, with the man in the plural, a publication (n. 158), the whole of these symbols must express the honorary decree of the priests, or the decree of the assembled priests; but the enchorial text seems to include the symbol for honour. The oval, with the semicircle and arm, implies in order that, or in order to; the fork with cross bars, the arm, the legs, and the snake, set it up (n. 164); the bird, in (n. 172); the three broad feathers over as many open squares, the temples, as a plural; the half arch and oval with the plural dashes, Hieroglyphic all, or of all kinds; the open square, wheel, scale, head, dash, and ring, Egypt (n. 80); the figure with a vase on his head, subjection or power, as in n. 139; making the whole, belonging to Egypt, or throughout Egypt; the fork and dash are in, or in all; the knots or chains, followed by the numbers, of the first, the second, and the third order (n. 187, 189, 191); the oval, half arch, and dash, wherever, or in which, leaving out "shall be," the tool and standing figure, with the intervening characters, the image (n. 101); the hat, of; the reed and bee, with the semicircles, King; the square, semicircle, lion, half arch, two feathers, and bent line, Ptolemy (n. 56); the handled cross and serpent with the two semicircles, the everliving (n. 110); the square block, semicircle, and chain, dear to (n. 162); the hieralph and two feathers, Phthah, or Vulcan (n. 6); all this being included within the ring or phylactery together with the name; the open square, the oval, and the pair of legs after the ring, illustrious or Epiphanes (n. 121); and lastly, the scale and the three lutes, munificent (n. 154); the conjunctions being often omitted, as they also very commonly are in Coptic, and even in Greek.

The enchorial text agrees in many parts extremely well with the hieroglyphics, according to the general style of imitation which has been already explained and exemplified, although in some passages there is a greater difference than might have been expected. The beginning of the enchorial line seems to contain the word decree, which cannot be found in this part of the hieroglyphics; the character for letters occurs three times in it, as if the sacred character used in the third place meant language; the "sacerdotal decree" of the sacred characters is omitted in the corresponding part of the enchorial; the world temples is repeated before each numeral; the term wherever is amplified; the image is a very coarse imitation, and is followed by the character for a deity, meaning sacred or divine; and, lastly, the name of Ptolemy is omitted, the word king being only followed by "whose life shall be for ever;" or a phrase of similar import.

N. COMPARISON OF MANUSCRIPTS.

The subjoined specimens of a comparison of the different manuscripts, which deviate more or less from the form of distinct hieroglyphics, with others in which those characters are preserved almost entire, though slightly traced, will serve to show the complete identity of the different systems in their original form; the first and fourth lines being taken from the great hieratic manuscript of Strasburg, and the rest from other copies of the same text, which are universally considered as written in the epistolographical character. We cannot discover the entire connected sense of the whole passages, but we may easily observe the symbols for gods, established, Osiris, Isis, Nephthe, "Hieracion" to set up, four, priests, and child or prince. (Désr. de l'Ég. Ant. II. Plate LXXIV. col. 106; LX. col. 3; LXII. col. 2; Plate LXXII. col. 38; LXVII. col. 2.) SECTION VIII.—General Character and Subjects of the Egyptian Monuments.

