Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 06.djvu/827

* EGYPTOLOGY. 715 EGYPTOLOGY. Cluiiupollion's results were not received without reserve. Among the chief opponents of his system were Spohn and Scyfl'artli, both pro- fessors at Leipzig. SeytVartli, «ho developed tlie system of Spohn, held tlie erroneous theory that ilie hierogflyphic characters wi're, with scarcely .my exception, purely phonetic, and he even read the dctcrnunatives (see HiEROi.i.Yruics) as sepa- rate words. His system thus formed the op- posite extreme to that of Kircher, and his trans- lations are almost as fantastic as those of his seventeenth-century predecessor. SeylVarth did nuicli to retard the progress of Egyptologj', but his system was finally discredited. Of a very dili'erent chaiaetcr was the work of the distinguished Cterman scholar. Karl Richard Lepsius (q.v.). In his Letire a M. llosellini sur I'alithahtt hivrogli/phiijiie (Home, 1837). Lcjisius submitted Champollion's system to a searching criticism, and while clearly proving its general correctness, he indicated a number of points in which revision was necessary. From 1842 to 1845 he headed the archipological exi)edition sent out by King Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia to explore Eg^-pt and Nubia. The results of the expedition were published imder Lepsius's edi- torial su|)ervision in the magnificent Denkmiiler mis Acijypten u:id Aethiopien ((! vols., lierlin, 1840.58), which contains careful drawings and architectural plans of all the principal monu- ments of Egypt accessible at that time, as well as a remarkably extensive collection of inscrip- tions dating from all periods of Egyptian his- tory. This great work is one of the chief monu- ments of modem Egjptology. In 1866 Lepsius had the good fortune to find at Tanis the cele- brated Decree of Canopus. issued bj- the Egyp- tian priests in favor of Ptolemy III.. Euergetes, and dating from the year B.C. 238. The inscrip- tion is trilingual, and the Greek. Demotic, and hieroglyphic portions are all in an excellent state of preservation. A duplicate of it. found at Damanhiir in 1881, was published by Pierret un- der the title Le decret trilingiie de Canope (Paris, 1881). The first Egyptologist who reall.v translated complete texts was the French academician, Vi- comte Emmanuel de Eouge (died 1872). Ap- plying strict philological methods, he pointed out in his iltmoire sur I'inscription d'Ahmes (Paris, 1851). in his Etude xur unr stele eqyp- tienne de la bibtiotheque impcrinle (Paris, 1856- 50). and in other works the manner in which Egyptian texts should be interjjreted and ex- plained, and his C/iresfo»i(((/iic egnptienne (Paris, 1807-76 i completely revolutionized the treatment of Egyptian grammar. In the explanation of hier- atic texts, hitherto much neglected, he was also successful, and in 1856 he read before the Insti- tute of Franne a translation of nearly the whole of the poem celebrating the exploits of Rameses II. in liis war with the Hittites. In this special department of Egyptology- he was, however, sur- passed by his compatriot, Francois .loseph Cha- vas. whose Le papyrus magique Harris (Chillon- sur-Saone, 1860) and Voyngc d'un (gyptien en Syrie, en Phenice, en Palestine, etc. (Paris, 1866) — the latter published in collaboration with the English Egj-ptologist. W. Goodwin — may be said to have placed the study of hieratic texts upon solid grounds. The study of Demotic texts, neglected after Vol. VI.— 16. the death of ChampoUion, was revived by Tlcin- rich lirugsch ((|.v.), whose (Jramnuiire dcmo- tiquc (Paris, 1855) formed the basis of subse- quent work in this lield. In more recent years, Eug&ne Revillout (Chrestomathie demotique, Paris, 1870-80; Xouvelle Chrestomathie demo- tique, Paris, 1878) and J. J. Hess {Dcr demo- tischc Uoman von Stiie Ua-m-us, Leipzig, 1888; Der gnostische Papyrus ion London, Freiburg, 1802) deserve mention as specialists in Demotic. Among the man,v important works of Brugsch, however, the chief place must be assigned to his Hieroglyphisehdemotisches Worterbuch (7 vols., Leipzig, 1867-82). The influence of this great thesaurus of the language upon the development of Egyptological knowledge has been important in the highest degree. Pierret's Vocabulaire hii'roglyjihique (Paris, 1875) is merely an abridgment of Brugsch's great work. Levi's Vocabolario gcrogli/ieo - copto - ebraico (Turin, 1887-80) has contributed little to the advance- ment of Egyptian lexicography. A new and com- prehensive Egyptian dictionary was in 1902 in course of preparation in Gcrmanv, under the di- rection of Prof. Adolf Erman, of Berlin, but he did not expect that it would be ready for the press for several years. Professor Erman has the distinction of having inaugurated the historical method in the study of Egyptian grammar. It was he who first accurately defined the characteristic features of the several periods of the language, and treated the three earliest stages in his works: Xeuagyptische G^rammatik (Leipzig, 1880) ; Die Hprache des Papyrus Westcar (Gottingen, 1889) : and Aegypti soke Grammatik (Berlin, 1804). See Egypt, section Language. That Coptic studies have kept pace with other branches of Egyptology' is due to the labors of scholars like Pevron, Schwartze. Tattam. Stern, do Lagarde, Amclineau, Hyvernat. and Stcindorff. Abcii.eologicai. Exploration in Egypt. Ar- chsological research has been carried on in Egypt, with some intermissions, for over a cen- tury. In 1798 the Emperor Xapoleon took with him to Egi'pt a scientific commission to explore the monuments of the countr^•. and the results of their investigations are published in the splen- did work, Description de I'Egypte (Paris, 1809- 29), comprising ten volumes of text and fourteen volumes of plates. The work of the commission sent out by King Frederick William of Prussia, which resulted in the publication of the famous Denkmiiler, has been mentioned above. Impor- tant collections of texts and memoirs of travel have also been published from time to time by individual explorers. For the past fifty years both the French and the Egyptian governments have actively fostered the advance of Egyptolog- ical studies, and since 1880 the former Govern- ment has maintained at Cairo a permanent mis- sion (founded by Maspero) for the prosecution of archaeological investigations and for training promising students in advanced work. The mis- sion has ptiblished a valuable series of memoirs, containing a large number of texts dating from various historical periods, Mfmoires publi^es par les membres de la mission arcliiologique franQoise au Caire (Paris, 1884 et seq.). The work of the Anglo-American Society, the Rg-ptian Exploration Fund, founded b.v lliss .Vmelia B. Edwards in 1882, has been very fruitful. Many ancient sites have been explored, and many in-