in favor of Lepsius, compulsory labor was not yet abolished, and
Muhamed ‘Ali, who governed in his viceroyalty with the irresponsible
power of an absolute despot, wished to extend every assistance to the
expedition. He caused a firman to be issued for Lepsius, which gave him
unconditional permission to make any excavations which he might consider
desirable. All the local authorities were charged to assist him in his
undertakings, and Lepsius said that by means of the kavasses who had
been assigned to him by the government, and on the strength of the
firman, they obtained from the sheiks of the nearest villages and the
mudirs of the provinces all the workmen and appliances needed for making
and transporting his collection of antiquities. The necessary payments
had of course to be made, but they never met with a refusal. At Fayoum,
for instance, he employed a hundred and eight workmen in the excavation
of the building which he considered to be the Labyrinth. Each man
received two copper piasters a day (about twenty pfennige) and each
child ten pfennige, or, if it was very industrious, fifteen pfennige, a
day. Besides this some bread was given them. Under such conditions great
things may be accomplished with comparatively small means.
Nowadays it is only under exceptional circumstances, and within
carefully prescribed limits, that a European is permitted to make
excavations. The laborers ask quite a high price,--in Thebes I had to
pay each man six full piasters (one mark, twenty pfennige)--and, if one
disinters any monuments, even under the most favorable circumstances,
only such single specimens are permitted to leave the country as the
vice-regal museum is already rich in. Lepsius was more fortunately
situated. The monuments which he found in Ethiopia and wished to add to
his collection were brought from Mount Barcal to Alexandria on
government vessels, and to these were also added three tombs, from the
neighborhood of the pyramids of Ghizeh, which had been carefully taken
to pieces with the help of four workmen sent expressly for the purpose
from Berlin. On his departure from Egypt he received a special written
permit for the removal of the collection, and the objects obtained were
themselves presented to King Frederick William IV. of Prussia, by
Muhamed ‘Ali.
With full authority to take possession of all that might embellish the
Berlin collection, Lepsius appropriated what was most desirable and most
interesting wherever he found it, and ventured, as we have seen, to
remove whole tombs from the necropolis of ancient Memphis to the Spree.
This could not be done without injury to the adjoining tombs, as they
had consisted of a number of rooms collectively, and envy, ill-will and
stupidity were quickly at hand to accuse the Prussian expedition of
having, like impious Vandals, plundered and injured the monuments in
pursuit of their own purposes. But this accusation was entirely
unfounded, and any one who knows the condition of Egypt at that time can
only rejoice that so many treasures, which were neglected and exposed to
wanton destruction in their native country, were at a favorable moment
removed to Europe and preserved in a fine public museum.
No farther assurance is needed that Lepsius and his companions neither
laid hands upon nor destroyed a single stone unnecessarily, but it will
be expedient to mention here that since the French expedition and the
completion of the great work on monuments prepared by it, a series of
ancient edifices portrayed therein have vanished from the earth.
Between our first and second visit to the Nile an interesting little
temple at Erment had been turned into a sugar factory, and in the same
space of time the fine remains of a Grecian portico of white marble,
which had adorned the old Bes-Antinoopolis, had found their way to the
lime-kiln. This could occur at a time when the monuments were lovingly
and jealously guarded by the vigilant eye of Mariette, and hence it is
easy to conjecture what dangers threatened them as long as they were
left entirely at the mercy of every encroachment of the fellahin.
In a letter from the necropolis of Memphis, long before the
above-mentioned accusations were brought against him, Lepsius wrote: “It
is really shocking to see how every day whole trains of camels come here
from the neighboring villages, and march back again in long files, laden
with building stones. Fortunately,--for everything is fortunate under
some circumstances,--the lazy fellahin are more attracted by the
Psamatik tombs than by those of the oldest dynasties, whose big blocks
are too unwieldly for them.”
Therefore we may confidently designate the removal to Berlin, just at
that time, of the three tombs from Memphis and the other monuments, as
an act of protection. Only the pillar which Lepsius removed from the
perfectly preserved tomb of Seti I. at Thebes, should have been left in
its place.
