which was destitute of water, little known, and not free from danger.
But he succeeded in inducing them to consent, and came within a
hair’s-breadth of losing his life when, in his search for the porphyry
quarries, he went astray on Gebel Dukhan, the _Mons porphyrites_ of the
ancients. But he was not the man to resign easily a scientific prize
when he beheld it before him, and therefore we see him, though scarcely
escaped from destruction, begin his search anew, and once more attain
his aim.
He had ordered a ship to be ready at Gebel-es-Set, and thence he went
across the Red Sea to Tur. His companion, Weidenbach, is now living in
Australia, in easy circumstances, and we can readily understand the sigh
with which he declared that this was the most fatiguing part of all the
journey, when we consider that Lepsius was obliged to limit his whole
sojourn upon the Peninsula of Sinai to the time between the twenty-first
of March and the sixth of April, and observe, from his other
writings,[58] as well as the great work on monuments, all that he
accomplished in that period. With this must be included, too, all the
inscriptions and designs which he copied. The days began at sunrise, and
before the travellers lay down to their brief sleep in the evening all
that had been discovered through the day had to be reduced to order and
set down in writing.
Lepsius visited only a small portion of the Peninsula of Sinai, but with
the exception of the neighborhood of Petra, it was the most interesting
part, and he explored it in every direction with diligence and sagacity.
He copied or took home with him in the shape of casts whatever Egyptian
inscriptions or paintings of interest he found there, and he afterwards
published, from his excellent paper casts, many of those incisions upon
the rocks of the Peninsula of Sinai which are known by the name of the
Nabathean Inscriptions. The most important elevations in that locality
were all ascended by him, and he took from their summits the points of
the compass, for the cartographic works to be undertaken in the future.
His sagacity and erudition established that which the king of Oriental
travellers, Burckhardt, had suspected before him, namely, that the
mountain from which the Law was given was not the Gebel-Musa group,
which is at present held to be the Sinai of the Scriptures, but the
magnificent Serbal. The author of this biography, during his own journey
to Sinai, was also obliged to adopt the view of Lepsius; he furnished
fresh arguments to confirm it,[59] and is of the opinion that sooner or
later it must be generally accepted as correct, in spite of the
opposition which it still encounters on many sides.
After Lepsius had returned to Thebes from this excursion, he wrote to
Bunsen: “Fortunately the journey to Sinai now lies behind us, and in
truth I am heartily glad of it, not only because it was the hardest and
most dangerous part of our whole pilgrimage, but also because it
presented the most important and difficult problems which still remained
to be solved on our return journey. Now nothing remains but the
departure from Thebes and from Cairo; and, this, too, is only a question
of getting ready to leave, there is nothing more of importance to be
undertaken. When I consider all the material which we have collected in
the three years it almost terrifies me, for I shall never be in a
position to work it up, even if we succeed in bringing it home.”
Nevertheless, he was afterwards able, as we shall see, to make the whole
of it accessible to science.
From the Peninsula of Sinai Lepsius went back to Thebes, where he found
that his instructions had been excellently carried out. Thence he
returned to Cairo, making only short stops in the places where the most
important monuments were to be found. On the way he met Dr. Bethmann[60]
an old university friend, who had come over from Italy, in order to make
the return journey through Palestine with him. Before his departure to
the Promised Land, Lepsius superintended the despatching of the
treasures which he had collected, and the taking apart of the tombs from
the pyramids to be transported to Berlin. Lastly he visited the
localities containing the most important monuments in the Delta.
In a letter of the eleventh of July, 1845, he stated the plan according
to which he hoped to see the Egyptian antiquities arranged in the new
museum at Berlin. This was to be on an historical basis, and was
afterwards executed in the manner proposed. He had heard at Cairo, much
to his delight, that they had not yet begun to build the halls intended
for the Egyptian department of the new museum at Berlin, and that his
desire to see every part constructed in the Egyptian style of
architecture might yet be carried out from the very foundation.
