Prolegomena to ancient history |
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¹ Cf alphabet analogy ancient antiquity appears archéol Aryan assert Assyrian Brugsch century Chabas Champollion character civilisation comparative mythologers conclusion copied Coptic Coptic alphabet Coptic language cuneiform curious deciphering demotic dialects difficulty discovery documents dynasty Egyp Egypt Egyptian language epic Essay evidence fact farther gods grammar graphic system Greek Hebrew Herodotus hieratic hieroglyphics historian Horapollo hymns ideas ideographs Iliad inscriptions Jules Oppert king labours language Lauth legends Lepsius letters Leyden linguistic literary literature Manetho means Mélanges ment mind modern moral myths nations object old Egyptian original Osiris papyrus Persian phonetic Précis Prisse papyrus probable proper names Ptolemy Ramses Ramses II reader remarkable Ritual Roman Rougé says sceptical scribe Semitic sense Setna signs solar soul sound story symbol thee theory thou Thukydides tion tombs translated treatise words writing written δὲ
Popular passages
Page 278 - REMEMBER now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them...
Page 285 - Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths. For she hath cast down many wounded : yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.
Page 250 - I have not withheld milk from mouths of sucklings. I have not hunted wild animals in their pasturages. I have not netted sacred birds. I have not caught the fish which typify them. I have not stopped running water. I have not separated the water from its current. I have not put out a light at its [proper] hour. I have not robbed the Gods of their offered haunches. I have not turned away the cattle of the Gods. I have not stopped a God from his manifestation. I am pure ! I am pure...
Page 249 - I have not done what is hateful to the Gods. I have not calumniated the slave to his master. I have not sacrificed.
Page 55 - The whole nature of these so-called gods is still transparent ; their first conception, in many cases, clearly perceptible. There are as yet no genealogies, no settled marriages between gods and goddesses. The father is sometimes the son, the brother is the husband, and she who in one hymn is the mother, is in another the wife. As the conceptions of the poet varied, so varied the nature of these gods.
Page 268 - He hath made all that the world contains, and hath given it light when all was darkness and there was as yet no sun ; '' that is, no sun as a representative of time. In the Babylonian account of the creation the moon is produced before the...
Page 66 - He knew nothing of the conditions of his own life or of any other, and therefore all things on the earth or in the heavens were invested with the same vague idea of existence. The sun, the moon, the stars, the ground on which he trod, the clouds, storms, and lightnings were all living beings ; could he help thinking that, like himself, they were conscious beings also?
Page 249 - I have not changed the measures of the country. I have not injured the images of the gods. I have not taken scraps of the bandages of the dead. I have not committed adultery. I have not withheld milk from the mouths of sucklings.
Page 56 - For every aspect of the material world he would have ready some life-giving expression ; and those aspects would be scarcely less varied than his words. The same object would at different times, or under different conditions, awaken the most opposite or inconsistent conceptions. But these conceptions and the words which expressed them would exist side by side without 'producing the slightest consciousness of their incongruity ; nor is it easy to determine the exact order in which they might arise....
Page 414 - says Mr Mahaffy (Prolegomena to Ancient History p. 416), lt hardly a great and fruitful idea in the Jewish or Christian systems which has not its analogy in the Egyptian faith. The development of the one God into a Trinity ; the incarnation of the mediating Deity in a virgin, and without a father ; his conflict and his momentary 'defeat by the powers of darkness ; his partial victory (for the...