By means of the knowledge of the hieroglyphic characters, which has been already obtained, we are fully competent to form a general idea of the nature of the inscriptions on the principal Egyptian monuments that are extant. Numerous as they are, there is scarcely one of them which we are not able to refer to the class either of sepulchral or of votive inscriptions; astronomical and chronological there seem to be none, since the numerical characters, which have been perfectly ascertained, have not yet been found to occur in such a form as they necessarily must have assumed in the records of this description: of a historical nature, we can only find the triumphal, which are often sufficiently distinguishable, but they may also always be referred to the votive; since whoever related his own exploits thought it wisest to attribute the glory of them to some deity, and whoever recorded those of another, was generally disposed to intermix divine honours with his panegyric. 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; the custom is observable in monuments of a much earlier age; indeed, in such a country it might be considered as a kind of dilemma of degradation, whether it was most ridiculous to be made a divinity, or to be excluded from so plebeian an assemblage; but flattery is more prone to err by commission than by omission, and, consequently, we find the terms king and god very generally inseparable. The sepulchral inscriptions, from the attention that was paid in Egypt to the obsequies of the dead, appear, on the whole, to constitute the most considerable part of the Egyptian literature which remains, and they afford us, upon a comparative examination, some very remarkable peculiarities. The general tenor of all these inscriptions appears to be, as might be expected from the testimony of Herodotus, the identification of the deceased with the God Osiris, and probably, if a female, with Isis; and the subject of the most usual representations seems to be the reception of this new personage by the principal deities, to whom he now stands in a relation expressed in the respective inscriptions; the honour of an apotheosis, reserved by the ancient Romans for emperors, and by the modern for saints, having been apparently extended by the old Egyptians to private individuals of all descriptions. It required an extensive comparison of these inscriptions to recognise their precise nature, since they seldom contain a name surrounded by a ring in its usual form: sometimes, however, as on the green sarcophagus of the British Museum, a distinct name is very often repeated, and preceded by that of Osiris; while, in most other instances, there is a certain combination of characters, bearing evident relation to the personage delineated, which occurs, after the symbols of Osiris, instead of the name; so that either the ring was simply omitted on this occasion, or a new, and perhaps a mysterious name was employed, consisting frequently of the appellations of several distinct deities, and probably analogous to the real name. That the characteristic phrase, so repeated, must have had some relation to the deceased, is proved by its scarcely ever being alike, in any two monuments that have been compared, while almost every other part of the manuscripts and inscriptions are the same in many different instances, and some of them in almost all; and this same phrase may be observed in Lord Mountnorris's and Mr Bankes's manuscripts, placed over the head of the person who is brought up between the two goddesses, to make his appearance before the true Osiris, in his own person, and in his judicial capacity, with his counsellors about him, and the balance of justice before him. (Hierogl. 5. E F G e f.) In this instance the phrase consists of the names of "Hyperion" and the Sun, preceded by a block and an arm with an offering (Plate LXXXVIII. O), and it may be interpreted, without any violence, "the votary of Hyperion and of Phre." In a small manuscript, engraved by Denon, the part, which resembles the characteristic phrase of other manuscripts, is followed by the name of a king (P), which is nearly identical with that of the father of the Pseudomennon in the British Museum (Q), the one having the hieralph laid flat, the other the traces of the pedestal, which is equivalent to it. (N. 6.)

The tablet of the last judgment, which is so well illustrated by the testimony of Diodorus concerning the funerals of the Egyptians (Sect. 5.) is found near the end of almost all the manuscripts upon papyrus, that are so frequently discovered in the coffins of the mummies, and among others in Lord Mountnorris's hieratic manuscript, printed in the Collection of the Egyptian Society. The great deity sits on the left, holding the hook and the whip or fan; his name and titles are generally placed over him; but this part of the present manuscript is a little injured. Before him is a kind of mace, supporting something like the skin of a leopard; then a female Cerberus, and on a shelf over her head, the tetrad of termini, which have been already distinguished by the names "Tetrarcha," Anubis, Macedo, and "Hieracion," each having had his appropriate denomination written over his head. Behind the Cerberis stands Thoth, with his style and tablet, having just begun to write. Over his head, in two columns, we find his name and titles, including his designation as a scribe. The balance follows, with a little baboon as a kind of genius, sitting on it. Under the beam stand "Cteristes" and "Hyperion," 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 Rhea, the wife of the sun. She is looking back at the personage who holds up his hand as a mark of respect, and who is identified as the deceased by the name simply placed over him, without any exordium. 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 are wanting in this tablet; and, in many other manuscripts, their number is curtailed, to make room for other subjects; but, in several of those which are engraved in the Description de l'Egypte, they are all represented, sometimes as sitting figures, and sometimes standing as termini, with their feet united.

