Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/484

 476 EGYPT (LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE) reader how to understand them. But there are some specimens of a sort of writing which Champollion left unexplained, and which he considered symbols used by the priests as a really secret character. This view has been supported by De Rouge and Lauth, but has been denied by Dumichen, who says he has been unable to find in the monuments any sys- tematic secret writing, side by side with the usual hieroglyphics. Birch agrees with this view, and advances the theory that the 22d dynasty, of Assyrian origin, introduced pho- netic signs for many ideographs, and so pro- duced these so-called anaglyphs. Brugsch considers them merely a profusion of licenses and individual fancies, which make the inter- pretation a matter of great labor and ingenu- ity, but not impossible. The second obstacle, though greater, was readily overcome. It soon became evident that the Egyptians used dif- ferent signs to signify the same sound. At the outset, when the names Berenike and Alelcsandros were guessed at, it was found that there were different signs for Ic and for. On comparing the several copies in the Euro- pean museums of the long and elaborate book of ritual which the old Egyptians placed be- side mummies in the coffin, it was found that, though they are identical in sense and char- acter, they contain frequent variations as to single signs, and that in hieratic copies the same sign generally represents these varieties. It was clear that these were different equiva- lents for the same sounds, or what are called homophones. After the discovery of one of them the rest became quickly known. Lepsius has since established that the most ancient al- phabet admitted very few homophones, and De Roug6 says that many of them really indi- cate slight variations of pronunciation, which, like the various sounds of th, were carefully distinguished by some scribes by separate signs. After the discovery of the homophones it only required additional researches to complete the structure of which Champollion had laid the foundation and sketched the plan. Hundreds of perfectly distinct documents have since been read by the received principles of inter- pretation, and a consistent meaning extracted from them. Though no other corroboration was wanting, it came crowding upon the Egyptologists in the numerous confirmations of historical facts thus deciphered. Lepsius found in 1866, while making researches at Tanis, another trilingual inscription in hiero- glyphics, demotic, and Greek ; and the Egyptian, according to Birch, was read off and explain- ed much easier than a fair Latin scholar could have rendered the same amount of Tacitus, and the translation produced a sense identical with the Greek version. Another test of the correctness of the principles of interpretation laid down by modern Egyptologists was offered a few years ago by Mariette, who copied from the pillars along the line of the Suez canal in- scriptions set up in four languages by Darius I., king of Persia, describing how he had under- taken the cutting of the canal, but stopped it when almost completed because he was per- suaded that the levels of the Red sea and the Mediterranean varied, and that Egypt would be inundated by opening the canal. The in- scription found on several stone pillars was written in hieroglyphics and in the three kinds of cuneiform characters, and it was found that the Persian and Assyrian versions correspond in sense to the hieroglyphic as now interpreted, adding, however, many details intended for the special edification of the Egyptian subjects of the great king. Champollion's system of interpreting hieroglyphics encountered great opposition at every step of his discovery. Among his most prominent opponents were Klaproth, Palin, Janelli, Williams, Secchi, Seyffarth, and Uhlemann, every one of whom proposed some method of decipherment as much at variance with the methods of the others as with Champollion's ; with the exception of Uhlemann, who adopted Seyffarth's sugges- tions. The chief value of their writings con- sisted in stimulating new researches to correct or establish the rules laid down by Champollion and his followers. The most eminent among these are Sylvestre de Sacy, Niebuhr, Humboldt, Lepsius, Bunsen, Rosellini, Leemans, Wilkinson, Hincks, Brugsch, Birch, De Rouge Chabas, Le Page Renouf, Lauth, Dumichen, Goodwin, Czermak, Deveria, Eisenlohr, Ebers, Mariette, and Maspero. The researches on the hieratic writing were of necessity closely linked to the study of hieroglyphics. The decipherment of the demotic writing was specially studied by De Sacy, Akerblad, and Young. It was fur- ther elucidated by Champollion, Tattam, Sal- volini, Lepsius, De Saulcy, Leemans, and Mas- pero, and was finally treated by Brugsch in a separate grammar and a hieroglyphic-demo- tic dictionary. LITERATURE. The literature of Egypt presents a remarkable exception to the literatures of other countries. It contains no signs of a gradual development of differ- ent species of composition at different epochs. The characters were changed, and the lan- guage underwent some modifications, but the literature remained in its principal features the same. Novels or works of amusement pre- dominated in the great epoch of the Rameses, and historical accounts of Egypt under the Ptolemies, just as homilies, church rituals, and other Christian literature invaded Egyptian in its Coptic stage ; but the same type and general style appear in every epoch. There is therefore no need of a chronological sketch of Egyptian literature. Its materials are scanty, and many periods of Egyptian history are as yet com- plete literary blanks. Another misfortune is that even the scanty documents recently ob- tained are not all accessible ; many of them are lying unread in private collections. The magnificent collections of Mr. Harris of Alex- andria, and of Mr. Smith, an American resi- dent at Luxor, and doubtless many others,