Lepsius in Paris as an Egyptologist
From the very first Lepsius devoted himself with ardent zeal and indefatigable industry to Egyptological studies. Before us lie the letters which he addressed at that time to his new patron and subsequent friend, Bunsen. They show with what benevolent, indeed fatherly, sympathy, the famous scholar and statesman watched the progress of his protégé in the field to which he had invited and introduced him; what pains he took to smooth the way for him both by word and deed, and how perfect was the understanding with which he followed the scientific efforts and achievements of the new Egyptologist. Bunsen also exerted himself to assure the pecuniary position of the young scholar; but as the emperor above the senate, so did Alexander von Humboldt stand above Bunsen. Where the influence of the latter proved insufficient, and his good wishes could not be carried into effect, it became necessary to appeal to the power and benevolence of the man of world-wide fame, who was always ready for vigorous action when it was a question of furthering important scientific endeavors, or helping promising and able young scholars. As Lepsius in the first place was infinitely indebted to Bunsen, so was he in the second instance to A. von Humboldt. It is singular how many of the later German masters of science, besides our friend, were aided by this great and truly humane man as by a Providence. He removed obstacles from their path, built bridges for them, and opened to them portals which no other hand than his was in a position to unfold.
From the letters to Bunsen we learn that Lepsius at first was absorbed in Coptic, and, as might have been expected, as a comparative philologist. At the beginning he was discouraged by the entire linguistic isolation in which this interesting idiom stood, but he soon thought to detect a certain fundamental relationship between it and the Indo-Germanic and Semitic families of languages. On the twentieth of January, 1835, he already invited Bunsen to consider with him, in a quite superficial and cursory manner, the affixes of the pronomen personale, in Coptic and Hebrew, and the relationship of the two formations.19
He next exerted himself to place before the public a specimen of Coptic grammar. He wished to begin by publishing a comparative division, which should be chiefly based upon the pronominal stems, and should establish the basis upon which the Coptic language had developed. It was further intended to show what position this should hold among the better known tongues. He had taken the bull by the horns, and was soon to find that little could be accomplished by giving prominence to such similarity in the terminal suffixes as struck the eye, or by the comparison of Indo-Germanic and Semitic numeral words with the Egyptian, between which also many conformities existed.
As the first results of these new studies there appeared two papers on the alphabet and numerical words, which were submitted to the Berlin Academy in 1835, and were printed at the press of that learned institution. The apothegm, that even the loftiest speculation only teaches us to comprehend what is already in existence, occurs in the first of these papers.20
By means of this treatise the knowledge of the true principles of the most ancient alphabetical order was advanced by a long step, and what was new therein was combined with the most thorough regard for all that had been previously attained.
In the second treatise21 he considerably extended previous investigations, and at the same time imposed upon himself voluntary restrictions which offer the most favorable testimony to his early acquired method and critical rigor. He would have been able to arrive at still more important results with the present knowledge of ancient Egyptian numerical words, and the numerical signs in hieratic and demotic.
He never followed up “the manifest connection between the Semitic and the Egyptian-demotic alphabet” which he then thought to have discovered. We entertain no doubt that during his apprenticeship he took certain Parisian hieratic texts for demotic, and if this was the case, then at that time, with the intuition peculiar to him, he had already hit upon the truth which was established many decades later by de Rougé, Lenormant, and ourselves; namely, that the Semitic, and indeed, primarily, the Phœnician alphabet, must be traced back to the Egyptian hieratic. He also worked enthusiastically over the principles of sound in the Coptic. This language, which at first seemed to him quite “chaotic” on account of the “cumulative vowels” which it presents, became more attractive to him after he had learned, by comparison of the manuscripts written in the different dialects to distinguish between them, and to penetrate more deeply into their wonderfully subtle syntactical construction. It was of great advantage to him in these studies that Peyron’s Coptic Lexicon was published just at this time, and that he was able to procure each proof-sheet as it left the press. After he had obtained a good insight into the Coptic he ventured to attack the demotic and ancient Egyptian written in hieroglyphics. As, in the works then published on the ancient Egyptian language, deduction and hypothesis appeared far too much alike, he was extremely glad to receive the ready assistance of Salvolini, the disciple of Champollion mentioned above. This very talented Italian, under the direction of the master, Champollion, had occupied himself with Egyptology exclusively for ten years, and Lepsius was able to inspire him with such interest that he wrote to Bunsen of the young scholar in the warmest terms. But after Lepsius was permitted to examine the literary legacy of Champollion he perceived that Salvolini had secretly made reckless use of another’s labors, and that precisely those things which the younger Egyptologist had considered the most important discoveries of Salvolini, had been made, not by him, but by the master, Champollion.