The principal part of the text of all these manuscripts appears to consist of a collection of hymns, or rather homages to certain deities, generally expressed in the name of the deceased, with his title of Osiris, although the true Osiris is not excluded from the groups that are introduced. The upper part of each manuscript is occupied by a series of pictorial tablets; under them are vertical columns of distinct hieroglyphics, or, in the epistolographic manuscripts, pages of the text, which are commonly divided 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. The beginning of the manuscript is seldom entire, being always at the outside of the roll; as the "umbilicus" of the Romans was synonymous with the end. Not far from the beginning, we always find a large tablet, occupying the whole depth of the paper, representing the sun adored by his ministering spirits. In the large hieratic manuscript, which occupies four plates of the Description de l'Egypte, and which may be considered as a fine specimen of the most highly finished copies, there are at present only four columns remaining before this tablet. It is followed by a short section, with a rubric, which is not very distinctly expressed; after this are 35 others, beginning with a long rubric (Plate LXXVIII. R.), which is usually followed by the name of a divinity, represented in a neighbouring part of the margin, and which may be supposed to mean something like "Respect and reverence he paid to each of the sacred powers." The next ten sections begin with the rubric of a feather, and a sitting figure raising his hand to his head, as if holding a vase on it (S), meaning probably "Honour is due," or belonging to; then follow the name and titles of Thoth or Hermes, and the phrase describing the deceased in the character of Osiris; and afterwards, the names of each of a group of deities, which is represented in the corresponding tablet with an altar and a suppliant before them. These groups are different in the different sections, but they correspond pretty accurately with each other in the various manuscripts, and this hermetic decad is the most constant part of the manuscripts found with the mummies, though a little more extended in some than in others. (Hierogl. 4.) After these, we find 35 sections, beginning with a drop, a feather, a serpent, and a line (T); the rubric being immediately followed by the deified name peculiar to the manuscript. This exordium, from the analogy of the term sacred (n. 146), we can have no hesitation in understanding as a derivative of the feather, signifying honour or ornament, and the serpent signifying perpetuity, and in translating it, "Eternal honour" or respect. A similar sense seems, in other places, to be expressed by the open square or the pyramid, instead of the feather (U, V); and not uncommonly the hat is substituted for the line, without any variation of the meaning (W). After these 35 sections, we have two others, of which the rubrics are less intelligible, followed by 42 short ones, which evidently contain the names and titles of as many separate deities, whose figures are commonly represented in the great tablet, near that of Osiris. We may generally observe, among the epithets of each, the term "illustrious" (n. 121); and each section has a second paragraph, beginning with a pair of arms extended, a character which seems occasionally to be used in reference to the equal scales of justice, though on the stone of Rosetta it appears to signify a kind of temple, so that it may possibly relate to the honours to be paid to these divine judges. With a few additional columns, and with the great tablet of the judgment, the manuscript concludes. It does not contain the figure of the sacred cow, which is the termination of most other manuscripts; nor the agricultural representations, which are frequently found in many of them, especially in that of Lord Mountnorris (Hierogl. 8), with the three deities sitting in a grotto under it. The last of these, according to the inscriptions over the two boats, is meant for Arueris, the second apparently for the mother of the sun, and the first for Osiris; and one of the boats carries the steps, which seem to be emblematic of the solar power; the other the throne or chair of state, which is universally appropriated to Osiris.

The coffins of the mummies, and the large 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. The space below is chiefly occupied by figures of twenty or thirty of the principal deities, to whom the deceased, in his mystical character, is doing homage; each of them being probably designated by the relationship in which he stands to the new representative of Osiris. In the sculptures, the figures are generally less numerous; the same deities are commonly represented as on the painted coffins, but without the repetition of the suppliant, and in an order subject to some little variation. The large sarcophagus of granite, in the British Museum, brought from Cairo, and formerly called the Lover's Fountain, has the name of Apis, as a part of the characteristic denomination. This circumstance, at first sight, seemed to make it evident that it must have been intended to contain the mummy of an Apis, for which its magnitude renders it well calculated; but, when the symbols of other deities were found in the mystic names upon various other monuments, this inference could no longer be considered as absolutely conclusive.

