Appendix III
Extract from the Report addressed to the Ministry, on the Acquisitions and Results of the Expedition to Egypt under R. Lepsius.
Berlin, March 12, 1846.
The antiquarian Expedition to Egypt, Nubia and the Peninsula of Sinai, ordered in the year 1842 by his Majesty, our most gracious and illustrious King Frederick William IV., and committed to my leadership, is completed.
My reports, transmitted to your Excellency from time to time, will have convinced you that it has been executed entirely in accordance with the plans advised by the Royal Academy of Sciences, most graciously approved by his Majesty, and submitted to your Excellency before departure. You will also observe that the annual sum of money appropriated at the beginning has not been exceeded, and that it has also been made to cover the important excavations, transportations and purchases, for which no special appropriation had been made. The journey of two years has, however, extended itself to three and a half. My companions were not able to return before the end of last year, and I myself not till the 27th of January of this year; a possibility which had been already foreseen in the advice of the Royal Academy.
With regard to the material welfare of its members the Expedition may be called in every way a very fortunate one, and especially favored by Providence. The members were eight in number, with the addition of three others who joined as volunteers, and all returned in good condition to European soil. The painter Frey alone could not support the climate, and on that account was obliged to return from Lower Egypt to Europe, where he has since recovered. As a contrast to this, the company of Professor Ehrenberg lost nine members, in spite of the greatest care. They were, however, under much more unfavorable conditions, and through his advice we profited by their experiences. It was still worse with the English under Clapperton. The French Tuscan expedition also lost both its leaders, besides many other members, in consequence of the journey. As we did not, like the expeditions mentioned, have a physician with us, we were obliged to redouble our direct attention to ourselves, and I ascribe the fortunate result, next to the protection of Providence, chiefly to the excellent conduct, mutual helpfulness and strict regard for order of all the members. There was but one exception, the moulder Franke, whom I was forced to dismiss on account of unseemly disturbances of this order. This harmony and admirable disposition of the members also greatly facilitated the management for me, and I cannot but praise this spirit especially in our architect, Herr Erbkam, who stood by me on every occasion as a true and helpful friend.
As far as the scientific results are concerned, I must first observe that scarcely any other expedition had been undertaken under such favorable circumstances. Amongst these circumstances I reckon chiefly the definiteness of the tasks which were set before us, and which we were able on this account to pursue with perfect system. The expedition most immediately comparable with ours was Champollion’s, but that was more a voyage of discovery, and necessarily suffered from the very deficiencies which we were easily able to supply. The advantages which he had as founder of the science and from his incomparable ability as a student of monuments, were for us more than counterbalanced by the firmer and broader foundations of the science, the last results of which are now presented to us in Bunsen’s remarkable work on history. Added to this was our greater previous knowledge of the interesting localities which we had to investigate. From the very beginning of the journey we could within wide limits strive for completeness, without suffering from any want of new, unexpected and most highly important discoveries. Especially had Champollion left behind to us, practically uncommenced, the investigation of the oldest Egyptian history, that is, the epoch of the first Pharaonic kingdom from about 3000 to 1700 years before Christ, which extends the history of the world for almost 1500 years. He had only ascended the valley of the Nile as far as the second cataract, beyond which there still exist a great multitude of old Egyptian monuments of all kinds, as yet entirely uninvestigated. There the whole of Ethiopian antiquity, which cannot be separated from the Egyptian, must find its interpretation and, if I do not deceive myself, has done so through us.
Thence it follows that our results are by far the most important in chronology and history. The pyramid fields of Memphis, whose importance had not been recognized by Champollion, and which had therefore scarcely been touched by him, have placed the Egyptian civilization of those remote ages before us, in four hundred large pictures. The representation which they furnish must for all future time be regarded with the highest interest and considered the beginning of investigable human history. Those earliest dynasties of the Egyptian rulers now offer us more than a barren succession of empty, unknown or doubtful names. They have not only been raised beyond all reasonable doubt and been critically arranged in order and according to the correct periods of time, but through the contemplation of the political, civil and artistic popular life which bloomed under their reigns, they have preserved an intellectual and often very individual historical reality.
