compared with the most extensive in Europe, was, immediately upon its
arrival, incorporated with the royal collections, without my being
placed in any official connection with it. It is already opened and
accessible to the public. A careful examination of it will conduce more
than anything to place the remarks of later tourists,--among whom there
are even Germans,--in their true light; who have even gone so far, as
in the case of a Herr Julius Braun, in the General Augsburg Journal
(_Allgemeine Augsburger Zeitung_), to ascribe to us the mutilation of
the gods in the temple at El Kab, done 3,000 years ago! Besides, it
would show a total ignorance of present Egyptian relations, or that
which gives the actual interest to the monuments of antiquity, if
any one did not wish to see the as precious as unestimated and daily
destroyed treasures of those lands, preserved in European museums as
much as possible.
[4] [In the first edition of this work I lamented that due care was not
bestowed upon this obelisk, and that “our own property” was abandoned
to the wind and the rain, the sand, and--worse than all--the Arab. Now,
however, I have the satisfaction to be able to state that the Crystal
Palace Company are about to do what our Government, with a surplus of
£1,600,000, could not afford.--K. R. H. M. 2nd edit.]
[5] The diary of this Nile expedition has since been made public under
the title of “Expedition to discover the Sources of the White Nile”
(1840-1841), by Ferdinand Werne; with a preface by Carl Ritter. Berlin,
1848. [The work has since been published in English, under the auspices
of Mr. Bentley, in two volumes.--K. R. H. M.]
[6] Since Ibrahim Pasha’s death, in 1848, viceroy of Egypt.
[7] This treatise, “Report of the River Goshop, and the countries of
Enarea, Caffa, and Doko, by a native of Enarea,” has been translated
by Ritter, read in the Geographical Society of Berlin, on the 7th of
January, 1843, and printed in the monthly reports of that institution,
in the fourth year, pp. 172-188.
[8] At our departure for Upper Egypt we had examined 130 private tombs,
and discovered the remains of 67 pyramids.
[9] See my essay, “_Sur l’Ordre des Colonnes-piliers en Egypte, et ses
rapports avec le second Ordre Egyptien et la Colonne Grecque_ (_avec
deux planches_),” in the ninth volume of the _Annales de l’Institut de
Corresp. Archéol. Rome_. 1838.
[10] See Letter XV., p. 117.
[11] [The _Athenæum_, in a late review of this work, questions the word
“prince,” and proposes to read “son;” now, in a subsequent letter (p.
39), Lepsius himself conjectures that this Prince Merhet was the son of
Cheops, which the reviewer appears to have overlooked in his excellent
remarks.--K. R. H. M.]
[12] [As a further illustration of this scene, but briefly passed over
by the originator of it, the following observations of Mr. Gliddon
will be found very interesting. “Mr. Gliddon hoped, that besides the
day view, the Prussians would add their night scene of New Year’s Eve,
1842, when the blaze of bonfires, lighted on the top of each of the
three pyramids, cast a lurid glare on every side, bringing out the
craggy peaks of the long desecrated mausolea of Memphite Pharoahs,
tinting that drear wilderness of tombs with a light, emblematical
of Lepsius’ vindication of their inmates’ memories, and leaving the
shadows of funereal gloom to symbolize the fifty centuries of historic
night, now broken by the hierologists:--
“‘Dark has been thy night,
Oh Egypt, but the flame
Of new-born _science_ gilds thine ancient name.’”
--Gliddon’s _Otia Egyptiaca_; Lecture II. Burke’s Ethnological Journal,
No. VI. p. 265.--K. R. H. M.]
[13] [The reed; A initial, Bunsen, vol. i. p. 556, Alphabetic No. 3 =
A: the sickle, M Alphabetic No. 2, p. 563 = M: the sieve, χ Alphabetic
No. 1, p. 571 = χ: unknown object, p. 571, with U, the chicken, p. 570
= χU = AMCHU. This will give the uninitiated an idea of the way in
which hieroglyphic words are formed.--K. R. H. M.]
[14] [See Bunsen’s Egypt’s Place in Universal History, vol. i. p.
618.--K. R. H. M.]