Of the votive or dedicatory inscriptions we find an interesting example on a small scale, in the engraving on the bottom of a scarabaeus, very neatly sculptured in a softish steatite, or lapis alatus, brought from Egypt by Mr Legh, and now in the possession of Dr Macmichael. (Plate LXXVIII. X.) It is re- markable for its simplicity, and for affording an intelligible sense in all its parts. The chain, the semicircle, and the square block, mean clearly [To] the beloved; the loop supporting a wreath or crown, and the imperfect sitting figure, resemble some of the titles often given to Osiris, and with the following oval pretty certainly signify of the great god; the throne, the semicircle, and the oval, Isis; the sitting figure, the goddess; the looped wreath, perhaps the great; the bird and circle, offspring of; the hieralphra or lough, and the two feathers, Phthah; the pillar perhaps the powerful, but it is not distinctly formed; the beetle seems to be here a synonym or epithet of Phthah, as if the father of all; the handled cross, the living; the lute, the good; the pyramid, the prosperous or glorious; the ring with the handle seems to be nearly synonymous with the chain, and may be rendered, in conjunction with the line and the hieralphra, the approved of Phthah, an epithet found in the inscription of Rosetta; the hatchet is the deity; the ring and handle, with the two lutes, approaches near to the symbol for munificent (n. 154), and may be called delighting in good gifts; and the concluding ring and staff or hatchet may either mean, this is dedicated; or may, with rather more probability, be considered as a reduplication of the beginning of the line, in an inverted position. It may be remarked, that all the inscriptions on the scarabaei run from right to left, as is most commonly observed wherever the direction was indifferent; so that if they were used as seals, the impression must have assumed the form which is somewhat less usual in other cases.

We have a most valuable example of a dedicatory inscription on a larger scale in the decree preserved on the stone of Rosetta, which, besides its utility in affording the only existing clue for deciphering the hieroglyphic characters, gives us also a very complete idea of the general style of the records of the Egyptian hierarchy. Of the triumphal monuments, the most magnificent are the obelisks, which are reported by Pliny to have been dedicated to the Sun; and there is every reason to suppose, that the translation of one of these inscriptions, preserved by Ammianus Marcellinus, after Hermapion, contains a true representation of a part of its contents, more especially as "the mighty Apollo" of Hermapion agrees completely with the hawk, the bull, and the arm, which usually occupy the beginning of each inscription. These symbols are generally followed by a number of pompous titles, not always very intimately connected with each other, and among them we often find that of "Lord of the asp-bearing diadems," with some others, immediately preceding the name and parentage of the sovereign, who is the principal subject of the inscription. 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 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 beneficent deity "Remesses," great in glory, superior to his enemies; by the decree of an assembly, to the powerful and flourishing, whose life shall be without end." It is true, that some parts of this interpretation are in great measure conjectural; but none of it is altogether arbitrary, or unsupported by some probable analogy: and the spirit and tenor of the inscription is probably unimpaired by the alterations, which this approximation to the sense may unavoidably have introduced.

Of the obelisks still in existence there are perhaps about thirty larger and smaller, which may be considered as genuine. Several others are decidedly spurious, having been chiefly sculptured at Rome in imitation of the Egyptian style, but so negligently and unskilfully, as to have exhibited a striking difference even in the character of the workmanship. Such are the Pamphilian, in explanation of which the laborious Kircher has published a folio volume, and the Barbarian or Veranian: in both of these the emblems are put together in a manner wholly arbitrary; and where an attempt is made to imitate the appearance of a name, the characters are completely different at each repetition. The Sallustian obelisk 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 Zoega. Another very celebrated monument, the Isiac table, which has been the subject of much profound discussion, and has given birth to many refined mythological speculations, is equally incapable of supporting a minute examination upon solid grounds; for the inscriptions neither bear any relation to the figures near which they are placed, nor form any connected sense of their own; and the whole is undoubtedly the work of a Roman sculptor, imitating only the general style and the separate delineations of the Egyptian tablets, as indeed some of the most learned and acute of our critical antiquaries had already asserted, notwithstanding the contrary opinions of several foreigners, of the highest reputation for their intimate acquaintance with the works of Greek and Roman art. We may hope, however, that in future these unprofitable discussions and disputes will become less and less frequent, and that our knowledge of the antiquities of Egypt will gain as much in the solidity and sufficiency of its evidence, as it may probably lose in its hypothetical symmetry and its imaginary extent; and while we allow every latitude to legitimate reasoning and cautious conjecture, in the search after historical truth, we must peremptorily exclude from our investigations an attachment to fanciful systems and presupposed analogies on the one hand, and a too implicit deference to traditional authority on the other.