This is the greatest success of our journey and must always be a convincing proof of the great and lasting service rendered to science by our expedition and its illustrious promoter. I pass over for the present the details of the evidence, which can only be rightly estimated by those co-workers on this field who shall make later and more extensive investigations. But I will mention that in Middle Egypt up to Thebes we found eight separate places of sepulchre, belonging to the Old Kingdom, which the French Tuscan expedition had passed by without suspicion. Of some of these we were the discoverers, and others we were the first to recognize as belonging to that period, and to excavate. We could not fail, also, to make a great number of more or less substantial restorations, corrections and additions to the history of the most flourishing period of the New Empire, which was peculiarly the prime of Thebes, as well as to that of the following dynasties. Even those Ptolemies who were apparently completely known in the light of Grecian history, have appeared in a new aspect in their Egyptian representations and inscriptions, and indeed have been recruited by some individuals scarcely mentioned by the Greeks and whose existence has hitherto been considered doubtful. Finally the Roman emperors, in their character of Egyptian rulers, have also appeared to us on the Egyptian monuments in greater and almost perfect completeness. They have been carried down, from Caracalla, (who had till now been recognized as the last whose name was written in hieroglyphics,) through two later emperors to Decius. Thus the whole extent of Egyptian monumental history has been increased at the latter end also by a number of years.
Egyptian philology, too, has made no insignificant advances during the journey. The lexicon has been increased by the addition of some hundred signs or groups, and the grammar has received manifold corrections. Besides this a wealth of material has been gathered, especially by means of the numerous paper impressions of the most important inscriptions, the gradual interpretation of which must lead to substantial progress in the science. According to the great age established for the earliest written monuments the history of the Egyptian language now embraces a period of nearly five and a half thousand years, and thus acquires an entirely new significance in relation to the universal history of human language and writing. In matters of detail one of the most important discoveries on this field was two bi-lingual decrees, written in hieroglyphics and demotic, which were discovered in Philae. One of these repeats the inscription of Rosetta, and there is promise of important results from a comparison between them. The news of this seemed so important to the French that they resolved on sending out the famous scholar Ampére, with an artist, expressly to copy this one monument. I first became aware of their intention through the publication and philological exploration of that inscription, now just appearing in print.
According to my opinion Egyptian mythology, in spite of countless works upon the subject, has hitherto been without any firm foundation. I had almost abandoned the hope that our expedition would achieve any actual advance for this science, when upon the return journey I discovered in the Theban temples a series of monuments which threw so much unexpected light upon its essential nature and historical phases, that I have come to the conclusion that upon this basis Egyptian mythology may for the first time be presented according to its true import and in its historical development.
The history of art has never been worked out from the present standpoint of Egyptology. To accomplish this was necessarily one of the chief objects of our expedition and the advanced chronological knowledge of the monuments conduced greatly to progress in this direction. For the first time we have been able to trace the various divisions of the history of art in the Old Egyptian Empire, previous to the invasion of the “Hyksos,” and thus to extend it, as well as Egyptian history in general, for about thirteen centuries upwards and for some decades downwards. We were also obliged to regard the history of art almost exclusively in the selection of our collection of monuments, of which I shall speak again hereafter. Amongst the different branches of Egyptian art, architecture, which had been entirely neglected by Champollion and Rosellini, was especially well handled by our skillful and industrious architect Erbkam. From him it received the treatment befitting the important position of this special branch, in which the artistic element of grandeur, bestowed upon the Egyptians above all other nations, could be and was most highly developed. The rendering of the sculpture and painting fell to the other artists who accompanied us. They soon learned to reproduce with praiseworthy skill the peculiar Egyptian style, which in spite of all the childish constraint that characterizes Egyptian art, yet contains an unmistakable and finely perfected ideal element. If the Grecian genius had not received art from the Egyptians as a child so severely, chastely and carefully reared, it could never have given to it such a positive character of blooming freedom. The chief task of the history of Egyptian art is to show wherein consisted this culture of art, which no ancient Asiatic nation shares with the Egyptian. I will adduce as one of the most important details belonging here, that we have found three separate canons of the proportions of the human figure, in numerous examples, upon uncompleted monuments; one for the old Pharaonic kingdom, another for the New Empire since the eighteenth dynasty, and a third which first came into general use shortly before the time of the Ptolemies. This latter involved an entire change of the principle of distribution, and remained in force under the Roman emperors to the end. These discoveries are also of decided importance in judging of the Greek canon.