[15] [This has been done, and better than in any other museum in the
world, see page 40.--K. R. H. M.]
[16] Unfortunately the colours have now quite faded. The unequal
surface of the stone had rendered it necessary to spread a thick
groundwork of lime over the sculptures ere they could be painted upon;
this lime has peeled off by its transportation and the moist sea air,
so that only the rough sculpture is remaining. In the “Monuments of the
Prussian Expedition,” Part II. Plate 19-22, the colours are faithfully
given, as they were preserved by the covering of sand in their original
freshness.
[17] On our return from the south, two other perfect tombs, besides
this one, were taken down and brought to Europe. All three have been
re-erected, with the rest of the monuments, in the New Museum at Berlin.
[18] [Bunsen, vol. i. p. 618.--K. R. H. M.]
[19] An essay “On the Construction of the Pyramids” was transmitted by
me to the Royal Academy of Sciences, and printed, in accordance with a
decree of the 3rd of August of the same year.--See the Monthly Report
of the Academy in 1843, pp. 177-203, with three plates. [The following
summary of Dr. Lepsius’ discovery, obtained from various sources, may
not be unacceptable to the reader. At the commencement of each reign,
the rock chamber, destined for the monarch’s grave, was excavated, and
one course of masonry erected above it. If the king died in the first
year of his reign, a casing was put upon it and a pyramid formed; but
if the king did not die, another course of stone was added above and
two of the same height and thickness on each side: thus in process of
time the building assumed the form of a series of regular steps. These
were cased over with stone, all the angles filled up, and stones placed
for steps. Then, as Herodotus long since informed us (Euterpe, c.
cxxv), the pyramid was finished from the top downward, by all the edges
being cut away, and a perfect triangle only left.--See, in addition to
Lepsius himself, Letronne, Dicuil, pp. 90-115, 1814; Athenæum, Bonomi,
16th Sept. 1843; J. W. Wild, 15th June, 1844. Wilkinson’s _Materia
Hieroglyphica_, Malta, 1830, p. 14; and last, though not least,
Gliddon’s _Otia Egyptiaca_, Lecture IV. Ethnological Journal, No. VII.
p. 294.--K. R. H. M.]
[20] I have spoken more fully on this subject in my “Chronology of the
Egyptians,” vol. i. p. 294. [See also Vyse, Pyramids of Gizeh, vol.
iii. pp. 118, 119; Letronne, Inst. de l’Eg. vol. ii. pp. 460-466; and
Wilkinson, Modern Eg. and Thebes, vol. i. p. 353.--K. R. H. M. 2nd
edit.]
[21] [See Bunsen’s Egypt’s Place in Universal History (Engl. transl.),
vol. i. p. 515; Ideographics, No. 277.--K. R. H. M.]
[22] [The more extended our acquaintance with ancient monuments or
ancient writings becomes, the more simple and human do we find their
signification to be. It has been the case with Egypt, Assyria, with
Mexico, and indeed with most of those monuments that occur in connexion
with the ancient world, in the popular acceptation of the word. If
mystery and types possess a home anywhere, it must be in India, for
even in Yucatan, the hieroglyphics seem very simple and the reverse
of mysterious, when properly examined, as I hope to prove one day, in
an extended investigation into Mexican antiquities, upon which the
labour of some years has been bestowed. Instead of seeking for such
remote causes, the reader will do well to consider the simple opinion
of Gliddon, in his _Otia_, Lecture VIII. Burke’s Ethnological Journal,
No. IX. p. 395, regarding the origin of animal worship. I should not
have been led to this lengthy note if I did not feel that, while the
earliest tenets of worship were indeed veiled in types (the result,
however, as much of accident as design), animal worship is too recent
to conceal any such mysterious dogmas. I do not wish to place my notion
in competition with that of Lepsius; this is a mere suggestion.--K. R.
H. M.]
[23] [See a lively description of this ceremony in Bayle St. John’s
Village Life in Egypt.--K. R. H. M. 2nd edit.]
[24] [News have just been received from Egypt that most enterprising
excavations have been commenced at Mitrahinneh, partly under the
direction of Mr. A. Harris, of Alexandria.--K. R. H. M. 2nd edit.]
