DISCOVERIES
IN
HIEROGLYPHICAL LITERATURE.
HOWLETT and BRIMMER, PRINTERS,
FRITH STREET, SOHO.
AN ACCOUNT
OF
SOME RECENT DISCOVERIES
IN
HIEROGLYPHICAL LITERATURE,
AND
EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES.
INCLUDING
THE AUTHOR’S ORIGINAL ALPHABET,
AS EXTENDED BY MR. CHAMPOLLION,
WITH A
TRANSLATION OF FIVE UNPUBLISHED GREEK AND
EGYPTIAN MANUSCRIPTS.
BY THOMAS YOUNG, M.D.F.R.S.
FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS.
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1823.
TO ALEXANDER BARON VON HUMBOLDT,
AS A MARK OF THE HIGHEST RESPECT,
FOR THE EXTENT OF HIS KNOWLEDGE
AND THE ACCURACY OF HIS RESEARCH,
AS WELL AS
FOR HIS ARDENT ZEAL IN THE PROMOTION OF SCIENCE,
AND FOR HIS CANDOUR AND VIGILANCE
IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF LITERARY JUSTICE,
THIS WORK IS DEDICATED
BY HIS OBLIGED FRIEND,
THE AUTHOR.
VOLVENDA DIES EN ATTULIT ULTRO!
CONTENTS.
Page
PREFACE IX
CHAPTER I.
_Introductory Sketch of the prevalent Opinions respecting
Hieroglyphics_ 1
CHAPTER II.
_Investigations founded on the Pillar of Rosetta_ 8
CHAPTER III.
_Additional Inferences, deduced from the Egyptian
Manuscripts, and from other Monuments_ 15
CHAPTER IV.
_Collections of the French.--Mr. Drovetti.--Mr. Champollion’s
Discoveries_ 34
CHAPTER V.
_Illustrations of the Manuscripts brought from Egypt
by Mr. Grey_ 55
CHAPTER VI.
_Extracts from Diodorus and Herodotus; relating to
Mummies_ 87
CHAPTER VII.
_Extracts from Strabo; Alphabet of Champollion;
Hieroglyphical and Enchorial Names_ 116
CHAPTER VIII.
_Chronological History of the Ptolemies, extracted from
various Authors_ 130
APPENDIX I.
_Greek text of the Manuscripts and Registries_ 145
APPENDIX II.
_Specimens of Hieroglyphics_ 153
PREFACE.
A complete confirmation of the principal results, which I had some
years since deduced, from an examination of the hieroglyphical
monuments of ancient Egypt, having been very unexpectedly derived from
the ulterior researches of Mr. Champollion, and from the singular good
fortune of Mr. George Grey, I cannot resist the natural inclination, to
make a public claim to whatever credit may be my due, for the labour
that I have bestowed, on an attempt to unveil the mystery, in which
Egyptian literature has been involved for nearly twenty centuries.
If, indeed, I have not hitherto wholly withheld from the public the
results of my inquiries, it has not been from the love of authorship
only, nor from an impatience of being the sole possessor of a secret
treasure; but because I was desirous of securing, at least, for my
country, what is justly considered as a desirable acquisition to every
country, the reputation of having enlarged the boundaries of human
knowledge, and of having contributed to extend the dominion of the mind
of man over time, and space, and neglect, and obscurity. _Corona in_
SACRIS CERTAMINIBUS _non victori datur, sed_ PATRIA _ab eo coronari
pronuntiatur_. And whatever vanity or enthusiasm there might be in this
sentiment, it was at least sincere and unaffected.
In the mean time my Egyptian investigations had been as laborious as
they had been persevering: and like many other pursuits, in which I
have been engaged, they had been so little enlivened by any fortunate
coincidences, or unexpected facilities, that having occasion to adopt
a motto for the signatures of some anonymous communications, I had
chosen the words FORTUNAM EX ALIIS, as appropriate to my own history.
But the new lights, which Mr. Champollion has obtained, and the
marvellous accident of the existence of a Greek manuscript, in perfect
preservation, which I found, when Mr. Grey had obligingly left it for
my examination, to be the translation of a unique hieroglyphic papyrus,
lately purchased by the King of France; these circumstances have so far
changed the complexion of my literary adventures, that if I remained
any longer in masquerade, I should certainly be compelled to adopt the
character of POLYCRATES or of ALADDIN.
It would indeed have been a little hard, that the only single step,
which leads at once to an extensive result, should have been made by
a Foreigner, upon the very ground which I had undergone the drudgery
of quietly raising, while he advanced rapidly and firmly, without
denying his obligations to his predecessor, but very naturally, under
all circumstances, without exaggerating them, or indeed very fully
enumerating them. I should not have repined, even if no counterpart
to his good fortune had occurred for my own advantage and assistance;
but the exhilaration of a success, so unexpected, has brought me more
immediately and more openly before the public, than it was previously
my intention to appear, in relation to a pursuit so remote from the
nature of many other duties which I am bound to fulfil.
