EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHICS. 119 to the few simple sounds employed in spoken language. These, often repeated in different combinations, would answer every requirement. Still the system was far from perfect, for, as a rule, the vowel sounds were not represented; only by the context, for instance, could it be told whether str was meant for star, store, stair, or straw. Another difficulty lay in the fact that the same consonant was represented by different signs-pictures of objects whose names commenced with the letter in question. In writing London, the Egyptians might represent L by the figure of a lamb, a leaf, or a lion. From this group of characters, it would be necessary to select the one most appropriate; the lion would be taken for the in London, the leaf for the 7 in lotus, the lamb for the 7 in lady. To add to the confusion, the old ideographic characters were all the time measurably used along with the phonetic signs. It is not to be wondered at that the Egyptians themselves were puzzled to read their own complicated writing, and introduced determinatives as guides to the reader. For example, the drawing of an open mouth was attached to a character to indicate that its phonetic value must be taken; the representation of a surveying - instrument distinguished the names of Egyptian towns; that of a mountain, a thing unknown in the Nile valley, marked foreign localities. The Rosetta Stone.-The finding of the Rosetta Stone in 1799 paved the way for the brilliant discoveries of the French savant Champollion (sham-pol'le-on), before whose time the vast literature of Egypt had been locked up from the world. A French officer, while erecting works at Rosetta in the delta of the Nile during Napoleon's Egyptian campaign, unearthed a piece of black basalt, which contained, in equivalent inscriptions in hieroglyphics and Greek letters, a decree conferring divine honors on Ptolemy V., a monarch of the second century B.C. The meaning of the Greek text being known, the hieroglyphics through it were translated; patient study determined the signification of the separate characters, and a key was thus obtained to other Egyptian inscriptions. The famous Rosetta Stone, resting on a block of red porphyry, now ornaments the Egyptian gallery of the British Museum. Champollion thus succeeded in solving a problem that had baffled alike Greeks, Romans, and all subsequent nations.* It has been truly said that he opened the door to "a library of stones and papyri in myriads of volumes," in which every *It is but just to say that Gustav Seyffarth, the eminent German archæologist, still living (in New York, 1878), as long ago as 1826 published a system of interpretation differing from Champollion's, which he claims that the later Egyptologists have virtually adopted. branch of literature is represented. The crumbling walls scattered throughout "the Monumental Land" now utter intelligible words; the very implements and toys have their stories to tell; and many a tomb has yielded up its brittle treasure of papyrus, its eulogy or legend, its history or hymn. Monuments and Papyri.-The ancient Egyptians exceeded all other nations in their fondness for writing. The chisel was kept busy in graving monuments of granite. The reed or goose-quill, with ink-pot and palette, was in constant requisition, committing their records to rolls of papyrus sometimes a hundred feet long; and not unfrequently the processions of men, birds, insects, and reptiles, in profile, were illuminated with high colors and gold wrought in artistic vignettes. Golden Age of Egyptian Literature. If we look for a progressive development of Egyptian literature, we shall be disappointed. A wonderful sameness pervades every period, with the exception of that which has been called the Ramessid, from one of the greatest Pharaohs, Ram'eses II., at whose court Moses was brought up "in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" (15th century B.C.). Great national triumphs helped to make the reign of this Rameses, the Sesostris of the Greeks, a golden age of art and literature. His court at hundred-gated Thebes was adorned by men of genius, among them the poet and romance-writer Enna, with his simple and majestic style. At their head was the Master of the Rolls, Kagabu the Elegant, who kept the great library founded at the capital by his royal master, and inscribed "Dispensary of the Soul." LITERARY REMAINS. Religious Works.-The ancient Egyptians are spoken of by Herodotus as "surpassing all others in the reverence they paid the gods. Their social life, institutions, and government, all bore a religious impress; and even art seems to have been cultivated mainly to glorify the deities or invest the monarchs with divine honors. The bulk of Egyptian literature, therefore, is of a religious character. Thanks to the custom of enclosing with the embalmed body in the mummy-case papyrus texts from the Book of the Dead or Funeral Ritual, this old Bible of the Egyptians, the greatest of all their theological works, has been preserved to us. The copying of this sacred book, and illuminating it according to the rank or fortune of the dead man, afforded profitable employment to a multitude of priests. The Book of the Dead contains 166 chapters. It is introduced by a sublime dialogue between Osi'ris, god of the lower world, and the disembodied soul, at the moment of death. The funeral ceremonies are then prescribed; after which come the pilgrimage of the soul through the land of the dead —its battles with serpents and monsters, and the charms by · which they may be vanquished-its various transformationsthe terrible trial in the judgment - hall of Osiris, where the heart of the deceased is weighed in the balance and the final admission of its owner, if not found wanting, to everlasting bliss. Thus it will be seen that the immortality of the soul was a cardinal article of Egyptian belief. EXTRACT FROM THE BOOK OF THE DEAD. THE SOUL'S DECLARATION OF INNOCENCE IN THE JUDG MENT-HALL. "O ye Lords of Truth! I have brought you truth. I have not privily done evil against mankind. I have not afflicted the miserable. I have not told falsehoods. I have had no acquaintance with sin. I have not made the laboring man do more than his daily task. I have not been idle. I have not been intoxicated. I have not been immoral. I have not calumniated a slave to his master. I have not caused hunger. I have not made to weep. I have not murdered. I have not defrauded. I I have not eaten the sacred bread in the temples. I have not cheated in the weight of the balance. I have not withheld milk from the mouths of sucklings. I have not slandered any one. have not netted sacred birds. I have not caught the fish which typify them. I have not stopped running water. I have not robbed THE HERMETIC BOOKS. 123 the gods of their offered haunches. I have not stopped a god from his manifestation. I have made to the gods the offerings that were their due. I have given food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, and clothes to the naked. I am pure! I am pure!"-Birch and PLEYTE. Human nature, in its faults and vices, as portrayed in the above passage, seems to have been much the same 3,500 years ago as at the present day; the high-toned moral principles here implied are certainly worthy of all admiration. This Book of the Dead is almost the sole survivor of many sacred works on science, religion, music, and law, called Hermetic Books, from Hermes Trismegistus (thrice greatest), their reputed author and the traditional founder of all Egyptian institutions. The Book of the Breaths of Life, which treats of the resurrection and the subsequent existence of the soul, is another curious work. Copies of it were buried with the mummies of certain priests and priestesses. FROM THE BOOK OF THE BREATHS OF LIFE. "Hail to thee, (name of the deceased)! Thine individuality is permanent. Thy body is durable. Thy mummy doth germinate. Thou art not repulsed from heaven, neither from earth. Thou dost breathe for ever and ever. Thy flesh is on thy bones, Like unto thy form on earth. Thou dost drink, thou eatest with thy mouth. Thou receivest bread with the souls of the gods. O ye gods that dwell in the Lower Heaven, He is near unto you. There is no fault in him. He liveth in the truth. Let him enter then into the Lower Heaven! He hath received the Book of the Breaths of Life, That he may breathe with his soul, And that he may make any transformation at will; Living on the earth for ever and ever."-DE HORRACK. |