Next to the history of art, however, a great part of our time and attention was claimed by Egyptian archaeology in its widest sense. This was a field which had already been worked with success and industry, especially by Wilkinson and Rosellini. It contains an inexhaustible wealth of detached monuments of common life, and representations thereof of all kinds, far exceeding in abundance all other remains of antiquity. And on this account this branch of study needed much more a vigorous prosecution of its aims and elevation of its standard, than a farther accumulation of details. Nevertheless these are continually coming in from all sides and have been collected by ourselves in great quantity as material.
Finally, geography and chorography, to which travellers are always expected to make additions, demand special attention. In Fayoum we have for the first time thoroughly investigated the Labyrinth. It lies beside Lake Moeris, which was discovered by Linant, but is now dry. We have been able to assign the Labyrinth its place in history through the discovery of the founder’s name. Our description of the ruined cities and monuments of antiquity in the land of the Nile, up to Senaar, will be more complete and exact than any previously given. So also will be our account of the rarely travelled dependencies of the dominion of the Pharaohs, such as the Ethiopian countries, the eastern mountains between the Nile and the Red Sea, and the colonies in the copper region of Mafkat (of the Peninsula of Sinai.) Only the oases of the western desert we have unfortunately been obliged to leave unexplored. In more modern geography, which must always accompany and correct the ancient, I have devoted special care to obtaining the Arabian names accurately, in order to counteract as far as possible, at least upon the region traversed by us, the intolerable confusion of designations. I have prepared upon the way accurate geographical maps of various parts of the eastern mountains of Egypt and the Arabian copper region. Respecting the border lands of Mahommed Ali’s dominion, towards Abyssinia, I have collected and recorded graphically important geographical information from particularly well-informed people of that region. On the Peninsula of Sinai I have not only for the first time investigated more exactly the ancient Egyptian copper mines, the working of which, according to the pictures on the rocks and inscriptions, preserved at Wadi-Magara, goes back to the time of Cheops, about 3000 years before Christ, but I have also traced out the route of the Israelites to Sinai. In doing so I have come to the conclusion, which I have sought to prove in a preliminary report to his Majesty, that a tradition of comparatively late origin has wrongly designated the mountain which the monks call Gebel Mûsa as the Sinai of the Bible, and that Horeb or Sinai, the Mount of God, corresponds rather to the present Serbâl, which lies some days’ journey to the north of Gebel Mûsa. A noteworthy contribution has been made to the history of the physical conditions of the Nile valley through the discovery of the nilometer of Semneh in the region of the Nubian cataracts. From this it is apparent that about 4000 years ago, under the rule of Amenemha-Moeris, the Nile at that place rose in average years twenty-two feet higher than now, while in Egypt at about that time it stood at least ten to fifteen feet lower, so that the Nile at the intervening cataracts fell thirty-five feet farther than at present. This gradual leveling of the bed of the stream has had the most decisive influence on the cultivation of the valley, and the history of its whole population, since the shore of the Nubian country lying along the stream was made inaccessible to the natural inundation by this great sinking of the water, and thence became dry and unfruitful.