“I think,” he wrote, “that to produce a generally harmonious impression,
we must preserve the characteristic styles of building of the different
periods, and especially the order of the pillars, in their historical
sequence, and also with all their rich colored decoration.”
Lepsius still kept his attention fixed upon Egyptian antiquity even
during his rapid journey through Palestine, and he was afterwards able
to publish,[61] and also to incorporate in his great work on monuments,
the best copy of the celebrated tablet chiselled on the living rock,
which commemorates the victory of Rameses II. on the Dog river
(Nahr-el-Kelb). This is the Lycos of the ancients, and lies north of
Berytos (Beirut).
When Lepsius finally turned homewards from Smyrna, (he had chosen the
route through Constantinople), much more than three years had passed
since he first set out upon his journey, and these years had been
employed in a manner which far exceeded all the expectations and hopes
of his monarch, his patrons and his friends. Not only had the tasks
imposed upon him been perfectly fulfilled, but the emissary had
bethought him upon the way of imposing new ones upon himself, and now
returned home with an unprecedented number of acquisitions in the way of
inscriptions, maps, works of art and notes on language. The really
enthusiastic reception which he met with everywhere, and especially in
Berlin at the beginning of 1846, was well deserved. All the newspapers
lauded the brilliant achievements of the returning expedition. The name
of the leader became famous in all countries; it spread far beyond the
circle of his professional collaborators and countrymen, and won that
world-wide celebrity which it will retain as long as historical and
philological research exist.
His King, Frederick William IV., was the man to recognize the value of
his acquisitions, and his friend and fellow-workman, Bunsen, his patron,
A. v. Humboldt, the Director of the museum, v. Olfers, and others, did
not grudge due appreciation to the great services of the returned
traveller. They were able to induce their monarch to grant him the means
of turning to good account the abundance of treasures which he had sent
home, and of placing them at the disposal of the learned world in the
best and most appropriate manner. Thus, without regard to the enormous
expenses which must be entailed by such an undertaking, Lepsius was able
to set to work at the preparation of the great book on monuments which
was to make his name immortal, and to give renown to his native land and
his royal patron.
As far as his expenses upon the journey were concerned, he had not
exceeded his estimates, and these funds had paid for all excavations and
purchases. Humboldt considered the journey “cheap beyond measure.” It
had cost altogether thirty-four thousand, six hundred thalers.
Humboldt estimated the expenses for the publication of the store of
inscriptions and monuments collected, as well as the maps and pictures
prepared upon the journey, at sixty to eighty thousand thalers. Lepsius
thought at the time that he had rated it too high, but it afterwards
proved that it could not be completed even for this large sum. The King
had received Lepsius most graciously, and never wearied of hearing his
accounts of his journey and his acquisitions. This is confirmed by v.
Reumont, and the following extract is taken from his book, “The Days of
King William in Sickness and Health:” “After Lepsius’ return (from
Egypt) in 1846, the importance of the results which he had achieved and
the beautiful things which he had sent home, procured him the most
gracious reception at court, and he was a frequent and welcome guest
there, animated and suggestive, clever in relating his many experiences,
etc.” It was therefore natural that the king should immediately grant
him the fifteen thousand thalers, which according to Humboldt’s estimate
was the first instalment necessary for the preparation of the work on
monuments.
THE MASTER WORKMAN.
On the twenty-third of August, 1846, Lepsius was appointed a regular
professor at the Berlin University. This was followed, in 1850, by his
election as member of the Academy of Sciences, and in 1855 by his
appointment as co-director of the Egyptian museum, in conjunction with
Passalacqua, who, although a person of superficial education, was a good
man, and could not be set aside. Lepsius thus obtained the necessary
leisure to devote himself uninterruptedly to the great and varied labors
which awaited him.
Now that his probation as a journeyman was completed, he established a
home of his own, and on the fifth of July, 1846, was married to
Elizabeth Klein. The lovely bride, then eighteen years old, was an
orphan, the child of the celebrated musician and composer of the same
name.