[25] See my essay “On the general employment of the Pointed Arch in
Germany in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries,” as an Introduction to
H. Gally Knight’s Progress of Architecture from the Tenth to the
Fourteenth Century under the Normans, from the English; Leipsig, 1841;
and my father’s treatise, “The Dome of Naumburg,” by C. P. Lepsius,
Leipsig, 1840 (in Puttrich’s “Monuments of Architecture,” II. pt. 3, 4).
[26] [In Catherwood’s beautiful work on Central America we find that at
some of the cities a peculiar arch was employed. This consisted in an
arch of which the point was destroyed by laying a beam across at the
top. In the Polynesian islands we also find almost perfect approaches
to the pointed arch.--K. R. H. M.]
[27] [Indeed, we learn from Bayle St. John that the Fellahs are not
only contented with this treatment, but proud of the number of times
they have been thus used. It saves money, and that is quite enough
reason.--K. R. H. M. 2nd edit.]
[28] [From the labyrinth and the remains of lake Mœris.--K. R. H. M.]
[29] [About two-pence halfpenny English.--K. R. H. M.]
[30] Evening.
[31] It is to be remarked that even in the “Thousand and One Nights,”
where occasionally æsthetic observations are to be found, there is
nothing relating to music which would lead us to estimate the musical
tastes of the Arabs at any higher standard than that manifested in the
account of Lepsius and others.--K. R. H. M.
[32] Lib. XVII. p. 789, ed. Parisii, 1620.--K. R. H. M.
[33] [See Bunsen’s Egypt’s Place, &c. vol. i. p. 624-5, and also
the comparative lists of Eratosthenes and Manetho at pp. 124, 125
of the same work. “ὃς τὸν ὲν Ἀρσινοἷτῃ λαβύρινθον ἑαυτῷ τάφον
κατεσκεύασεν.”--K. R. H. M.]
[34] Compare my “Chronology of the Egyptians,” vol. i. pp. 262 sqq.
[35] [Bunsen, vol. i. pp. 640-641.--K. R. H. M.]
[36] According to Linant the difference is 22^m, i.e. 70 feet Rhenish.
In June, 1843, Nascimbeni, an engineer of the viceroy, visited us in
our camp by the pyramid of Mœris, being at the time engaged on a new
chart and levelling of the Faiûm. He had only found 2 metres fall from
Illahûn to Medînet, but from thence to the Birqet el Qorn, 75 metres. I
am not aware that anything has been made known regarding these widely
different measures. Sir G. Wilkinson, Modern Egypt and Thebes, vol.
ii. p. 346, states the lake _niveau_ to be about 125 English feet
below the Nile shore at Benisuef. [But see Bunsen’s observation in the
(untranslated) second book of his _Ægypten_, p. 209.--K. R. H. M. 2nd
edit.]
[37] _Mémoire sur le lac Mœris, présenté et lu à Société Egyptienne le
5 Juillet, 1842, par Linant de Bellefonds, inspecteur-général des ponts
et chaussées, publié par la Société Egyptienne. Alexandrie_, 1843, 4to.
See my “Chronology of the Egyptians,” vol. i. p. 262 sq.
[38] The same Domenico Lorda set out again in the same year to
Abyssinia, and transmitted thence six other Abyssinian MSS. to Herr
Lieder, who submitted them to me on my return to Cairo. These were
also purchased for the Royal Library at my suggestion. They contain,
according to the account of Heri Lorda:--
A. _Abusher_, Almanacco perpetuo civile-ecclesiastico-storico.
B. _Settà Neghest_, Codice dell’ imperadore Eeschias.
C. _Joseph_, Storia civile ed ecclesiastica(?)
D. _Beraan_, Storia civile ed ecclesiastica.
E. _Philkisius e Marisak_, Due opere in un volume che trattano
della storia civile.
F. _Sinodus_, Dritto canonico.
[39] [See Bunsen’s Egypt’s Place in Universal History, vol. i. p.
632.--K. R. H. M.]
[40] [Bunsen, vol. i. pp. 400-402. Het-her signifies “the habitation of
Horus.”--K. R. H. M.]