The travellers, filled with enthusiasm for their task, had a long and
difficult journey to take in the course of their investigations and
search for spoils. It led them all, by ships, upon the backs of camels,
and on foot, with many delays and digressions, into the heart of the
African continent, as far as Khartoum at the junction of the two sources
of the Nile. Then, alone except for the company of Abeken, Lepsius
sailed on up the Blue River as far as the village of Romali, between
Sennar, the celebrated ancient capital of the Sudan, which he visited,
and Fazokl.
The last letter from our wayfarer is dated from Smyrna, and was written
on the seventh of December, 1845, much more than three years after his
arrival at Alexandria. From the very first, a long period of traveling
had been contemplated, and the leader had taken pains to establish his
own position with regard to the whole party, and the rights and duties
of each individual member of it, as well as to provide for “suitable
intellectual diet.” The commanding nature of his distinguished and
imposing personality had, if we except the excesses of the moulder
Franke, obviated throughout the whole time any illegitimate opposition
to, or rebellion against, his position as chief. How justly, kindly and
wisely this was maintained may best be shown by the friendship and
attachment manifested towards him till death by Abeken, Erbkam, the
Weidenbachs, and all the other members of the expedition, with the
exception of Franke.
And this is no light matter, for nowhere do disagreements of every kind
occur more readily than among a small party, who, separated from their
native civilization, have to endure, in addition to many deprivations,
the burden of an enervating climate; and who, tormented by discomforts,
fatigue, and homesickness, yield only too easily to gloomy and
discontented moods, beneath whose spell it is hard to be just and to
submit cheerfully to the will of another. Lepsius himself says that from
the beginning he tried to diversify the life of his party, and
especially the irksome and very monotonous work of his artists, not only
by the weekly holiday of Sunday, but also, as often as an opportunity
offered, by cheerful merry-makings and pleasant diversions.
One must himself have lived and worked in the Orient, far from the
bustle of cities, to appreciate what it is to pass on from days to weeks
and from weeks to months as on a monotonous road without
stopping-places. In such a place and at such times one feels the
blessing of our Sunday holiday, and Lepsius’ fellow-travellers would
certainly have fallen a prey to fatigue and disgust during their long
period of traveling and working together, if their chief had not
observed the feasts and holidays peculiar to their own country, and had
not kindly and judiciously taken account of their spiritual needs. One
of the most beautiful memories of our own life is that of the moment
when, after many months of wandering through Moslem lands, we
unexpectedly heard a church bell ring on Christmas day. It was long,
long since we had listened to the sound, and for the first time we fully
appreciated its elevating loveliness, when standing in front of the
little Protestant church in Upper Egypt from whose modest tower it
resounded.
Like a thirsty man after a cool drink, we returned to our labors with
fresh pleasure and fresh enthusiasm. The Sunday holiday of the Prussian
expedition not only recompensed and blessed them with the necessary
rest, but kept them in communion with the life of their dear ones at
home.
It would exceed the limits prescribed for this biography if we should
follow from spot to spot the travels, excavations, researches and
collections of the party led by Lepsius. He has himself relieved us of
this very tempting task, for his “Letters from Egypt, Ethiopia and the
Peninsula of Sinai,”[48] is a book which can and should be read with
pleasure and profit even by the general reader. It is by no means
confined to the results of his scientific investigations, but makes the
reader familiar also with the personal experiences of the author, and is
distinguished by a clear, concise, vivid and often charming style. It is
in many respects a book of importance for his fellow laborers in the
same department, since it places them in living contact with the sources
whence sprang many of the most important discoveries and works of the
author.
During his long stay at the necropolis of Memphis he succeeded in
elucidating the details of the history of the “Old Empire.” The
intuition by which he separated the twelfth dynasty from the
eighteenth,[49] assigned its correct place to the incursion of the
Hyksos, and even anticipated all that afterwards received documentary
corroboration by Dümichen’s discovery of the great Tablet of the Kings
at Abydos, will ever remain an intellectual feat worthy of admiration.