Besides all our acquisitions in the ancient Egyptian language we have made some not unimportant gains for the science of language in general. In the upper countries of the Nile I have obtained three African languages, the grammar and lexicon of which I have made out and noted down from the communications of the natives, with sufficient completeness to present a clear idea of them. They are: 1. the Congâra language, a negro language of the interior, spoken in Darfur and the adjoining countries: 2. the Nuba language, which is spoken in two dialects in a portion of the valley of the Nubian Nile, and in the neighboring districts to the southwest. This appears, moreover, to be of primitive African origin. It has never been written, and I have collected for the first time a considerable quantity of Nubian manuscript literature, by getting a Nubian sheik, who was entire master of the Arabian language and writing, to translate from Arabian into Nubian, the fables of Lokman, the Gospel of St. Mark, and a portion of the Thousand and One Nights. I also had him write down and translate into Arabian about twenty Nubian songs, some in rhyme, and some only rythmical. In doing this he displayed a wonderful talent for the correct comprehension of linguistic relations. 3. The Béga language of the race of the Bishareen who are widely scattered between the Red Sea and the Nubian Nile. This appears to be a most important branch of the original Asiatic-Caucasian family of languages, and deserves our attention so much the more since it seems that it can be historically proved to be the present form of the ancient Egyptian language of Meroë. I have also found in those countries, and in the pyramids of Meroë, a great number of old Ethiopian inscriptions, which are recorded in an alphabetical writing until now entirely unknown. Subsequent inscriptions are in an alphabet formed after the Greek, and they can probably both be deciphered by the aid of the Béga language. Finally we have also made the completest possible collection of many hundreds of paper impressions from Grecian inscriptions. These are now of great value as a contribution to the knowledge of Grecian-Egyptian antiquity, which has been industriously cultivated on several sides. We have also made another collection of the numerous so-called “Inscriptions of Sinai” which were cut into the rocks by a Christian population who lived on the Peninsula of Sinai in the first centuries of our era. These have not yet been entirely deciphered.
We have only been able to give occasional attention to subjects pertaining to natural science. Yet I have not neglected to collect specimens of stone and soil from all important localities, especially during trips into the remote mountain regions. A chemical investigation and comparison of the specimens of Nile mud collected from different spots and under different conditions will perhaps be of interest. We have visited the old alabaster quarry of El Bosra, opposite Sioot, which has recently been discovered by the Bedouins and is now worked by Selim Pasha. We found there an inscription on the rock dating from the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty. We have also visited the quarries of granite and of “breccia verde” at Hammamât, which have been in use since the most ancient times, as well as the porphyry and granite quarries on Gebel Duchàn (Mons Claudianus, Mons Porphyrites,) in the eastern mountains of Egypt, (see page 160) which were celebrated in Roman times. We have brought back specimens of rock from them all. The most valuable blocks of “breccia verde,” of every size, lie directly on one of the finest and most convenient desert highways, two days journey from the Nile, and would be excellently adapted to removal and exportation. On account of our antiquarian aims we were especially interested in the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the present world of animals and plants in the southern regions of Nubia, which conspicuously resembles the representations on the most ancient Egyptian monuments. It scarcely appears possible to account for this except by the assumption of a universal recession of the more highly developed forms of natural life in the Nile valley from the north towards the south.
Footnotes
1 F. W. Graser, born at Luckau, 1801, studied in Leipsic, 1819-23, 1823 Head Master at the Royal Grammar School at Halle, 1827 Sub-Principal in Naumburg, 1831 Deputy Principal and 1846 Principal at Guben, 1854 Principal at Torgau, 1863 Deputy Principal at the Abbey of Our Blessed Lady in Magdeburg, until 1869. Now lives as a private gentleman in Potsdam. In the Renunciation programme of thirty-seven doctors of philosophy on the 4th of March, 1824, (De epitritris Doriis dissertatio). G. Hermann says of him: A Beckio in Seminarium Regium, a me in Societatem Graecam receptus, utrigue nostrum et propter studiorum diligentiam, et propter praeclarum ingenium insignemque morum humanitatem et suavitatem valde probatus est.
2 In this way the official class, the “chickens,” as the Duke called them, and the nobility, were driven to revolt. It was these two classes, and not the populace, who expelled the Duke.
3 Duke William, of Brunswick, recently deceased.
4 The following fragment of a popular song gives some information in regard to this citizen, Götte. It was discovered by my friend, Professor H. Guthe, who aided me in obtaining farther particulars about Götte:
POEM ON CITIZEN GÖTTE IN BRUNSWICK.
Hurrah for citizen Götte,
The man of the August gate;
He’s half a Lafayette,
The “Lafa” we abate.
It was he that didn’t tremble,
To the Duke he pushed his way,
And without asking questions,
Told him the truth that day.
The continuation of this folk-song is unknown. “Yette” is supposed to be equivalent to “Götte,” and it was certainly intended by the ingenious poet that our “Laffe” (dandy) should be recognized in “Lafa.”
6 Dissen died in 1837, after a long and severe illness, at the age of fifty-three.
7 When a pupil in the highest class, Richard had travelled on the Rhine with his father during the vacation, and visited Mainz at the same time. The charming description of this journey, which in print would fill quite a little volume, has been preserved in manuscript.