[41] [Bunsen, vol. i. p. 620. Therefore, about the time of
Nitocris.--K. R. H. M.]
[42] [Bunsen, vol. i. p. 624. Coeval with the pyramid of the
Labyrinth.--K. R. H. M.]
[43] [Bunsen, vol. i. pp. 624-625. Ramses is the third king in
Manetho’s twelfth dynasty.--K. R. H. M.]
[44] This letter, addressed to Alexander von Humboldt, has been printed
in the “Preussische Staatszeitung,” of the 9th of February, 1844.
[45] The correction Ἀδελφῆς in this inscription, dated in the
thirty-fifth year of Euergetes (136 B. C.), is of importance to some
chronological determinations of that period. Letronne (_Rec. des
Inscr._ _vol._ i. _p._ 33 _sqq._ 56) assumed that Cleopatra III. the
niece and second wife of Euergetes II., was here mentioned. From
this alone he judged that this king only added the name of his wife,
Cleopatra III., to his own in the official documents, previous to
his expulsion in the year 132 B. C., and therefore placed all the
inscriptions, in which after the King, both Cleopatras, the sister
and the (second) wife are named, in the period after the return of
Euergetes (127-117), e. g. the inscriptions of the obelisk of Philae
(_Rec._ _vol._ i. _p._ 333). In this he is followed by Franz (_Corp.
Inscr._ _vol._ iii. _p._ 285), who places for the same reason the
inscriptions _C. I._ _No._ 4841, 4860, 4895, 4896, between 127 and 117
B. C., although he was aware of my correction of the inscription of
Pselchis (_C. I._ _No._ 5073).
It is always remarkable that only _one_ Cleopatra is mentioned in the
inscription of Pselchis, but as it is Cleopatra II., the first wife
of the king, whom he always distinguishes from his second wife by the
designation of “the sister,” it is not to be concluded that he should
have expressly omitted mention of the latter in the documents from the
beginning of his second marriage. This is confirmed in the decisive
manner by two demotic Papyri of the Royal Museum, in which _both_
Cleopatras are mentioned, although one is of the year 141 B. C., and
the other of the year 136 B. C. All the inscriptions, which, according
to Letronne (_Rec. des Inscr._ _tome_ i. _No._ 7, 26, 27, 30, 31) and
Franz (_Corp. Inscr._ _vol._ iii. _No._ 4841, 4860, 4895, 4896) fall
between 127 and 117 B. C., for this reason, can therefore be referred
with the same probability to the years between 145 and 135 B.C.
[46] [See Bunsen, vol. i. pp. 393-395.--K. R. H. M.]
[47] Compare Letronne _Recueil des Inscription Grecques de l’Egypte_,
_tome_ i. _pp._ 363 _sqq._ Ptolemaeus Eupator is not mentioned by the
historians. The name was first discovered in a Greek Papyrus at Berlin,
written under Soter II. in the year 105 B.C., and indeed foisted in
between Philometor and Euergetes. Böckh, who published the Papyrus
(1821), referred the surname of Euergetes to Soter II. and his wife,
and held Eupator to be a surname of the deified Euergetes II. In the
same year Champollion-Figeac treated of this papyrus, and endeavoured
to prove that Eupator was that son of Philometer put to death by
Euergetes II. on his accession. This view was afterwards accepted by
St. Martin, Böckh, and Letronne (_Rech. pour serv. à l’Hist. de l’Eg._
_p._ 124). In the meantime the name Eupator had been found in a second
papyrus of the reign of Soter II., as also in a letter of Numenius
upon the Phileusian obelisk of Herr Bankes of the time of Euergetes
II. Eupator was named in both inscriptions, but did not stand behind,
but before Philometor, and therefore could not be his son. Letronne
now conjectured (_Recueil des Inscr._ _tome_ i. _p._ 365) that Eupator
was another surname of Philometor. Then, however, it should have been
καὶ Θεοῦ Εὐπάτορος τοῦ καὶ Φιλομήτορος, and not καὶ Θεοῦ Εὐπάτορος
καὶ Θεοῦ Φιλομήτορος. In a letter to Letronne of the 1st December,
1844, from Thebes, which has been printed in the _Revue Archéol._
_tome_ i. _pp._ 678 _sqq._, I informed him that I had also found in
several hieroglyphical inscriptions the name Eupator, and always
before Philometor. The same reasons that I alleged against Letronne’s
interpretation of the Greek name (that portion of the letter was not
printed in the _Revue_), i. e. the simple recurrence of the Θεοῦ, did
also not allow Eupator to be considered another name of Philometor in
the hieroglyphical lists. He must have been a Ptolemy recognized for a
short time as king, but not mentioned by the historians; and as Franz
(_Corp. Inscr._ _vol._ iii. _p._ 285) and Letronne (_Rec._ _vol._ ii.