From Memphis he undertook, with the assistance of Erbkam’s technical
knowledge, to investigate the architectural system employed in the
construction of the pyramids. The results were recorded, even before the
close of the journey, in a dissertation in which the subject was treated
in the most fundamental manner.[50] These conclusions have been
maintained against all attacks, and even against the attempt to modify
them made by the excellent Perrot. In this work Lepsius confirms and
explains the statement of Herodotus that the pyramids were completed
from above downwards, and were built “in successive steps.” The work
cited also contains a well considered and convincing answer to that
other question which presents itself to the thoughtful observer of
these remarkable monuments. As soon as a Pharaoh ascended the throne he
began the construction of his mausoleum. It was at first of modest
dimensions, since he erected, as a nucleus of the whole, a truncated
pyramid with steep sides, and in doing so often took advantage of the
natural rocks. When he was overtaken by death, the pinnacle was first
placed upon this nucleus, and its inclined sides were then continued to
the ground. If time and power were still left after the completion of
the first nucleus and before the pinnacle was set on, the truncated
pyramid was invested with a new outer layer in the form of steps, and so
it was continued until a point was reached where each new addition
constituted of itself a gigantic labor. Whenever the time came to bring
the monument to completion it was always necessary first to set on the
pinnacle; the steps lying nearest to it were then filled out, and
finally those at the bottom. There are pyramids of all sizes, and what
we have said explains how it came to pass that one king erected for
himself a monument of prodigious dimensions, while another was contented
with one much smaller; why we can only point to two unfinished pyramids,
and how Cheops, the builder of the largest pyramid, found courage to
undertake a work for the execution of which the average duration of a
reign would in no wise suffice, while yet the completion of it could not
be exacted of his successors, who would have their own mausoleums to
provide for. Everything is made clear, if we assume with Lepsius that
the size of the pyramid was regulated by the duration of its builder’s
life, and that the latter had it in his power at any time to complete
the work.
Lepsius believed that he had found the Labyrinth at Fayoum, and he was
perhaps right in so thinking. But, even if this remarkable ancient
building should be re-discovered on some other site of the old “lake
country,” yet to Lepsius would still belong the credit of having
determined the position of Lake Moeris, first indicated by Linant de
Bellefonds, and of having proved that the Pharaoh Amenemha III., of the
twelfth dynasty, was the Moeris of the Greeks.[51] He also was the first
to investigate and make known all that was accomplished by this prince
in regulating the inundation of the Nile.
We know that his researches in Egypt and Ethiopia extended even beyond
the limits of the region of monuments. Within that zone he has, if we
may be allowed the expression, left no corner unexplored. He met with
the most abundant returns at Beni Hassan, Thebes, (especially upon the
return journey) Gebel Silsile, the island of Philae, Abu Simbel on the
second cataract, among the ruins of Ethiopian Meroë far in the South,
and also on the peninsula of Sinai.
Within the bounds of the temple of Isis, on the lovely island beyond the
first cataract, he made a succession of discoveries, upon which he
afterwards based great and original works. He first found here an
ecclesiastical ordinance,[52] similar to the decree of Rosetta, drawn
up in two languages, that is in hieroglyphics, and also in the demotic
(popular) writing and language. The numerous names of the Ptolemies,
which occurred in the inscriptions of the temple of Isis, also impelled
him to study more thoroughly the succession of the Egyptian kings of the
house of the Lagidae and to determine finally the order of this series
of rulers, of such great importance for the history of other
countries.[53] Here, as everywhere, he paid special attention to the
Greek inscriptions, which are very numerous on Philae. By his sagacity
and quick insight great additions were made to the Egypto-Grecian
inscriptions previously collected by Letronne and others. Those which
had been previously known received manifold corrections and additions
owing to the extreme accuracy peculiar to him. He afterwards devoted a
special treatise to the hieroglyphic form of the name of the
Ionians.[54]
On the return journey he was not able to stop for as long a time as he
had desired in the well-preserved Ptolemaic temples of Denderah and
Edfu. These are thickly covered with inscriptions, and therefore he left
behind him at those places, for Dümichen, Mariette, Naville, Brugsch and
other Egyptologists, not only rich gleanings, but really the greater
part of the substantial work still to be accomplished. But his attention
was especially attracted in Edfu by an inscription which was afterwards
to be of great service to him. In it were recorded the possessions in
landed property of this temple during the reign of Ptolemy XI.