In 1856 were completed the twelve volumes of the great work on monuments
which Lepsius had been commissioned by his king to prepare. At the time
that he left Egypt he had thought that it would exceed his powers. It
was published in sixty-two numbers, and the eight hundred and
ninety-four plates which compose them are in folio form, and exceed in
size all previous works of the kind. The size interferes with the
convenience of the book for handling, and is the sole point to be found
fault with in what is otherwise a model production. The late Mariette
once said to us in jest: “One needs a corporal and four soldiers to use
your Lepsius’ ‘Monuments,’” and it is true that these twelve gigantic
volumes demand too much physical strength, and too much space on the
study-table, when one is obliged to consult them one after another. Yet
the labor is substantially lessened by the incomparable order in which
the author has arranged them. “The Monuments of Egypt and Ethiopia”[62]
embrace all the archaeological, palaeographic and historical
acquisitions of the expedition. They contain the prodigious wealth of
hieroglyphic, Greek and other written records which the travellers
collected on the way, in addition to maps, sketches, landscapes and
architectural pictures, many of which are finely executed in colors.
The thousands of sheets of paper containing the impressions taken in
Egypt, from which the majority of the inscriptions were copied and
transferred to the lithographic stone, are preserved in the Egyptian
museum as valuable documents. Let it be noted here that Lepsius was the
first to apply successfully and efficiently this excellent method of
copying by means of paper impressions. It is now, however, only on rare
occasions of minor importance that the investigator finds it necessary
to refer to the original impressions of the expedition, so wonderfully
accurate are the reproductions of them. In the great publications of
Champollion and Rosellini, (page 78) we frequently find alterations and
inaccuracies on comparing them with the monuments, but in the
“Monuments” of Lepsius such defects are almost unknown. Yet still
greater commendation is due to the classification of the immense
material comprised in this inexhaustible mine. There is scarcely the
least change to be made in the historical sequence of these hundreds of
closely filled plates, although later researches and excavations have
furnished much that is new, and many details have been elucidated by the
monographic works of Egyptologists since 1850. Before his departure for
the Orient Lepsius had already examined the succession of the Egyptian
dynasties. Amidst the monuments of the Nile he succeeded in finding
answers to all that had appeared questionable to him while in Europe,
and in thus bringing light into darkness. While carrying forward his
work on the “Monuments” he also established a scientific groundwork for
all the knowledge which he had previously accumulated, and was thus able
to assign their correct places to the ruling families or dynasties, and
to the several Pharaohs among them. It was easy to give their proper
positions to the latter, as in the historical inscriptions are recorded
the names of the Pharaohs under whom they were made. For such as were
not dated the ingenuity and experience of the savant fixed their correct
places according to the indications of style, or on palaeographic or
other grounds.
To the inquiry which of the achievements of Lepsius we consider the
greatest, we do not hesitate to answer, the classification of his
“Monuments,” when we consider the lamentable condition of Egyptian
historical research at the time when it was produced, and the prodigious
amount of new information to be reduced to order. In this work we see
him surmount the mass of material which had been collected by his own
energy, and transform the chaotic whole into a beautiful and
faultlessly-proportioned organism. He never loses his broad outlook over
the entire field, and nevertheless he gives the smallest detail its due
with painstaking consciousness. We discern the divine likeness most
clearly in a great man when he keeps in view the great whole, and yet
does not disdain to give heed to small things; like the eternal and
mysterious power which prescribes their wide and immutable orbits to the
stars, and yet forgets not to give its antennae to the tiny insect.
This colossal work is accompanied by no explanatory text,[63] and the
excellence of the classification makes it easy to dispense with one.
Each separate inscription can only be sought for in the place where it
occurs, and the marginal notes inform us as to the locality whence it
came, and the ruler under whom it originated. Whoever wishes to know to
what period the Pharaoh in question should be assigned, must consult the
Book of Kings, which was begun by Lepsius at an early date, and
completed in 1859. He will there find the desired information.