_p._ 536) have recognized an elder brother of Philometor, who died in a
few months, and was therefore omitted in the Ptolemaic canon.
The son of Philometor and his sister Cleopatra II., however, mentioned
by Justin and Josephus, in which it was formerly thought that the
Eupator of the Berlin papyrus had been found, is particularly mentioned
in the hieroglyphical inscriptions and of the other Ptolemies, in
his place between Philometor and Euergetes, and we thus learn his
name, which the historians had not added. He is sometimes called
Philopator, sometimes Neos Philopator, and is therefore to be referred
to in the series of reigned Ptolemies, as Philopator II. Of fourteen
hieroglyphical lists which come down to Euergetes II., seven mention
Philopator II.; in four other lists in which he might have been
mentioned he is passed over, and these seem all to belong to the
first year of Euergetes II., his murderer, which readily explains the
cause. That he does not appear in the canon is quite natural, because
his reign did not extend over the change of the Egyptian year; but,
as might be expected, he is named in the protocolls of the Demotic
Papyrus, where those Ptolemies receiving divine honours are enumerated,
and in which Young had already properly seen Eupator. In fact, he is
mentioned here in all the lists known to me (five in Berlin of the
years 114, 103, 103, 99, 89 B.C., and one in Turin of the year 89 B.C.)
which are later than Euergetes II., as also in a Berlin papyrus of
the fifty-second year of Euergetes himself (therefore in 188 B.C.).
A comparison of the Demotic lists manifests that the interchange of
the names Eupator and Philometor in the Greek papyrus of the year 105
B.C. (not 106, as Franz, _Corp. Inscr._ _p._ 285 writes), is not only
a mistake of the copyist, as these and similar interchanges are also
not uncommon in the Demotic papyrus. The different purposes of the
hieroglyphic and demotic lists render it comprehensible, that in the
former such variations were not admissible, as in the latter.
[48] Wilkinson (_Modern Egypt and Thebes_, vol. ii. p. 275) considers
this Cleopatra Tryphæna to be the famous Cleopatra, daughter of Neos
Dionysos; Champollion (_Lettres d’Egypte_, p. 110) to be the wife of
Philometor; but the cartouche combined with her name belong neither to
Ptolemæus XIV., the elder son of Neos Dionysos, nor to Ptolomæus VI.
Philometor, but to Ptolemæus XIII. Neos Dionysos or Auletes, who is
always Philopator Philadelphus, on the monuments. Cleopatra Tryphæna
was therefore the wife of Ptolemæus Auletes.
[49] The inscription referred to is in the rock-cave of Echmin, and
was, without doubt, first engraved under Ptolemæus Philadelphus, with
double cartouches and the usual royal titles, but without the surname
of Soter; he is mentioned on a stele in Vienna which was erected
under Philopator. Here, however, he has another cartouche than at
Echmin, and moreover, in a remarkable manner, the same as that which
Philippus Aridaeus and Alexander II., under whom Ptolemæus Lagus was
Viceroy in Egypt, bore before his time. In like manner he is named on
a statue of the king in the ruins of Memphis, where the Horus-name of
the king may be found, and which may probably have been made during
his reign. Finally, the Soters are sometimes only mentioned by their
surnames, at the head of the honoured ancestors of later kings, as in
the inscription of Rosetta, and in the bilingual Decrees of Philae
written [Illustration: hieroglyphs] while Soter II. is always written
[Illustration: hieroglyphs] _p. nuter enti nehem_, which would answer
to the Koptic [Illustration: Koptic], _deus servator_. In the Demotic
inscriptions, too, the first Soters are designated by _nehem_, and in
the singular, by the Greek word _p.suter_.