It may naturally be expected that I should make some apology, for
what is generally considered as a violation of professional decorum;
for presuming to appear again before the public, without absolute
necessity, in any other capacity than that of a practical physician.
I have indeed myself observed, on a former occasion, that the public
is inclined to think, and not without something like reason, that the
abilities of different individuals are pretty nearly equal; and that if
any one has distinguished himself in a particular department of study,
he must have bestowed so much the less time and attention on other
departments: that, of course, if he excelled in more than one line, out
of his profession, the natural inference would be so much the stronger:
and that whether this may be fair or not, it is at least fair, that
direct evidence should be produced or imagined of a devotion to medical
pursuits, before medical confidence can reasonably be expected.
My explanation then is, that I consider myself as having already
produced to the public _more than sufficient_ “evidence” of my claim
to this “medical confidence”; and that, having now acquired the right
to celebrate a YEAR of JUBILEE, I think myself fully justified in
endeavouring, without further regard to the strict etiquette of my
profession, to obtain, while I have yet a few years more to live and
to learn, whatever respect may be thought due to the discoveries, which
have constituted the amusement of a few of my leisure hours.
In addition to this apology, perhaps already too long, I will venture
to state, as a matter of anecdote, the train of occurrences that has
accidentally led me to engage in these pursuits. To begin therefore
with the beginning, or rather before the beginning, as the subject
of a preface may very naturally do: I had been induced by motives
both of private friendship, and of professional obligation, to offer,
to the editors of a periodical publication, an article, which I
thought would be of some advantage to their collection, containing an
abstract of Adelung’s Mithridates, a work then lately received from
the continent. In reading this elaborate compilation, my curiosity
was excited by a note of the editor, Professor Vater, in which he
asserted that the unknown language of the Stone of Rosetta, and of the
bandages often found with the mummies, was capable of being analysed
into an alphabet consisting of little more than thirty letters: but
having merely retained this general impression, I thought no more of
these inscriptions, until they were recalled to my attention, by the
examination of some fragments of a papyrus, which had been brought
home from Egypt by my friend Sir William Rouse Boughton, then lately
returned from his travels in the East. With this accidental occurrence
my Egyptian researches began: their progress and termination will be
the subject of the present volume.
T. Y.
_Welbeck Street,
1 March, 1823._
WORKS OF THE AUTHOR;
TO BE HAD OF THE PUBLISHER.
1. A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical
Arts, 2 vols. 4to. 1807.
2. An Introduction to Medical Literature, including a System of
Practical Nosology, 8vo. Second edition, 1823.
3. A Practical and Historical Treatise on Consumptive Diseases,
8vo. 1815.
4. Elementary Illustrations of the Celestial Mechanics of
Laplace, 8vo. 1821.
DISCOVERIES
IN
HIEROGLYPHICAL LITERATURE.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY SKETCH OF THE PREVALENT OPINIONS RESPECTING HIEROGLYPHICS.
The Greeks and Romans, either from national pride, or from a want
of philological talent, were extremely deficient in their knowledge
of all such languages as they called barbarous, and they frequently
made up for their ignorance by the positiveness of their assertions,
with regard to facts which were created by their own imagination. It
was very currently believed, on their authority, not only that Egypt
was the parent of all arts and sciences, but that the hieroglyphical
inscriptions, on its public monuments, contained a summary of the most
important mysteries of nature, and of the most sublime inventions
of man: but that the interpretation of these characters had been so
studiously concealed by the priests, from the knowledge of the vulgar,
and had indeed been so imperfectly understood by themselves, that it
was wholly lost and forgotten in the days of the later Roman Emperors.
The story, however, of a reward, supposed to have been offered in
vain by one of the first of the Caesars, for an interpretation of the
inscription on an obelisc, then lately brought from Egypt to Rome,
appears to rest on no authentic foundation.
Among the works of more modern authors, who had employed themselves in
the study of the hieroglyphics, it is difficult to say whether those
were the more discouraging, which, like the productions of Father
Kircher and the Chevalier Palin, professed to contain explanations
of every thing, or which, like the ponderous volume of Zoëga on the
Obeliscs, confessed, after collecting all that was really on record,
that the sum and substance of the whole amounted absolutely to nothing.
Father Kircher’s six folios contain some tolerably faithful, though
inelegant, representations of the principal monuments of Egyptian art,
which had before his days been brought to Europe: and, according to his
interpretation, which succeeded equally well, whether he happened to
begin at the beginning, or at the end, of each of the lines, they all
contain some mysterious doctrines of religion or of metaphysics. With
equal sagacity, but with much less appearance of laborious research,
the Chevalier Palin, beginning, in one instance at least, by way of
variety, in the middle, has more recently discovered, that Hebrew
translations of many of the Egyptian consecrated rolls of papyrus are
to be found, in the Bible, under the name of the Psalms of David.