In the middle of the fiftieth year of this century, the time had not yet
come for giving continuous and exact translations of great hieroglyphic
texts, and therefore the editor of the “Monuments” wisely abstained from
doing so. Such an undertaking would also have far exceeded the powers of
one person. Even now an abundance of difficult problems are still
presented to Egyptian philology, great as are the advances which that
has made, by this unparalleled _corpus inscriptionum_. It contains the
most important Egyptian inscriptions, from the most ancient times up to
the period of the Roman emperors, classified in the most rigorously
systematic manner.
The “Monuments” is, and must ever remain, the chief and most fundamental
work for the study of Egyptology.
Its classification presupposes a deeper study into the history of the
Pharaohs hitherto unheard of. We have seen how, when a journeyman,
Lepsius devoted himself by preference to the study of historical
monuments, and while in Egypt he everywhere laid the greatest stress
upon this.
As a master workman too, after his return to Berlin in 1846, he remained
faithful to his historical bias. He had at his disposal, in complete
shape, all that was furnished by the monuments in the way of historical
information. The systematic arrangement of the work on monuments which
he had in view already imposed upon him the task of restoring in a
critical manner the main skeleton of history, (chiefly Egyptian,) and of
ascertaining the periods of time which separate the chief historical
events from each other and from our own age. In other words, he was
obliged to devote himself with all his energy to the study of Egyptian
chronology.
As a matter of course the monuments were always the foundation from
which he proceeded, but it was also necessary to consult and to fix the
worth of such other historical records as were in existence.
Amongst these the highest rank was held by the Egyptian history of
Manetho of Sebennytos. This had been written, or was said to have been
written, for Ptolemy II. Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.) by Manetho, an
Egyptian priest familiar with the Greek tongue. During the Christian era
several other works, (the Book of Sothis and the Old Chronicle), were
falsely attributed to this writer. The heathen Greeks had held the
histories of the priestly scholar in little esteem, but, except by the
Jew Flavius Josephus, they were diligently used by chronographers of the
Christian era in their efforts to establish a chronological reckoning
for the legendary and historical events in the Old Testament. Amongst
these writers are found the lists of the Egyptian kings compiled by the
Sebennite, with an estimate of the duration of their reigns. But there
is a frequent disagreement in the facts as given by them, for each
individual chronographer adapted the figures to his own system, and
altered them arbitrarily to suit his special purposes. Therefore the
fragmentary information gathered from Manetho as to the succession of
rulers, can only be used with great prudence. Lepsius submitted these
statements, as well as other accounts of Egyptian history occurring in
the classics (Hecateus of Miletus, Herodotus, Hecateus of Abdera,
Diodorus, etc.), to a severe criticism, in the attempt to separate the
genuine work of Manetho from all that had been interpolated or perverted
in his writings. As a result of Lepsius’ supposition that some of the
ruling families enumerated in the lists did not reign successively, but
contemporaneously, he arrived at the conclusion that Manetho would
reckon the duration of Egyptian history, from the first King Menes to
the end of the reign of Nectanebus II,[64] at three thousand five
hundred and fifty-five years, and that the accession of Menes to the
throne should therefore be fixed at 3892 B. C. On the correctness of
this computation he insisted up to the time of his death, and by the aid
of his innate fine mathematical sense he showed the connection between
this and the other calculations, as subtle as they are clever, which lie
at the basis of his system of reckoning.
Rosellini’s industrious attempt to compile an Egyptian history was of
little service to him, but he found many fruitful ideas in Bunsen’s fine
publication.[65] This had been meantime completed with the advisory aid
of the able English Egyptologist S. Birch, and Lepsius himself had
furnished many contributions to it. No less a man than Boeckh[66] had, a
short time before, addressed himself to a criticism of Manetho, incited
thereto partly by Champollion’s and partly by his own investigations. In
France, also, Biot,[67] Lesueur and Nolan had published able works on
Egyptian chronology. Ideler’s hand-book, which came out in 1825, was
still highly esteemed, although this acute but far too versatile scholar
was entirely ignorant of the monuments.