ELBA, an island of the Mediterranean, separated by a narrow channel from the western coast of Italy. It lies in 42° 49' 6'' N. Lat., and 10° 9' 24'' E. Long. from London. It is about 70 English miles in circuit, but the coast is very winding and irregular.

Elba is supposed to have been first peopled by a colony of Etruscans, but was afterwards occupied by a body of those Greeks who founded Marseilles. It fell afterwards under the dominion of Carthage, and was taken by the Romans during the first Punic war.

HIEROGLYPHICKS.

A. DEITIES

1 GOD powerful 2 GOD judge 3 GODDESS 4 GODS 5 Agathodaemon 6 PHITHAH 7 AMMON 8 PHIRE 9 RHEA 10 ION 11 THOTH 12 OSIRIS 13 ARUERIS 14 ISIS 15 NEPHTHE 16 BUTO 17 HORUS

18 PAAMYLES 19 NILUS 20 APIS 21 MNEUIS 22 Hyperion 23 Cteristes 24 Tetrarcha 25 ANUBIS 26 MACEDO 27 Hieracion 28 Cerexochus 29 Bioiphus 30 Platypterus 31 Mastigias 32 Soraea 33 Thuthmosis 34 Mesphres 35 Misphragmus-thosis

B. KINGS.

36 Tithous 37 Eoa 38 MEMNON 39 Amenses 40 Heron 41 Remesses 42 Sesostris 43 Pheron 44 Nuncoreus 45 Proteus 46 Amaenuphthes 47 Anysis 48 Psammetius 49 NECHAO 50 PSAMMIS 51 Maenuphthes 52 AMASIS 53 (Ptoleberius) 54 Discozygus

HIEROGLYPHICKS.

D. ANIMALS

89. HABITATION 90. THRONE 91. COLUMN 92. DIadem 93. ORNAMENTS 94. SHIP 95. SPEAR 96. BOW 97. ARROW 98. CENSER 99. BIER

E. INANIMATE OBJECTS.

80. EGYPT 81. MEMPHIS 82. RIVER 83. GREEK 84. COUNTRY 85. LAND 86. STAR 87. TEMPLE 88. SHRINE 100. TEAR 101. IMAGE 102. STATUE 103. LETTERS 104. Weight 105. GOLD 106. SILVER 107. Offerings

PLATE LXXVI. HIEROGLYPHICKS

126. WORSHIP 127. FATHER 128. MOTHER 129. SON 130. ATTENDANT 131. DAUGHTER 132. SONS 133. CHILD 134. DIRECTOR 135. STEERSMAN 136. ROWER 137. KING 138. CONDITION 139. KINGDOM 140. LIBATION 141. CEREMONY 142. PRIEST 143. PRIESTHOOD 144. SACRED TALISMAN

146. ASSEMBLY 146. SACRED 147. CONSECRATED 148. GIVE 149. OFFER 150. DEDICATE 151. LAWFUL 152. GOOD 153. BESTOWING 154. MUNIFICENT 155. GREAT 156. OTHERS 157. CALLED 158. DECLARATION 159. MANIFEST 160. NAME 161. ENLIGHTENING 162. LOVING 163. PRESERVER

HIEROGLYPHICKS.