8 In a letter of Samuel Hirzel’s to Horner, the former gives most lively expression to his delight in the lectures of G. Hermann, and afterwards says: “Then he began inveighing against Buttmann without ceremony.” A. Springer, The Young Hirzel, Leipzig, 1883. It is well known what a harsh attack Hermann Boeckh could make in the presence of his class.
9 De Tabulis Eugubinis. Dissert. Berolini. 1833. (Index to Works. No. 1.)
10 Aeschyl. Agam. vs. 357: πολλῶν γὰρ ὲσθλῶν τὴν ὄνησιν είλόμην. Hermanni interpretationem unam esse rectam. etiamsi librorum lectio retineatur.
11 Berlin 1834. Second Edition. Leipsic 1842. (Index to Works. No. III.)
12 Died in 1680.
13 G. Ebers. On the Hieroglyphic System of Writing. Virchow und V. Holtzendorff’sche Sammlung von wissenschaftlichen Vorträgen. 2. Aufl. Serie vi., No. 131.
14 The names of both of these sovereigns were found upon a second bi-lingual tablet, discovered on the island of Philae.
15 They were bought by the Paris library for fifty thousand francs.
16 Lepsius used the Pentateuch, edited by Wilkins, for his first exercise book.
17 Published in the first edition, under the supervision of Jomard, 1809-28. The second edition was edited by Pankouke, 1821-29.
18 In Rosellini’s I Monumenti dell’ Egitto e della Nubia. Eight volumes, with the addition of two folio volumes of colored plates, published at Pisa in 1832-44. The third folio volume was published after his death, (1843) in 1844; Champollion’s Monuments de l’Égypte et de la Nubie, four folio volumes, with four hundred and forty plates, was published in Paris, 1835-47, and Lepsius thus had the use of the first numbers. Rosellini’s work on monuments, mentioned above, is divided into historical and private monuments, and those pertaining to religious worship. Champollion had originally wished to treat of the former, but, in consequence of his early death, the publication of them fell to Rosellini. Champollion also saw only the first proofs of his own work on monuments.
19 As an example he adduces the scheme:
| Hebrew, jam—m—i | jam—nu | jam—ka |
| Coptic, jom—i | jom—n | jom—k |
| my sea | our sea | M. thy sea, etc. |
20 On the Order and Relationship of the Semitic, Indian, Ancient Greek, Ancient Egyptian and Ethiopian Alphabets. Index of Works No. V. The history of the origin of this treatise is peculiar. At that time the Leipsic Egyptologist, Seyffarth, who, as we know, had advanced a system of his own in opposition to that of Champollion, had brought out a publication which bore the strange title: “Our Alphabet a Representation of the Zodiac, with the Constellation of the Seven Planets, etc., etc. Probably according to the Observations of Noah himself. First Foundation of a True Chronology and History of the Civilization of All Nations.” Leipsic, 1834.—As this work appeared to emanate from some other than the critical world in which Lepsius had become eminent, and as, strange to say, it had found advocates of repute, the young doctor felt himself bound to refute it duly. So he wrote a critique of it for the “Berliner Jahrbücher,—partly also with a view to “presenting himself gradually before the public in his Coptic costume.” “I do not expect,” he writes, “to demolish the work—by which no honor could be won,—but to give a true explanation of our alphabetical system.” As the “Jahrbücher” had meantime made use of another review, he struck out the portion of the dissertation which was directed against Seyffarth, from that in which he “built up,” submitted this latter to the Berlin Academy, and had it printed in their Transactions.
21 On the origin and relationship of the numerical words in the Coptic, Semitic, and Indo-Germanic Languages. Berlin, 1836. Index of Works, No. VI.
22 Biot, Recherches sur l’année vague des Égyptiens, Paris, 1831.
24 The three volumes of his “Description of the City of Rome” were published from 1830-43; his “Basilicas of Christian Rome” in 1843.
