century A.D., but it is tolerably certain that very few people could read them or understand them.

During the Ptolemaic Period, though Greek was the language of the kings and the upper classes of the country, the temples were covered with inscriptions in hieroglyphics, and the Ptolemies and the Romans adopted old Egyptian titles, and had their names transcribed into hieroglyphics and cut in cartouches like the Pharaohs. In the reigns of Euergetes I (B.C. 267 to 222) and Epiphanes (B.C. 205 to 181) the priests promulgated decrees in honour of their kings which were cut on slabs of basalt in the hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek characters, but on the sepulchral tablets of the period the inscriptions are usually in hieroglyphics alone, because the natives throughout the country clung to these characters, which had, from time immemorial, been associated with their religious beliefs and ceremonies. In the Southern Egyptian Gallery, however, are exhibited several tablets which are inscribed in demotic as well as in hieroglyphics, and of these may be noted the tablet of Tut-i-em-hetep (No. 1028, Bay 25), who died B.C. 118; the tablet of Kha-em-hrȧ (No. 997, Bay 25); and the tablet of Peṭā Bast (No. 1030, Bay 27). In the Roman Period we find that the use of demotic sometimes superseded that of hieroglyphics in public documents, and as an example of this may be mentioned the fine sandstone tablet inscribed, wholly in demotic, with a decree recording the dedication of certain properties to the gods who were worshipped at Karnak (Thebes) in the first century of our era (No. 993, Bay 27). This tablet was found at Karnak, in the Hall of Columns, where, no doubt, it was set up originally, and its inscription was cut in demotic, because, at that period, that form of writing was better understood than hieroglyphics. In the Roman Period hieroglyphic inscriptions were sometimes accompanied by renderings into Greek and Latin, e.g., No. 257, Third Egyptian Room, Wall-case No. 109. This is a portion of a statue of a priest bearing a shrine of Osiris. On the back of the plinth is an inscription in hieroglyphics containing an address to Osiris by a priest of the "fourth order," and on one side of the plinth are cut in Latin and Greek "priest bearing Osiris.”

Coptic is written with the letters of the Greek alphabet, and seven signs (cy, q,, 2, x, 6, †) derived from demotic characters, the phonetic values of which could not be expressed by Greek letters. A fine collection of sepulchral tablets inscribed in Coptic is exhibited in the Southern Egyptian Gallery (Bay 32), and a long and most instructive

series of drafts of documents on potsherds and slices of limestone will be found in Table-case M in the Fourth Egyptian Room. In the copy of the Lord's Prayer (St. Matthew vi, 9) here appended the reader will find all the signs which are peculiar to Coptic save one (6). The dialect is that of Lower Egypt. The two words marked by asterisks are Greek, not Egyptian.

Decipherment of Egyptian Hieroglyphics.- Before the close of the period of Roman rule in Egypt, the hieroglyphic system of writing fell into disuse, and its place was gradually taken by demotic, ie., a conventional form of the hieratic, or cursive writing. When the Egyptians became converted to Christianity, they adopted the Greek alphabet, adding to it seven signs derived from demotic, to express the sounds peculiar to their language. The priests appear to have prosecuted some study of hieroglyphics until the end of the fifth century A.D., but soon after this the power to read and

understand them was lost, and until the beginning of the nineteenth century, no Oriental or European could read or understand a hieroglyphic inscription. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries many attempts were made by scholars to read and translate the Egyptian inscriptions, but no real progress was made until after the discovery of the Rosetta Stone. This "Stone" is a portion of a large black basalt stele measuring 3 feet 9 inches by 2 feet 4 inches, and is inscribed with fourteen lines of hieroglyphics, thirty-two