CHAPTER IV. RECOVERY OF THE MODE OF READING HIEROGLYPHICS. IT has already been shown, that the devices and inscriptions on the temples and tombs of Egypt are historical documents, which, if understood, would most probably furnish highly important illustrations of the text of holy Scripture. And, therefore, it will be heard with deep interest that, in the course of the last twenty years, the scholars of Europe have made great progress in deciphering these inscriptions. Some account of the discovery of the mode of reading them will be desirable. Many obelisks, and other works of art, still remain at Rome, which had been brought thither from Egypt by the emperors, most of which are covered with hieroglyphics. The meaning of these singular characters had been often under discussion among men of letters from almost the revival of learning in Europe in the fifteenth century. The Roman, and still more the Greek authors of antiquity, had written much upon them without knowing much about them, by no means an unusual case; and, upon their authority, it was believed, that very profound and important knowledge lay hid beneath these strange uncouth symbols; and that the discovery of the key to them would unlock to the world a treasury of hidden and forgotten truths, both physical and metaphysical. From the same source, the moderns derived something like the hope that industry and critical skill would accomplish this discovery. A work was known to them written by Horapollo, and professing to have been translated into Greek from the ancient Egyptian, which gave the interpretations of several groups of hieroglyphics; and in other classical authors, also, similar interpretations were occasionally to be found. But it was not in consesequence of any encouragement afforded them by these ancient authorities that the moderns persevered in their laborious researches. The account of the classic writers rather led to the conclusion that the interpretation of hieroglyphics had been so studiously concealed from the vulgar by the priests of Egypt, and was so imperfectly known, even among themselves, that it was wholly lost or forgotten in the days of the later emperors, one of whom had offered in vain a large reward to any one who should read for him the inscription on an obelisk he was about to erect. The first author among the moderns who seriously undertook the interpretation of hieroglyphics was A. Kircher. He was a man of great industry and stupendous learning. His work, which he entitled Edipus Egyptiacus, appeared in six bulky folios, in 1636, and gave professed interpretations of the hieroglyphics on most of the Egyptian monuments then in Europe. Respecting these interpretations, it may suffice to remark, that they all treated of mysterious and recondite subjects, such as the soul of the world, the spirit of *This notion began about 600, A.C., in the reign of Psammetichus: it was afterwards revived by the Gnostic heretics, in the third century of the Christian era. See Zoga de Obeliscis, pp. 542. 549. nature, etc., and the sense was equally good whether the reading commenced at the beginning of the inscription or at the end; nay, they were deemed so pregnant of meaning, that a consistent and profound sense might be obtained by beginning in the middle. Kircher, however, eminently assisted the researches that ultimately proved successful, by bringing together in his book a voluminous collection of passages from the Greek and Latin authors regarding Egypt. And still more by calling the attention of the learned to the Coptic tongue, in which a vast number of MSS. were collected in the Vatican and other public and private libraries in Italy. The Coptic, as its name imports,* is the language of ancient Egypt, written in Greek characters, for the use of the early Christians in that country. The whole Bible is extant in it, as well as very voluminous collections of liturgies, legends, and other ecclesiastical documents. : Kircher had many able successors; and before the termination of the last century all that could be gathered from the classics regarding Egypt was to be found in the voluminous works of Jablonsky, Zoega, and others while the labours of Wilkins, Woide, Tuki, Quatremere, and others, had very considerably extended our knowledge of Coptic, and demonstrated its identity with the ancient Egyptian, which had, strangely enough, been questioned at the beginning of the century. These researches led to the discovery of the mode of reading the hieroglyphics. They may be adduced to show that an honest and sincere inquiry after truth is never ultimately in vain, and also for the encouragement of those It is an Arabian corruption of the Greek word Alyvπтоç, Egypt. whose opportunities and mental powers enable them to give long and undivided attention to abstruse and uninviting subjects in literature or science; such researches, well directed and steadily pursued, are always beneficial. The students who prosecute such inquiries may not themselves make important discoveries; but they will scarcely fail to clear the way to them. An entirely new direction was given to these researches into the antiquities of Egypt by the memorable expedition of the French to that country in 1798. It was accompanied by a number of persons eminent in the various departments of science and literature, who were sent by the government for the purpose of research in a field then all but unknown; and it was especially to the monuments of antiquity that their attention was to be directed. For this purpose they were assisted by engineers and draftsmen, and supplied with every other facility. reports sent home by this body of savans of the wonders that surrounded them, the monuments that were sent to France, and the accounts which some of them published of their personal adventures, did not fail to arouse the public attention to the subject throughout Europe. This was still more excited when, at the termination of the expedition, the museums of London and Paris were furnished with antiquities exhibiting remains that displayed a degree of advancement in the arts which had not before been suspected. The Among the monuments thus obtained, that which excited the greatest interest, and the liveliest hopes of ultimate success, was a huge block of black basalt, which had been found by the French army, in digging the foundation of Fort St. Julian, near Rosetta. This monument |