25 Lettre à M. le Professeur Hippolyte Rosellini sur l’alphabet hiéroglyphique. Rome, 1837. Index of Works. No. XIII.
26 If the Egyptologist Seyffarth, mentioned on page 74, claims the merit of having first recognized the syllabic symbols as such, in order afterwards to construct in their favor a perverted system, in which they play a far more prominent part than belongs to them, it is true that priority of discovery cannot be denied to him. But Lepsius immediately accorded to the syllabic symbols their proper place and (as the whole construction of his system proves), quite independently of others.
27 On some Syntactical Points of the Hieroglyphic Language. 1846. Index of Works, No. XLII a.
28 London and Berlin. 1863. Index of Works. No. LXXIV., and also Nos. LIX., LXXV., LXX., LXXI., LXXIa, LXXIII., LXXII., XCI., XCVIII., which all contain dissertations on language, and chiefly on the alphabet.
29 The Book of Kings of the Ancient Egyptians. Index of Works. No. LXVI.
30 F. Champollion. Panthéon Égyptien. Collection des personnages mythologiques de l’ancienne Égypte. Paris, 1826.
31 Index of Works. No. XXXI.
32 Index of Works. Nos. CXII and CXXXII.
33 The oldest texts of the Book of the Dead. Berlin, 1867. Index of Works, No. XCV.
34 Berlin, 1851. Index of Works, No. XLVII.
35 Berlin, 1856. Index of Works, No. LXI.
36 Sur l’ordre des colonnes piliers en Égypte, etc. Index of Works, No. XIX.
37 On some Egyptian Forms of Art and their Development. Berlin, 1871. Index of Works No. CVIII.
38 Lepsius visited Holland and Leyden once again in 1852.
39 Index of Works, No. XXVII.
40 Index of Works, No. XXX.
41 Index of Works, No. XXVIII.
42 Index of Works, No. XXIX.
43 At this time the famous Anastasi papyri were also offered for sale in Berlin through Lepsius, and for a comparatively low price. Yet at that time there were no funds forthcoming for their purchase. The same thing occurred with the beautiful Dorbiney papyrus, which was sent to Berlin in 1851 to be sold, and was examined by Lepsius. He writes, “I would not myself consider the two thousand pounds too dear for such a work of the fourteenth century, which perhaps was put before Moses as a reading-book. But now they would not give eight hundred thalers for it here.” Eighty to a hundred pounds were offered to Miss Dorbiney for it at that time by Olfers; if he had gone a little higher, this treasure would have come to Berlin, but soon after de Rougé deciphered its interesting contents, and it then went, if I am rightly informed, for two thousand pounds, to London.
44 Unfortunately, a work begun by Lepsius during this period of waiting was never completed. It was to be called “The Main Outlines of Hieroglyphics,” and he wrote of it to Bunsen: “In it I must once again touch briefly on the history of discovery, then on the system of writing, but more practically than in its historical development. After this follows my statement regarding consequent transcriptions. These are in Latin letters, for henceforth I shall use the Coptic letters for real Coptic words only, and not, as Champollion has done, for hieroglyphic words, as that only creates confusion. After this comes a short sketch of the hieroglyphic grammar, and I intend to give a selection of groups of hieroglyphics, as the foundation of a lexicon; more to secure for myself the priority of classification than even remotely to supply the need of a lexicon, which I cannot think of at present. I mean to bring out the book, as well as the plates, in the usual octavo form of the Annals.” Written on the 15th of September, 1841.
45 Erbkam himself afterwards wrote several excellent works, namely: “Ueber den Gräber und Tempelbau der alten Aegypter” 1852. “Ueber die Memnoncolosse des Aegyptischen Thebes” 1853. “Ueber alte Aegyptische Bauwerke.” Ephemerides, Vienna, 1845.
46 Abeken afterwards published a “Rapport sur les résultats de l’expédition Prussienne dans la haute Nubie. Revue archéol. IV.” 1846, as well as a lecture entitled: “Das Aegyptische Museum.” Berlin, 1856.
47 Bonomi published the following papers: “On the Site of Memphis.” Transactions of the Roy. Soc. of Literature. N. S. II. 1847, “Arundale a. Bonomi. Gallery of Egyptian Antiquities,” London, 1844, and “Catalogue of the Museum of Hartwell House,” London, 1858. Sharpe and Bonomi published together the fine “Sarcophagus of Seti I.” London, 1858. We also know of two papers of his on Obelisks in the Transactions of the Roy. Soc. of Literature, 1841, Vols. I. and II.