Although it is not to be doubted that the Soters, who, according to the
Demotic papyrus, had a peculiar cultus with the rest of the Ptolemies,
not only in Alexandria and Ptolemais, but also in Thebes, were looked
upon as the chiefs of the Ptolemaic dynasty, it is more remarkable
that till now no building has been discovered which was erected under
Ptolemæus Soter as king, although he continued twenty years in this
capacity. To this must be added that the above-mentioned hieroglyphic
lists of Ptolemies, without exception, do not begin the series with
Soters, but with the Adelphi, as said at Echmin, his cartouches have no
royal titles, and that in Karnak, under Euergetes II., Philadelphus is
represented as King, and Soter, answering to the same period, not as
king. Also in the Demotic king lists of the papyrus, the Alexandrian
series passes over the Soters down to Philometor, and lets the Adelphi
immediately follow Alexander the Great. The Soters have come before
me at the earliest in a papyrus of the seventeenth year of Philopator
(210 B.C.), the oldest in the Berlin collection; the Thebaic cultus of
the Ptolemies seems to have excluded the Soters altogether. Although,
therefore, the beginning of the royal government in the year 305 B.C.,
as the Canon asserts, is an ascertained fact, and is incontestably
confirmed by the hieroglyphic stele in Vienna, which has been cited for
it by my friend M. Pinder (_Beitr. zur älteren Münzkunde_, _Band_ I.
p. 201) in his instructive essay “On the era of Philippus on coins,”
it seems to authorize another legitimate view, according to which,
not Ptolemæus Logi, but Philadelphus, the eldest king’s son (even
though not Porphyrogenitus), was the head of the Ptolemies. Thus it
may also be explained, that we find under Euergetes I. an astronomical
era employed, that of the otherwise unknown Dionysius, which took its
beginning from the year 285 B.C. the first of Philadelphus, while
the coins of Philadelphus neither count from his own accession, nor
from the year 305 B.C., but from the year of the decease of Alexander
the Great, or the beginning of the viceroyship of Ptolemaeus, as the
beginning point of a new era. (See Pinder, p. 205).
[50] [Manetho in Bunsen, Egypt’s Place, vol i. p. 620. Nitocris is the
last of this dynasty. K. R. H. M.]
[51] _Denkmäler aus Ægypten und Æthiopien_, _Abth._ II. _Blatt._
123-133.
[52] [Bunsen’s Egypt’s Place, vol. i. p, 45. K. R. H. M.]
[53] _Denkmäler_, _Abth._ II. _Bl._ 134.
[54] [I. e., _the cartouches_ of contemporaneous kings.--K. R. H. M.]
[55] [See Bunsen’s Egypt’s Place, vol. i. p. 373, where an account of
this deity is given.--K. R. H. M.]
[56] [This resembles, in fact, the system of calling parishes after
the names of the Saints, to commemorate whose martyrdom the church was
erected; as, for instance, the church and parish of St. Alphege, in the
town of Greenwich.--K. R. H. M.]
[57] [See Bunsen, vol. i. p. 400, for an account of this deity.--K. R.
H. M.]
[58] [Bunsen, vol. i. p. 470. Egyptian Vocabulary, No. 294, and
Determinative sign, No. 58. p. 542, the author there refers to
Champollion, Grammaire, and Rosellini, Monumenti Reali, cxlii. 1.--K.
R. H. M.]
[59] [Bunsen (vol. i. p. 434, n. 333,) says, “The discovery of the
meaning of Harpocrates is mine; but I explained it as Her-pe-schre
(Horus the child), and adopted Lepsius’s correction.” In the text it is
given HER-PA-ΧRUTI.--K. R. H. M.]
[60] _Denkmäler_, _Abth._ IV. _Bl._ 38, 39. A special essay is prepared
on these inscriptions.