Biot’s book22 on the vague year of the Egyptians, which had been published shortly before, led Lepsius also to the study of the calendar and chronology of the Egyptians, and prompted him to make Bunsen fully acquainted with his views on the year of Sirius and the Sothiac cycle. He sent the work mentioned to his patron, and in consequence of a request made by him, furnished him with everything that appeared in Paris in the way of new literary productions.
Bunsen meanwhile was solicitous for the material welfare of his protégé, and it is not a little to be ascribed to his and Gerhard’s influence,—Boeckh too was a zealous advocate,—that the Academy of Sciences at Berlin awarded Lepsius five hundred thalers for his farther improvement in Egyptology, and that Gerhard,—although not officially,—could offer him the prospect of the same amount for a second year.
Before this assistance had been promised him he had written to Bunsen: “It is easy to understand that there may be much opposition to furnishing aid for such a special object, as every one will not regard the importance of it in the same way... but I am especially anxious because I have not yet been able to present to the Academy anything which could give me an ostensible claim to the assistance which I desire. On this account I have thought that it might be of advantage to my affairs if I should put in order and send to the Academy my treatise on numerical words and arithmetical figures. It seems to me that I have indisputably found the key to this interesting subject in the Egyptian figures and Coptic numeral words. If all this meets with your approval, I would first send this treatise to William von Humboldt, who is most interested in special investigations of this subject, and probably, also, in the method of treating it. The extremely friendly letter, and the favorable opinion (far beyond my expectations), which he sent me, when I forwarded to him my little pamphlet on Sanscrit paleography, have given me hopes of a kind reception from him.”
In fact, the treatise was despatched to Berlin, but when it arrived there William von Humboldt was no longer among the living, and it was with great difficulty that Lepsius was able to recover his manuscript. The Berlin Academy awarded him the sum mentioned without it, for they knew that the recipient was worthy, and that it would produce good fruit to science.
“The death of William von Humboldt,” Lepsius wrote to Bunsen on the thirtieth of April, 1835, “has greatly grieved me, as well on account of the personal kindness which he repeatedly manifested towards me, as on account of the irreparable loss which the science of language has suffered thereby. It was he especially by whom I most hoped to be understood in my philological aims, and whose verdict I had always in mind throughout this last work. You must be aware that he leaves two works in manuscript, one on the Sanscrit languages of the Indian Islands, another on languages in general.”
The handsome stipend of the Berlin Academy smoothed Lepsius’ way to Italy, whither Bunsen summoned him with ever increasing urgency.
