INVESTIGATIONS FOUNDED ON THE PILLAR OF ROSETTA.
The pillar of Rosetta was now safely and quietly deposited in the
British Museum; the Society of Antiquaries had engraved, and very
generally circulated, a correct copy of its three inscriptions; and
several of the best scholars of the age, in particular Porson and
Heyne, had employed themselves in completing and illustrating the
Greek text, which constituted the third part of the inscription: and
it so happened that, although no person acquainted with both these
critics could hesitate to give the general preference, for acuteness
of observation, and felicity of conjecture, and soundness of judgment,
to the English professor, yet in this instance the superior industry
and vigilance of the German had given him decidedly the advantage, with
respect to two or three passages, in which their translations happen to
differ.
But Greek was already sufficiently understood, both in London and
at Gottingen, to make this part of the investigation comparatively
insignificant. Mr. Akerblad, a diplomatic gentleman, then at Paris,
but afterwards the Swedish resident at Rome, had begun to decipher
the middle division of the inscription; after De Sacy had given up
the pursuit as hopeless, notwithstanding that he had made out very
satisfactorily the names of Ptolemy and Alexander. But both he and
Mr. Akerblad proceeded upon the erroneous, or, at least imperfect,
evidence of the Greek authors, who have pretended to explain the
different modes of writing among the ancient Egyptians, and who have
asserted very distinctly that they employed, on many occasions,
an alphabetical system, composed of twenty five letters only. The
characters of the second part of the inscription being called in the
Greek ENCHORIA GRAMMATA, or letters of the country, it was natural to
look among these for the alphabet in question: and Mr. Akerblad, having
principally deduced his conclusions from the preamble of the decree,
which consists in great measure of foreign proper names, persisted, to
the time of his death, in believing, that this part of the inscription
was throughout alphabetical. I have called these characters enchoric,
or rather _enchorial_: Mr. Champollion has chosen to distinguish them
by the term _demotic_, or popular; perhaps from having been in the
habit of employing it before he was acquainted with the denomination
which I had appropriated to them: in my opinion, the priority of my
publication ought to have induced him to adopt my term, and to suppress
his own, rather than to add another useless synonym, for what the
ancients, when speaking with accuracy, would probably have described as
the “epistolographic” form of writing employed by the Egyptians: for
we have no means of determining the precise nature of the characters
called _popular_ by Herodotus.
Mr. Akerblad was far from having completed his examination of the whole
enchorial inscription, apparently from the want of some collateral
encouragement or cooperation, to induce him to continue so laborious an
inquiry; and he had made little or no effort to understand the first
inscription of the pillar, which is professedly engraved in the sacred
character, except the detached observation, respecting the numerals at
the end: he was even disposed to acquiesce in the correctness of Mr.
Palin’s interpretation, which proceeds on the supposition, that parts
of the first lines of the hieroglyphics are still remaining on the
stone.
It was natural to expect, that, after the possibility of a partial
success, in this part of the undertaking, had been almost demonstrated
by what Mr. Akerblad had cursorily observed, the critics and
chronologists of all civilised countries would have united, heart and
hand, in a common effort to obtain a legitimate solution of all the
doubts and difficulties, in which the early antiquities of Egypt had
long remained involved. But, excepting Mr. Champollion and myself, they
have all chosen to amuse themselves with their own speculations and
conjectures: the mathematicians of France have continued to calculate,
and the metaphysicians of England have continued to argue, upon
elements which it was impossible either to prove or disprove; while the
fortuitous coincidences of some accidental results, with the collateral
testimony of history or of astronomy, have been forced into the service
of the delusion, as evidences of the truth of the hypotheses from which
they had been deduced. Nor are these amusements even at this moment
discontinued, by some persons, who have shown themselves capable of
doing better things.