Whatever may be thought of the judgment of these antiquaries, their
opinions are not particularly discreditable to their talents and
ingenuity: for having once allowed themselves to set out with the
mistaken notion, that it was possible to determine the sense of the
hieroglyphics, by internal evidence and by the force of reasoning
only, the imperfections of their superstructures were the unavoidable
consequences of the unsubstantial nature of the foundations, on which
they were raised.
There was indeed a traditional record of the true sense of one
single character, denoting LIFE, which had been handed down by the
ecclesiastical writers, and had been generally received as correct by
scholars and antiquaries: although I cannot help suspecting that Sir
Archibald Edmonstone’s memory deceives him when he remarks, that the
same symbol is often substituted, in Christian inscriptions, for the
simpler sign of the cross, with which they more commonly begin. We
also find some imperfect hints of a partial knowledge of the sense of
the hieroglyphics in the puerile work of Horapollo, which is much more
like a collection of conceits and enigmas than an explanation of a real
system of serious literature: and while such scattered truths were
confounded with a multitude of false assertions, it was impossible to
profit by any of them, without some clue to assist us in the selection.
For my own part, if I had ever read of the true signification of the
handled cross, it had entirely escaped my recollection.
The French expedition to Egypt was most liberally provided, by
the government of the day, with a select body of antiquaries, and
architects, and surveyors, and naturalists, and draughtsmen, whose
business it was to investigate all that was interesting to science or
to literature in that singular country. Their labours have been made
public, with all the advantages of chalcographical and typographical
elegance, in the splendid collection, entitled _Description de
l’Égypte_. But it is scarcely too much to say, that the only real
benefit, conferred on Egyptian literature, by that expedition, was
the discovery of a huge broken block, of black stone, in digging for
the foundations of Fort St. Julian, near Rosetta, which the British
army had afterwards the honour of bringing to this country, as a
proud trophy of their gallantry and success. It is not to a want of
ability, nor of industry, nor of accuracy, nor of fidelity, in the
Egyptian Commission, that so total a failure is to be attributed; but
partly to the real difficulty of the subject, and still more to the
preconceived opinion, which was very generally entertained by their
men of letters, of the exorbitant antiquity of the Egyptian works of
art, which caused them to neglect the lights, that might have been
derived, from a comparison of Greek and Roman inscriptions, with the
hieroglyphics in their neighbourhood; and to suppose, that whatever
bore the date of less than thirty or forty centuries must necessarily
be an interpolation, unconnected with the original architecture and
decorations of the edifice, to which it belonged: and when a strong
prejudice has once been imbibed, we all know that the senses themselves
are perpetually blunted and perverted by it, even without the consent
of the reasoning powers. Mr. William Hamilton had, however, very
successfully brought forwards a variety of evidence, in favour of the
utility of the various inscriptions of the Greeks and Romans, for
ascertaining the date of many of the buildings to which they belong;
and the question, thus agitated between the French and the English
travellers, had already assumed somewhat of a national character.
A cursory inspection of the Greek inscription, contained in the
pillar of Rosetta, was sufficient to establish, as incontrovertible,
the opinion, which had been very ably maintained by our acute and
learned countryman Bishop Warburton, that the hieroglyphics, or sacred
characters, were not so denominated, as being exclusively appropriated
to sacred subjects, but that they constituted a real written language,
applicable to the purposes of history and common life, as well as
to those of religion and mythology; since this inscription speaks of
the three divisions of the pillar, as containing different versions
of the same decree, in the sacred and the vulgar character, and in
the Greek language, respectively: and, that there was no fraud in
this description, was at once made evident by the just observation
of Akerblad, who pointed out, at the end of the hieroglyphical
inscription, the three first numerals, indicated by I, II, and III,
respectively, where the Greek has “the first and the second ...”; the
end being broken off. It was also evident, that the hieroglyphical
language continued to be understood and employed in the time of Ptolemy
Epiphanes: but here the matter rested for several years; no single
representation of an existing object having been so identified, on
this or any other monument among the hieroglyphics, as to have its
signification determined, even by a probable conjecture.
In the mean time, the enterprising and enlightened Baron Alexander Von
Humboldt was contributing to illustrate the nature of hieroglyphical
languages, by his account of the Mexican drawings, contained in his
Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of the American nations. The
symbols, however, of the Americans appear to have had little or nothing
in common with those of the Egyptians. The written language of the
Chinese, on the contrary, exhibits, in some cases, a much closer
analogy with that of ancient Egypt: and Mr. Barrow, by his clear and
concise explanation of the peculiar nature of the Chinese characters,
has contributed very materially to assist us in tracing the gradual
progress of the Egyptian symbols through their various forms; although
the resemblance is certainly far less complete than has been supposed
by Mr. Palin, who tells us, that we have only to translate the Psalms
of David into Chinese, and to write them in the ancient character of
that language, in order to reproduce the Egyptian papyri, that are
found with the mummies.