Up to that time, Panofka and de Witte, out of scientific enthusiasm, had taken charge of the editorial work for the Institute in Paris. When they retired, Bunsen appointed Lepsius in the place of de Witte, who initiated him into the business. After his predecessor had left Paris, Lepsius took charge, in his absence, of the printing of the annals of the Institute and of the correspondence. These affairs claimed a large portion of his time, and he would have gone immediately to Rome, the headquarters of the Institute, had he not felt that his work in Paris was not completed as far as Coptic was concerned. He also devoted himself with special ardor to ancient Egyptian and hieroglyphics. In these he continued to profit by the assistance of Salvolini, whose rapidly progressing interpretation of the Rosetta stone interested him greatly. Yet Lepsius already began to feel a slight mistrust of him, especially on account of the unfavorable manner in which he expressed himself regarding the industrious Egyptologist Rosellini, whom Champollion had esteemed highly. From Bunsen, too, Lepsius had heard nothing but praise of the latter, and moreover, Rosellini’s historical works served him as a starting point for his own chronological investigations, which began to interest him the more, the better he succeeded in deciphering for himself the names of kings and little historical hieroglyphic texts. For the great rapidity and certainty of his progress he was indebted to the excellent linguistic training which he had enjoyed. He had already exercised his talent for deciphering in handling the Eugubian Tables. The critical method of his philological guides had so become a part of his flesh and blood, that Bunsen could justly describe him as safe against the danger of publishing anything uncertain or untenable, or of announcing good results prematurely.
Before Rosellini had become personally acquainted with Lepsius he magnanimously confided to the promising new disciple of his science all of his notes that the latter desired to see, and gave him by letter whatever explanations he wished. This he did in such an amiable manner that Lepsius wrote to Bunsen: “I have taken extraordinary pleasure in the inestimable liberality and courtesy of Rosellini. One meets with the contrary among the French scholars here. If the French were better etymologists they would perceive that in science as in life liberté and liberalité come from the same root.”
The letter which our friend sent to Bunsen on the twenty-fourth of June, 1835, as a draught of a paper to be addressed to the Berlin Academy of Sciences,23 contains more detailed information as to the history of his first attempts in Egyptology while at Paris. With this communication he also submitted to the Academy the treatises mentioned above on numerical words and the oldest alphabetical systems (see page 81). The allowance of five hundred thalers which we mentioned was only granted for one year, but Boeckh had kindly prevented a motion that the stipend should be granted only once, from coming to a resolution. Thus Lepsius, who knew the state of affairs, wrote confidently to Bunsen: “I cannot think that the Academy will leave me in the lurch later, if, with God’s help, I have made some progress in this fruitful science, and shown them that I am as good a husbandman as another with my plow and ox. Therefore I will henceforth specially aim to deserve the confidence of the Academy, and I believe that I shall best compass this by keeping them informed of my operations on the field upon which I have entered.”
At that time there were, as we have already observed (See page 78), very few good inscriptions published, and in August he had already advanced so far in hieroglyphics that he was constantly looking about for new texts, in order to copy and afterwards study them. To attain the highest ends he felt that it was necessary to know and own all the inscriptions that had been preserved from the time of the Pharaohs. In Göttingen he had endeavored to obtain both material and intellectual possession of all the treasures of the plastic art of the ancients by making copies of them. Thus also in Paris he wished to acquaint himself with all the monuments of the time of the Pharaohs which had reached that city, and either to transcribe the inscriptions upon them, to copy them by tracing, or to obtain them in the form of impressions taken on paper. Copies of such as were accessible had long lain in his portfolio, but he had heard that there was a magazine in which was stored, in utter confusion, a great abundance of Egyptian monuments, especially the larger ones. Yet it seemed impossible to obtain admission to these hidden treasures. “It is the universal complaint,” writes Lepsius, “that Louis Philippe does nothing in any way for the monuments of antiquity, his taste is all for modern works of art, and he now employs all the artists and officers of the Museum on the historical picture gallery in Versailles. Just now, also, several guardians of the Louvre are occupied there, and therefore they represent that it is impossible to detail a guardian for me in the magazine.” He impatiently awaited the decision from day to day, but it did not come; indeed it was still withheld even after Herr von Werther, the Prussian Ambassador, had interposed on behalf of Lepsius, and had procured him permission to copy the Egyptian collection in the Musée Charles X. But this was of far less importance to Lepsius than what was hidden in the magazine, for there were all the sarcophagi and statues, and an exceedingly rich collection of stelae, besides a hundred and fourteen tablets of plaster casts from the walls of Karnak, and a great number of other matters. The time of his departure from Paris drew near, and it would have seemed almost intolerable to the ardent young investigator to leave France without having seen these extremely important monuments. Just then Alexander von Humboldt came to Paris, Lepsius complained to him of the difficulty, the most influential of all men of that time interceded for him, and he was immediately allowed access to the storehouse, at first with a guardian, but afterwards without one.