(Alexander I.)[55] The surface measures which occurred in it he was
afterwards able to use to advantage in his studies on the linear and
square measures of the ancient Egyptians.
After the expedition had passed the first cataract and entered the
Nubian dominion the leader not only turned his attention to the remains
of the temples there, which had as yet been examined in a very
insufficient manner, but he also, with indefatigable industry, devoted
himself to studying the languages of all the tribes on whose territories
he touched. The description which he gives of the Nubian language, in a
letter from Korusko, dated the thirtieth of November, 1843, presents
with extreme conciseness the essential characteristics of this
remarkable idiom. In his farther travels towards the south he afterwards
investigated all the dialects of this same group of languages, and
acquired such an excellent knowledge of it that he could venture, at a
later date, to publish a translation of the Gospel according to St. Mark
in Nubian.[56] In publishing this translation he made use of the
standard alphabet which he had himself invented and which has been
previously mentioned. Indeed it was on this account that he first began
the difficult task of preparing the universal alphabet, which he was
afterwards asked to extend to a great number of languages for various
special purposes. During the journey he prepared a grammar and
dictionary of three dialects; the Nuba language spoken by the Nuba or
Berber tribe, the Kungara language of the negroes of Dar-Fur, and the
Béga language of the Bischarin inhabiting the eastern Sudan. This he did
so perfectly that he himself hoped that the publication of these works
would at least afford a clear idea of the languages mentioned. After his
return home he continued to pursue these studies unremittingly, and thus
obtained that profound insight into all the idioms of the African
continent, which gives its great and permanent importance to his last
long work, the Nubian Grammar, to which we shall again refer. Lepsius at
first devoted himself with special ardor to the study of those languages
which in his own day still flourished on the domain of the ancient
Ethiopians, because he cherished a firm hope of finding in them the key,
by which to decipher the popular writing of the Ethiopians, many
examples of which he had discovered on the site of ancient Meroë. This
writing is intended to be read from right to left, and the words are
always separated by two points. But its significance is unsolved up to
the present time. In deciphering the demotic-Ethiopian inscriptions
little assistance is to be looked for from the Ethiopian-hieroglyphic
as, whatever strange variations these may contain, they correspond
almost entirely to the Egyptian, in form as well as in the language
which underlies them. Like our own Latin inscriptions, they are composed
in the writing and language of an alien people. As we shall see, Lepsius
afterwards became convinced that the key to the Ethiopian-demotic
inscriptions of which we speak was not to be sought in the Nubian, but
in the Cushite Bischariba language.
On the domain of ancient Meroë everything was still to be done, for
Cailliaud, through whom the monuments there had first become known, had
seen and described them without technical knowledge of the subject. It
was, therefore, reserved for Lepsius to dissipate, once for all, the
popular conjectures of a “splendid primeval Meroë,” whose inhabitants
had been the predecessors of the Egyptians and their instructors in
civilization. He proved that all the native monuments which had been
preserved there dated from a relatively late period, which should not be
fixed before the time of the Ethiopian Pharaohs of the twenty-fifth
dynasty. The majority, he considered, could be assigned to a much later
period and had scarcely originated previous to the first century before
Christ. The little to be found dating from an earlier age owed its
existence to the Pharaohs and their artists.
The fine granite rams which bear the name of Amenophis III., (eighteenth
dynasty), and one of which at present adorns the Berlin museum, were
transported thither at a later period. They came, probably, from Soleb.
Ninety-two fellahin spent three sultry days in dragging down to the Nile
on rollers the “fat sheep” which weighed one hundred and fifty hundred
weight, and was to be transported to the Spree.
Lepsius advised the purchase for the Berlin museum of the gold and
silver ornaments discovered in 1834, by the Italian Romali. They were
found in a pyramid at Meroë which had a Roman vaulted antechamber. This
advice Lepsius gave after he recognized that they had probably belonged
to a specially powerful and warlike Ethiopian queen, whose image has
been preserved at El-Naga in rich attire, and with pointed finger nails,
nearly an inch long. At present the ornaments mentioned form one of the
embellishments of the Egyptian collection at Berlin.