It was early in the year 1814, that I had been examining the fragments
of papyrus brought from Egypt by Mr. Boughton; and that, after looking
over Mr. Akerblad’s pamphlet in a hasty manner, I communicated a few
anonymous remarks on them to the Society of Antiquaries. In the summer
of that year, I took the triple inscription with me to Worthing,
and there proceeded to examine first the enchorial inscription, and
afterwards the sacred characters. By an attentive and methodical
comparison of the different parts with each other, I had sufficiently
deciphered the whole, in the course of a few months, to be able
to send, as an appendix to the paper printed in the Archaeologia,
a translation of each of the Egyptian inscriptions considered
separately, distinguishing the contents of the different lines, with
as much precision as my materials would enable me to obtain. It is
evident that this division of the translation supposes, in general, a
distinction of the significations of the single words; and that any
person, with a little attention, might retrace my steps, with regard to
the sense that I attributed to each part of the two inscriptions. I was
obliged to leave many important passages still subject to some doubt,
and I hoped to acquire additional information, before I attempted to
determine their signification with accuracy; but, having made the
first great step, I concluded that many others might be added with
facility and with rapidity. In this conclusion, however, I was somewhat
mistaken; and when we reflect that, in the case of the Chinese, the
only hieroglyphical language now extant, it is considered as a task
requiring the whole labour of a learned life, to become acquainted
with the greater part of the words, even among those who are in the
habit of employing the same language for the ordinary purposes of
life, and who have the assistance of accurate and voluminous grammars
and dictionaries: we shall then be at no loss to understand that a
hieroglyphical language, to be acquired by means of the precarious aid
of a few monuments, which have accidentally escaped the ravages of time
and of barbarism, must exhibit a combination of difficulties almost
insurmountable to human industry.
I had thought it necessary, in the pursuit of the inquiry, to make
myself in some measure familiar with the remains of the old Egyptian
language, as they are preserved in the Coptic and Thebaic versions
of the Scriptures; and I had hoped, with the assistance of this
knowledge, to be able to find an alphabet, which would enable me to
read the enchorial inscription at least into a kindred dialect. But,
in the progress of the investigation, I had gradually been compelled
to abandon this expectation, and to admit the conviction, that no
such alphabet would ever be discovered, because it had never been in
existence.
I was led to this conclusion, not only by the untractable nature of
the inscription itself, which might have depended on my own want of
information or of address, but still more decidedly by the manifest
occurrence of a multitude of characters, which were obviously imperfect
imitations of the more intelligible pictures, that were observable
among the distinct hieroglyphics of the first inscription: such as
a Priest, a Statue, and a Mattock or Plough, which were evidently,
in their primitive state, delineations of the objects intended to be
denoted by them, and which were as evidently introduced among the
enchorial characters. But whether or no any other significant words
were expressed, in the same inscription, by means of the alphabet
employed in it for foreign names, I could not very satisfactorily
determine.
A cursory examination of the few well identified characters, amounting
to about 90 or 100, which the hieroglyphical inscription, in its
mutilated state, had enabled me to ascertain, was however sufficient
to prove, first, that many simple objects were represented, as might
naturally be supposed, by their actual delineations; secondly, that
many other objects, represented graphically, were used in a figurative
sense only, while a great number of the symbols, in frequent use,
could be considered as the pictures of no existing objects whatever;
thirdly, that, in order to express a plurality of objects, a dual was
denoted by a repetition of the character, but that three characters of
the same kind, following each other, implied an indefinite plurality,
which was likewise more compendiously represented by means of three
lines or bars attached to a single character; fourthly, that definite
numbers were expressed by dashes for units, and arches, either round
or square, for tens; fifthly, that all hieroglyphical inscriptions
were read from front to rear, as the objects naturally follow each
other; sixthly, that proper names were included by the oval ring, or
border, or _cartouche_, of the sacred characters, and often between
two fragments of a similar border in the running hand; and, seventhly,
that the name of Ptolemy alone existed on this pillar, having only
been completely identified by the assistance of the analysis of the
enchorial inscription. And, as far as I have ever heard or read, _not
one_ of these particulars had ever been established and placed on
record, by _any other_ person, dead or alive.