Lepsius now spent the last weeks of his sojourn in Paris in taking the most careful paper impressions from all the monuments there. About fifty quires of blotting paper were soon consumed, and many a night of vigil did he spend in making fair copies of the descriptions of the monuments from which the impressions were taken, and of the results of his own measurements. These treasures, so laboriously acquired, were of great service to him later, and accompanied him from Rome to Berlin, where they now are.
Furthermore, through Humboldt’s mediation, he had an opportunity to inspect all the drawings and manuscripts of Champollion, and he found them “surprisingly copious and interesting.” He was able to take the first of the forty numbers of Champollion’s great work on monuments, ready printed, to Italy with him. Champollion’s grammar was also soon to be published.
Something had been neglected in regard to Lepsius’ military obligations, which might have been momentous to the farther progress of the ardent investigator, but this oversight did him no injury either, in consequence of the warm commendation which Alexander von Humboldt had given him to the Governor of Mentz, General v. Müffling. It cannot now be ascertained on what grounds the robust and well developed young doctor was released from military service, but before us lies a letter written immediately after he had presented himself, which says, in reference to his military duties: “And now in Mentz I have been relieved of all farther anxiety in this respect.”
“In the latter part of my stay in Paris,” he writes to Bunsen in the same letter, “I have learned to regard Barucchi, the director of the Turin Museum, as a very excellent and courteous man. He has promised me every possible facility and convenience in the Turin Museum for study, so that now I can go there with great confidence of good results.”
Gladly and hopefully he crossed Mont Cenis to Turin; and yet the parting from Paris had become hard for him. He had gained much there, and acquired a fixed aim in life; there he had come to mature manhood, and his whole personality, as well as his scientific activity and solid abilities, had awakened the same good will on the Seine as previously in Germany, at Leipsic, Göttingen, and Berlin. And no wonder! For nature had endowed the youth, intellectually so highly gifted, with a tall and imposing figure, and crowned it with a head whose beauty was to outlast the years. The noble and sharply cut lineaments of his countenance reflected the earnestness, the force, and the acuteness of his mind, and wherever he showed himself in the circle of the leading literati of Berlin, where there was no lack of impressive heads, all eyes were drawn to him, and even strangers were attracted to inquire about him. When his abundant hair had become snow-white he was one of the handsomest of old men. He told us, in an hour of social relaxation, that he was once climbing one of the Swiss mountains in very hot weather—I believe it was the Faulhorn,—and had sat down near the summit, with dripping brow. A strange gentleman, who had joined him, had sunk down beside him, and had responded to his observation that it was frightfully hot: “You ought to be accustomed to that, Professor. When one has climbed the pyramids and made excavations in Ethiopia, as you have—.” Lepsius asked the stranger how he came to know him, and received from the other—as it turned out afterwards, a medical colleague from Heidelberg,—the answer, “How can one forget your medallion-countenance after once seeing it?”
His profile was, in truth, singularly fine. I, myself, first met Lepsius in his forty-ninth year, 1859, as his pupil, but the impression which he made on me at that time was such that I willingly credited the assurance of a Leipsic friend, whose parents’ house Lepsius had frequented as a student, that he had been one of the handsomest young men of his day. The same bearing which he retained throughout his life, and which entirely corresponded to his essential nature, must also have been peculiar to him as a student. It was quiet, yet not stiff, well-bred, and equally appropriate in all circumstances of life. Moreover, with all his industry and earnestness, he was at that time always glad to go into society, and he long preserved and cherished his musical gifts and pleasure in singing, as well as his fondness for chess.