An entertaining anecdote is connected with the so-called Ferlini
discovery at Meroë, and with the recollection of the sojourn of the
expedition and their labors there. The natives, naturally, could only
regard as treasure-seekers the strange men who busied themselves so
indefatigably among the old monuments, who applied measuring line and
rule to them, covered them with wet paper, poured plaster over them,
gazed at them, note book and pen in hand, and penetrated into their
innermost recesses.
When one of our colleagues afterwards visited this neighborhood, an old
sheik told him that he knew well that the King of the Germans had only
acquired the resources to vanquish the French, through the treasures
which the Howadji Lepsius had found at Meroë and sent back to his native
land.
Lepsius’ sojourn in Ethiopia led him to the conviction, only confirmed
by all subsequent investigations, that there could have been no ancient
and original Ethiopian civilization and culture. In respect to this, all
the reports of the ancients which do not rest upon a pure
misunderstanding refer only to _Egyptian_ culture and art, which,
during the dominion of the Hyksos, had taken refuge in Ethiopia. The
outbreak of the Egyptian power from Ethiopia at the founding of the New
Egyptian Kingdom, and its advance even far into Asia, was transferred
from the Ethiopian _country_ to the Ethiopian _people_, first in the
Asiatic and afterwards in the Greek traditions respecting this event;
for no knowledge had penetrated to the northern peoples of a still older
Egyptian Kingdom, and its proud but peaceful prime.
During the long journey which led the expedition once more northward,
and towards home, and which was now uninterrupted by side excursions, a
number of short inscriptions on the rock were discovered at Semneh[57]
and Kummeh. These yielded important historical information, for they
proved that the solicitude of Amenemha III. (the Moeris of the Greeks,
twelfth dynasty), for the regulation of the inundation of the Nile had
extended to this point; that the Sebekhotep must be added, as the
thirteenth dynasty, to the twelfth, and that four thousand years ago the
river rose higher by twenty-four feet than it does in our day.
The principal purpose of the expedition, the one which Lepsius ever kept
in view, and which decided the choice of the monuments to be copied, was
historical. When he could believe that he had achieved everything
possible in pursuance of this object, he felt that he might consider
himself satisfied. If we remember this we can easily understand how he
was almost wearied by the examination of those temples belonging to the
Ptolemaic and Roman periods which he inspected cursorily before coming
to Thebes; these were Philae, Kom Ombos, Edfu, Esneh, Erment. We can see
especially that the inexhaustible but more lately built temple of Edfu
could detain him but for a disproportionately short time. But in Thebes,
which he reached more than two years after leaving Europe, he found once
more the old delight in, and impulse for, research, and he could
therefore write, in a letter dated November twenty-fourth, 1844; “Here,
where the Homeric figures of the mighty Pharaohs of the eighteenth and
nineteenth dynasties meet me in all their splendor and magnificence, I
feel once more as fresh as at the beginning of the journey.” And one
must credit his assurance, and profoundly admire the man’s elasticity
and enthusiasm for his task, when one surveys the great treasure of
inscriptions which he and his assistants amassed there, and the wealth
of admirable surveys, maps, sketches, and pictures, which the expedition
found time to execute. Five and a half months he devoted to Thebes, and
did not leave off until there, too, he had attained his purpose,
although he was already on his homeward way and surrounded by
unspeakable difficulties and privations, while before him, on the
contrary, beckoned with outstretched hands everything to which his heart
clung, and which could bring him peace, recreation, honor and spiritual
refreshment.
His friend Abeken had been forced to leave him at Philae, and although
there was no lack of occasional European visitors in Thebes, yet it
would have been natural if his taste for travel had by this time abated.
But, on the contrary, his passion for research seems just then to have
gained a new impetus, and the trip which he undertook from Thebes to the
Peninsula of Sinai, after indicating the course to be followed during
his absence by the members of the expedition in their various labors,
was begun and carried through as though he had just quitted his native
land, with an immense surplus stock of energy and enthusiasm.
Accompanied only by the younger Weidenbach and the necessary servants,
he chose to proceed from Keneh to the Red Sea, not by the usual caravan
route, but by the road through the midst of the mountains to
Gebel-es-Set. This promised to save time, and he hoped to find on it
something interesting and new.