48 Index of Works, No. XLVIII.
49 Afterwards thoroughly demonstrated. Index of Works, No. XLIX.
50 Index of Works, No. XXXII.
51 Index of Works No. XXXIII.
52 Index of Works. Nos. XLIV., XLIVa, and XLIVb.
53 Index of Works. No. L.
54 Index of Works. No. LVIIIa.
55 Index of Works, Nos. LIV. and LVIII.
56 Index of Works, No. LXIX.
57 Index of Works, No. XXXIV.
58 R. Lepsius. Briefe aus Aegypten und Aethiopien.—Pages 329 to 357 and notes. Also Index of Works, Nos. XXXVIII. and XXXIX. The biblical-geographical conclusions of Lepsius were controverted by a certain Kutscheit in a paper as superficial as it was spiteful.
59 Ebers. Durch Gosen zum Sinai. Aus dem Wanderbuche und der Bibliothek, 2 Aufl. Leipzig, 1882.
60 Louis Conrad Bethmann, born at Helmstedt, 1812. He was one of the collaborators on the “Monumenta Germaniae historica,” etc. Died in 1867 in Wolfenbüttel, where he was librarian.
61 Index of Works, LIV. a.
62 See Index of Works. No. XLV.
63 The comments upon his work on monuments, given in the sessions of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, only refer to special points.
64 King in opposition during the period of the supremacy of the Persian empire over Egypt.
65 J. Bunsen, Aegyptens Stelle in der Weltgeschichte [Egypt’s Place in Universal History] Hamburg, 1845. Fortsetzung 1856-57.
66 A Boeckh, Manetho und die Hundssternperiode. [Manetho and the Dogstar Period.] Berlin 1845.
67 See page 83.
68 Die Chronologie der Aegypter. [The Chronology of the Egyptians.] Index of Works. No. XLVI.
69 Index of Works. No. LXVI.
70 Index of Works, Nos. XLIX., LI., LIa., LII., LIII., LX., LXIa., LXIV., LXIVa., LXVIa., LXVII., LXVIIa., LXXVII., XCIV., XCVII., XCIX., CIII., CXX., CXXXIV.
71 This pamphlet, dedicated to the Crown Prince Frederick William, was published August third, 1880, on the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Royal Museum at Berlin.
72 Index of Works. Nos. LV, and LVI.
73 Index of Works. No. LVII.
74 Index of Works, Nos. LXII and LXIII.
75 F. Ritschl. Aeschylus Perser in Aegypten: ein neues Simonideum. [Aeschylus’ Persians in Egypt: a new Simonideum.] Rhein. Museum, Bd. XXVII., page 114-126. F. Ritschl, Opuscula philol. Vol. V., p. 194-210.
76 Index of Works, No. LXXIX.
77 Index of Works, Nos. LXXXIV., CII., CXXXVI., CXXXVII., CXXXIX., CXL.
78 Index of Works, Nos. LXXXV.
79 Index of Works, Nos. CXXIV., CXXVII., CXXIX., CXXXVII.
80 Index of Works, No. CXXXVII.
81 Index of Works, No. LXXXVIII.
82 Index of Works, No. CXXXVIII.
83 Index of Works, No. LXXXVII.
84 Dr. Reinisch claimed to have taken part in the discovery of the exceedingly important decree in question, but unjustly. We refer to the explanation given by Lepsius. Index of Works, XC.
85 Recueil de travaux relatifs à la philologie et à l’archéologie égyptiennes and assyriennes. Paris, Vieweg.
86 Revue égyptologique publiée sous la direction de H. Brugsch, F. Chabas, E. Revillout. Paris, Leroux.
87 Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology. London.
88 His work on “The Metals in Egyptian Inscriptions,” mentioned on page 131, is of special importance, Index of Works, No. CVII.
89 Index of Works, No. CXXX.
90 Zeitschr. d. Deutsch. Morgenl. Gesellsch. [Journal of the German Oriental Society.] Leipzig, 1881, Bd. XXXV., p. 207-218.