4. SET UP 5. PREPARE G. RELATIONS. 6. IN ORDER THAT 7. WHEREVER 8. AND 9. ALSO, WITH 10. MOREOVER 11. LIKEWISE 12. IN 13. UPON, AT 14. OVER, ON 15. FOR 16. BY THE 17. OF, TO II. TIME 18. DAY 19. MONTH 20. YEAR

181. THOYTH 182. MECHIR 183. MESORE 184. FIRST DAY 185. THIRTIETH 186. ONE 187. FIRST 188. TWO 189. SECOND 190. THREE 191. THIRD 192. THRICE 193. FOUR 194. FIVE 195. SEVEN 196. EIGHTH 197. TEN 198. SEVENTEEN

199. THIRTY 200. FORTY TWO 201. HUNDRED 202. A THOUSAND 203. MCDXXVIII 204. SEVERAL

I. NUMBERS

K. SOUNDS?

SUPPOSED ENCHORIAL ALPHABET.

HIEROGLYPHICKS.

L. ADDITIONS 21* Damalis 78* CROCODILE a b *UPPER, LOWER

M. SPECIMENS OF PHRASES. ROS. INSCR. LAST LINE.

... ΧΤΕΡΕΟΥΛΙΟΥΤΟΙΣΤΕΙΕΡΟΙΣΚΑΙΕΓΧΩΡΙΟΙΣΚΑΙΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΟΙΣΓΡΑΜΜΑΣΙΝ ΚΑΙΣΤΗΣΔΙΕΝΕΚΑΣΤΩΙΤΩΝΤΕΠΡΩΤΩΝΚΑΙΔΕΥΤΕΡΩΝ!

N. COMPARISON OF MANUSCRIPTS.

Published by A. Constable & Co. Edinr. 1819. Engraved by E. Turrell. In the second, Elba supplied iron for naval and military purposes, and was considered as one of the states which had saved the republic. In the contest between Sylla and Marius, the adherents of the latter fled thither for refuge, and Elba became thus involved in prescription and devastation, from the effects of which it never recovered under the Roman dominion. In modern times, it became attached to the commercial republic of Pisa, under whose auspices it rose to a comparatively flourishing state. On the annexation of Pisa to Milan, Elba, with Pianosa, Monte Cristo, Piombino, and other territories, was formed into a little principality, which continued for about two centuries in the hands of Gherardo d'Appiano and his successors; though it was repeatedly occupied as a military station by Charles V. and his ally, the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Being thus involved in the wars of that monarch with the Porte and the Barbary states, Elba became exposed to the incursions of the Turkish corsairs. It was laid waste with fire and sword, once by Barbarossa, and twice by Dragut, and has never fully recovered from these ravages. Under Philip III. it merged into the possessions of Spain, and that prince ordered the construction of Porto Longone, which proved a barrier against the incursions of the corsairs. Several transferences then took place, the result of which was, that, from 1735, the King of Naples had possession of Porto Longone, and the Grand Duke of Tuscany of Porto Ferraio. Elba continued in this state till the French revolution, when it first became part of the kingdom of Etruria, and was then annexed to France. It afterwards attracted a remarkable degree of attention, by becoming the temporary residence of Napoleon Buonaparte. Upon his second downfall, Elba was ceded to the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

The island of Elba is entirely filled with mountains, which are formed into three distinct clusters, separated by a valley, which widens as it approaches the sea. The highest are those situated on the western part of the island, the pinnacle of which, called Monte Capanna, rises upwards of 3000 feet above the level of the sea. The greater part of these hills present an arid, rugged, and often ruinous aspect; but a few are embellished with myrtles, laurels, wild olives, and other verdant shrubs. This western part is almost entirely composed of granite, which forms also the basis of the soil in this quarter of the island. Rock crystal is found abundantly, and often in large masses, but somewhat injured in its transparency, and when combined with alum and slate, produces numerous varieties of calcedony, particularly that called cachalong. The eastern mountains are composed of serpentine and schistus, and abound with aluminous mixtures; but they are chiefly distinguished by the iron which they contain.

From the earliest times, Elba has been celebrated for an uncommon iron mine. It is said by Pliny to have been mentioned in the treaty between Por-senna and the Romans, after the expulsion of the kings. Virgil calls it

"Insula, inexhaustis chalybium generosa metallis."