Lepsius had the advantage over his predecessors in his comprehensive
knowledge of all the monuments, and his understanding of hieroglyphic
writing. He took his stand upon the monuments, and on this foundation
which at that time was a safe and favorable one for him alone, he
labored with perfect independence, but without overlooking the prior
works mentioned above. These, however, in most cases he was forced to
controvert. As far as the chronology of Bunsen was concerned, he was
obliged to shake it to the foundations, and he found himself forced to
apply critical standards very different from those of his learned friend
to the lists of Eratosthenes, the value of which, as we know, the latter
had far over-estimated. Although on this account he naturally arrived at
results which contradicted those of Bunsen, yet he dedicated to him the
great work,[68] the first volume of which was published in 1849, in the
midst of his arduous labors in editing the “Monuments.” The second and
third volumes originally planned by him remained unwritten. While the
first volume was mainly occupied with criticism of the authorities, the
two latter were to have contained the applications and proofs in detail.
All these are now to be found in the folio volume of text which
accompanies the plates of the “Book of Kings”[69] previously mentioned.
In the beautiful dedication of his chronology to Bunsen, he declared
that he offered him this work as “a public token of gratitude.” Lepsius
knew that Bunsen, like himself, had only the truth at heart, and agreed
with him that the final truth could only be attained by a keen
comparison of all possible differences of opinion. Such differences of
opinion existed between Bunsen and Lepsius, but, however candidly they
were expressed, they had no power to shake the real attachment of these
two men.
Unlike Bunsen’s great book, Lepsius’ work was not intended to establish
the place of Egypt in universal history, but only in the external frame
thereof, the annals of time. It made no attempt to be a history, but was
a chronology solely. The problem involved is solved in the first volume
of which we speak, and is treated in an original and at the same time
broad manner. Here, as elsewhere, Lepsius never loses cognizance of the
general aspect of his subject, whilst always carefully and even lovingly
considering the smallest detail and assigning it its place as a part and
factor of the whole.
He first criticizes the chronology of the Romans, the Greeks, the
Hindoos, the Chaldeans in Babylon, the Chinese and the Hebrews. In so
doing he makes it clear that among all these nations the conditions for
a very early computation of time were lacking, and proves that no nation
and no country possessed more favorable conditions for an early
chronology and history than the Egyptian. He then proceeds to consider
the astronomical basis of the Egyptian chronology, and goes thoroughly
into the question of the divisions of time employed by the ancient
Egyptians. Here, in addition to the monuments, which he always considers
as of the first importance, he cites the classic authors, and ascends in
regular progression from the smaller divisions of time, the thirds,
seconds and minutes, to the days, weeks, months, intercalary days and
years. He dwells for some time upon these latter, and explains with
remarkable clearness his views regarding the vague year and the fixed
year of Sirius. After these fundamental principles are established he
turns his attention to the longer periods of time, beginning with the
Apis period of twenty-five years, and concluding with the conjecture
that the Egyptians possessed the knowledge of a longest astronomical
period of revolution of thirty-six thousand years. According to our
reckoning this should undoubtedly be only twenty-six thousand years,
yet the period given can be recognized in the thirty-six thousand five
hundred and twenty-five years which Syncellus alleges to have been the
Egyptian period of universal apocatastasis of the heavens.
He then reviews the Egyptian calendar, its introduction and reforms.
Although no one knows so well as he that events are commonly reckoned
upon the monuments, not from an era, but according to the years of the
separate reigns, he attempts to prove that the Sothiac cycle of one
thousand four hundred and sixty years had been used as an era for such
purposes as necessitated the conception of a longer distinct period of
time.