91 Index of Works, Nos. XXXV., CVIIIa., CXXIXa.
92 Frau Lepsius was the daughter of the celebrated composer, Klein, and many a friend of music will be glad to hear all that her aunts in Cologne related to Frau Elizabeth, regarding the early history of her father, when she visited them at Berlin in 1856. He was the son of a musician who died suddenly, and left his wife and children, the youngest only seven months old, without means. At that time Bernard Klein was twenty-one years old, and immediately announced that he should support his mother and brothers and sisters by giving music lessons. He did this faithfully and with serene confidence in better days to come. The mother always had to care for his clothes, for he paid no attention to his external appearance. He once visited a friend who complained that he had no coat. He gave him his own in entire faith that he had two, but when he got home he found that he had made a mistake, and must buy himself a new one. As a child he had wished to become a merchant, and not to learn music, but he was suddenly seized by a passion for music, and said to his mother: “Now if I had become a merchant, and were so rich that I could drive four horses, I would rather be a music teacher.” Not long after his father’s death he went to Paris with Begas for two years, and there studied music under Cherubini. In 1818 he went to Berlin. Ten years after, as a famous composer, he returned to Berlin, to be present at a great musical festival, at which his “Jephta” was performed with great applause.
93 Frau von Bunsen, as I see by Hare’s biography, was at that time in Wildbad and Baden.
94 Un noser, the good being, the Divinity as the author of all good, the Greek Agathodemon.
95 Both daughters are long since married: Anna to Professor Valentiner, the astronomer, in Carlsruhe, Elizabeth to Pastor Siegel, who lived first in Tegel, afterwards in Neuenhagen near Berlin. Richard, the eldest son, is professor of geology and mineralogy at the Academy of Technology at Darmstadt, and married to the daughter of Ernest Curtius. Bernard, lecturer on chemistry at the Senkenberg Institute at Frankfort on the Main, is married to a daughter of Professor Pauli, the Göttingen historian, since deceased. Reinhold is a painter. The father had a beautiful studio built in the new house in Kleist street for his talented son, and Johannes, after first devoting himself to philosophical studies with the greatest success, has recently passed his theological examination.
96 Charles Richard George Lepsius, born on the nineteenth of September, 1851.
97 From the pamphlet written by father Lepsius on the occasion of the baptism of his oldest grandson Richard, entitled: “The ancestors of the Lepsius Family, Naumburg, 1851,” we see that the family of Lepsius was originally called Leps, and appears to be indebted for its name to the little village of Leps, in the Duchy of Anhalt-Dessau, the ancestral home of the family. It is derived perhaps from the Wendish Lipz, the linden-tree, which word must also be the root of the name of the city of Leipsic. The oldest authentic ancestor is the master tawer, George Leps, at Trebbin in the Mittelmark, who died in 1699. The grandson of this George was the first who changed the name Leps into Lepsius. His father, in addition to the tawer’s craft, carried on a trade in leather and wool, “and was well off, and held in respect and esteem by his fellow citizens.” At the baptism of his child, as if he designed him for a scholar, he bestowed upon him the Latin names, Petrus Christophorus. The latter it was who removed the family to Naumburg, and as Dr. jur. he was administrator of several courts, provost of the cathedral, etc. He died in 1793. He, the great grandfather of Richard Lepsius, like his grandfather and father, was a lawyer.
98 From the post of ambassador to London.
99 See page 38.
100 In “Kurfürst” (Elector) the first syllable means “cure,” and the second “prince.”—Trans.
101 A German expression for housewife.—Trans.
102 After Lepsius had made the Egyptian collection in Berlin what it now is, Humboldt, who was always most warmly interested in the aspirations of talented young men, attempted to substitute as director of the Museum, in the place of Lepsius, the young and highly gifted H. Brugsch, who was at that time an open antagonist of Lepsius.
103 The bride of the silver wedding was of course not the mother but the stepmother (and also aunt) of our Lepsius. (See page 294.)
104 “On the Limits of Natural Knowledge.” The conclusion to which Lepsius came was that the true limits of the knowledge of nature coincide with the limits of human capacity for knowledge in general. Beyond these limits he finds, as we know from other utterances, room for his living God.
105 The 1838 on the title page is a misprint for 1837.
106 No earlier English edition of the “Standard Alphabet” can be found than that of 1863, and none is mentioned in Low’s “English Catalogue of Books.”