This mine consists of one entire mountain, about 500 feet high, and bathed by the channel which separates the island from the opposite coast of Piombino. The whole mountain is filled with iron, distributed in confused masses, and in every known variety of form; green and black ore, mica, manganese, hematite, &c. The most rare and remarkable mineral here produced is the crystallized iron. The crystals are of various forms, some lenticular, others specular, with brilliant and polished fronts; others shaped like the comb of a cock, spires, pyramids, &c., while others are polygons and pointed, like diamonds. They have usually the colour and brightness of polished steel, but are sometimes tinted green, red, black, yellow, brown, and violet. A few pieces offer to the enchanted eye the appearance of an assemblage of all the precious stones. The mineralogical cabinet of Florence contains a splendid collection of these specimens, and there are some good ones in the British Museum. The mine of iron extends about a mile into the mountain, and the working was formerly conducted by galleries, but now proceeds under the open sky. The Elbes do not possess the art of forging this iron, which is therefore carried to the founderies of Corsica, and of the opposite coast of Italy. About 18,000 tons are sold, and about 120 vessels, of from 40 to 100 tons each, are employed in exporting it to the neighbouring coasts.

The soil of Elba is unequal, and wants depth; in consequence of which, and of the want of industry in its inhabitants, scarcely any corn is raised. They grow, however, maize, pease, beans, and other species of pulse. Fruits are in general bad; but figs and chestnuts are very plentiful, and the olive and mulberry flourish through the greater part of the island. The most valuable vegetable produce is the grape. The white wine is common, and used only at home; but the red wine is exquisite, though in small quantity; and there are two kinds of dessert wine, both highly esteemed, called Vermont and Aleatico. Wood, both for fuel and carpenter's work, is very scarce; yet Elba produces two remarkable trees, the American aloe and the Indian fig, both of which attain a greater height here than in other parts of Italy. The tunny fishery is considerable, and is carried on both at Porto Ferraio and Marciana. The tunnies visit this coast twice in the year, from April to July, and from September to the end of October. The fishery forms a sort of festival; the sea is covered with boats, which form a vast enclosure, into which, when the tunnies have entered, they are pierced with harpoons, and the sea is reddened with their blood. The annual amount is about L.2500 Sterling. Pearl oysters were formerly caught, but this fishery has been exhausted. There are numerous marine marshes from which salt is evaporated, though the manufacture is not well conducted. The produce is 60,000 sacks, of about 150 lbs. each.

The population of Elba was, in 1778, estimated at 8000, but it has since risen to 12,000 souls. They are a race differing, in many respects, from that which inhabits the continent of Italy. They are well made and robust, and often attain a great age without experiencing ailment or infirmity. They are brave, active, hardy, laborious, and, at the same time, kind-hearted and hospitable. They are, however, irritable and impatient of contradiction. They are almost universally ignorant and credulous, yet have a certain liveliness of imagination, which renders them fond of extravagant and romantic tales. The females are not in general handsome, but to this there are some exceptions; they are generally virtuous, and make good wives and mothers.

The principal town of Elba is Porto Ferraio, which contains a population of 3000 souls. The houses are small and inconvenient, but the streets are wide, and are in general terraces cut in the rock. Vast subterranean magazines have been here constructed for the preservation of corn and other necessaries, with a view to provisioning the place in case of siege. The inhabitants are said to have lost the simplicity of the rural districts, without attaining any real information or refinement. Porto Longo is a well fortified town, with an agreeable and picturesque neighbourhood, and contains 1500 inhabitants. Rio is poor, and is only supported by the great iron mine, which is situated in its neighbourhood; its population may be 1800 souls. Other villages and districts are Capo Liveri, Campo, and Marciano.—Voyage to the Island of Elba. By Arsenne Thiebaut de Berneaud, translated by W. Jordan, 8vo. 1814.—Tour through the Island of Elba. By Sir Richard Colt Hoare, Bart. 4to. 1814.