Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/160

 l:l OBSERVATIONS ON AN EGYPTIAN CALENDAK, considerable. It were much to be desired that a relic of such rarity, of trifling interest by itself from its very fragmentary condition, might be deposited in the British Museum, where it would fill a space in the Egyptian Series, wdiich at present comprises no monument of the period. Its age may be defi- nitively fixed as B.C. 323 — 318, in the time which intervened between the death of Alexander and the assumption of the royal title by Ptolemy Lagus : for that prudent ruler, although virtually monarch of Egypt, continued to pay a nominal homage to the family of Alexander, and placed upon the public monuments of the country the names of the imbecile Philip Arida^us and the illegitimate 3'oung Alexander. The prin- cipal value of this object, in an archaeological point of view, is its belonging to this period, of which few or no memorials remain in Egypt, and its enabling the inquirer to trace the style of art prevalent at the commencement of the era of the Lagidc©. As yet, indeed, the restoration^ and re-embellish- ment of the sanctuary at Karnak, and of the temple at Ash- mounein^ [Hermopolis Magna), to which I shall have occasion to refer, are the only known memorials of this period.^ The fragment is a portion of a monument in the shape of an inverted truncated cone, 1 foot high, and 13 inches broad, and about If inch thick. It has an inscription and sculp- tures externally and internally. On the inner surface, which is concave, are the upper portions of three Egyptian hiero- glyphics, respectively pronounced anch, gam^ and tctu, and meaning life, power, and duration. In the innumerable texts of the temples under the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties, these are the es^^ecial gifts of the gods to the monarchs of Egypt, and are the same as what Hermapion translated /3toy a-pocTKopoi;^ and, as this monument is royal, it may justly be supposed to indicate elliptically the wish that the gods will give Philip) " a hfe well-established," Perhaps after these characters was the well-known expression cha ra gda, " like the Sun immortal ! " which closed the formula. These hieroglyphs were repeated all round the lower part, forming a frieze, and tlie}^ are often found thus arranged on pedestals ' Ilosellini M. Stor., t. iv., p. 259 ; M. d. * The words ^frtHi anch, apparently equi- <■. Ivi., toni. ii., p. 294 ; Burton, Exc. Ilicr. valcnt to aVivc and cdl, placed after the PI. XXXI. names of persons to indicate tlicy were - Chanipollion in Idcler's Hermapion, not deceased. Cf. Chanipollion, Mon. 4to, Lii)8itc, l(!4l, p. 11. Ej];., Not. Descr., p. fiO ; Double Statue, 3 Chanipollion, Figeac L'Egypte, 4to, British Museum, No. 2301. Paris, la.'iO, p. ;}04. '■> Animian. Marcellin., xviii., 100.