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though the figure of a man with an attached mark of royalty and a city might be drawn, this would leave it doubtful who is the king, what the city, and what is the connection between the two. Something more definite is needed; and now commences an exceedingly interesting effort of the human mind, which we are quite able to trace; and to enable us to bring it more clearly to our comprehension, we will suppose the effort to be made now with our language, just as we know it to have been done in a different language in those remote times. We will suppose that no alphabet at all now existed, nothing but such indefinite pictures as are presented above; and that we wish in English to make the definite statement, Menes built Hara.

On considering these spoken words, we find that the first part of the sound in Menes is common also to mouse, mouth, moon, mill, and various other words. Now, if any one or all of these easily recognized objects be pictured with the general understanding that only the initial sound in it is to be taken, we have the sound M brought to the ear by our eyes, and have taken an important step in getting the name of the individual. The next sound is E; and if we picture an ear, eagle, eel with the same idea in the mind of all observers, that the initial sound is what is intended, we have gained another sound conveyed by the eye to the ear; and with the former, M, united to it, we have Me. So again nose, or net, nail, noose, pictured, will, with the same understanding, give us a representation for the sound N; E can be procured as before; and S is afforded by the initial sound in sea, sack, sail, serpent, sun. Consequently the previous understanding being general that the object pictured is to represent its initial sound, then mouth, ear, net, eagle, sun sketched to our eye will furnish readily the sound Menes, that which we have been trying to bring definitively to the observer. The name of the city, Hara, is in the same manner made fully perceptible to our ear by pictures of a hand, an arm, a rose,

an arch, making Hara; and the word built can also be given to our ear by the same process, a bow or beetle for B; and so to the end, T being represented by a tiger or tower. Such pictures or signs are called phonetic, from the Greek word Phone, a sound.

Probably there begins now to dawn upon the reader's mind an idea of the meaning of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, which, with some exceptions, are not representations of ideas, as they are generally considered to be, but representatives of sounds; that is, are phonetic pictures, or an attempt at spelling by pictures. There are exceptions; for some of them are not phonetic, but ideographic or symbolic; that is, the picture represents a full idea; and some of them. are what is called determinative, that is, limiting or determining the application of the sound or thing represented; and these exceptions, having no mark by which they can be known, cause the great difficulty in the way of reading the hieroglyphics of Egypt. If it were not for them, that is, if all were phonetic,-a spelling by pictures—the reading would be easy to any one who has once acquired a knowledge of the ancient Egyptian language. This language may be learnt; for that spoken now by the Copts of Egypt, the descendants of that ancient race, bears nearly the same resemblance to that of their ancestors that the present Italian does to the Latin, or the modern to the ancient Greek; and, through it, dictionaries and grammars of the ancient Egyptian language have been recently formed. The great Egyptologist, Bunsen, says: "The conclusion therefore is that the dialect of the Christian Egyptians or Copts' is but

1 Lady Duff Gordon, in her sprightly letters from Egypt (1863–65), says, "The Copts are evidently the ancient Egyptians, the slightly aquiline nose and long eye are the very same as those on the profiles on the tombs and temples, and also like the very earliest Byzantine pictures. Au reste, the face is handsome, but generally sallow and rather inclined to puffiness, and the figure wants the grace of the Arabs; nor has any Copt the thorough

a younger branch of the Egyptian language, the latest form of the popular dialect, although, from the age of the Ptolemies downward, mixed with Greek words and forms. In its national elements it adheres even more closely to the old Egyptian than the modern Greek to the Hellenic."

In addition to the difficulty arising from the determinative and ideographic figures, the latter of which are very numerous, is one also from the large choice in the phonetic figures; for, as we have seen above in our own language, S may be represented by sea, ship, star, swallow, sack, sail, serpent, sun, and a variety of other forms; and we notice in the hieroglyphics, not only that this variety exists, but that the abundance of objects allowed them to employ adroit flattery or taste in the choice of figures. For instance, in writing Ptolemy, although many figures of objects would have supplied them with the sound L in that word, they chose the lion, Labo, for it; and in expressing the name of Noub, one of their gods, the sound B was afforded by their word for a ram, one of the symbols of this deity, and this figure was taken in preference.

We present now to the reader a sample of the Egyptian hieroglyphics in the word Ptolemy, with adjuncts, as taken

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from their monuments. It will be seen that they are enclosed in an oval (or cartouche), which signifies at once that it is a royal name; their reading might be vertically, from top to bottom, or horizontally, from r ght to left, or the contrary, there being no fixed rule, except that in horizontal

bred distingué look of the meanest man or woman of good Arab blood. Their feet are the long-toed, flattish foot of the Egyptian statue, while the Arab foot is classically perfect, and you could put your hand under the instep."

reading we must always read toward the head of the figures. In this case it is from left to right. We have 1st, a mat, pronounced in their language P or Pu; 2d, a hemisphere, called T; 3d, a cord, called UA; 4th, a lion, Labo; 5th, a stand of a boat, called M A; 6th, two reeds, pronounced I; 7th, the back of a chair, pronounced S. The whole makes Ptulmis, the Coptic for "Ptolemy."

Next comes a girdle buckle, pronounced Anch, signifying life or living; and next, a hemisphere and a serpent, the former pronounced T, the latter called Tetbi, thus producing together, tt; the whole making together Anchta, the Egyptian for ever-living, eternal.

Finally, in the cartouche, we have as in the beginning, a mat and hemisphere, P and T; and then a twisted cord, H or Hu, making PTH, or to Phtha, their god Vulcan; then a plough or hoe, pronounced MR, to love; and two reeds, pronounced I; the two together designating the past participle of the word M R, to love; the whole signifying beloved of Phtha.

The oval line enclosing all is a cord called R N, and meaning "a name," and is of the kind used for enclosing royal names.

The whole cartouche therefore reads, "Ptolemy, the everliving, beloved of Phtha;" and the reader has in this, with the exception of the ideographs and determinatives, a full exhibition of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, which he is perhaps surprised to see is not a system of pictures addressed directly to the mind, but of phonetics by pictures, that is, a mode of spelling by pictures, taking the initial sound of each picture presented.

It must be obvious that this mode of expressing ideas, although answering for the labored cutting on walls and gateways and obelisks, vould be unsuitable for any more. rapid mode of making records; and accordingly they soon resorted to a contraction of the figures, sometimes, indeed,

retaining but little resemblance to the original forms. What was lost in the beauty and dignity in the sculpture was made up in the facility of expression; but still, while a portion of the new characters were phonetic, a very large number, as before, were ideographic or symbolic forms; and, inasmuch as the meaning of these ideographic forms was known only to their learned men, who were always of the priestly order, and was kept exclusively among them, the new kind of writing is known as the sacred or hieratic writing.

The introduction of this latter, more rapid manner of presenting thoughts was made necessary by the use of papyrus, of which we have fragments variously estimated. to belong to the 6th dynasty (B. C. 2100), and to the 15th dynasty (B. C. 2000), the latter belonging to the time of the shepherd-kings. Papyrus (whence our word paper) is a water plant, having a triangular stalk without branches, about the size of a man's arm, and growing to the height of twelve or fifteen feet, where it is terminated by a beautiful, feathery tuft. It was, in those times, cultivated in the marshes toward the mouths of the Nile, and was a government monopoly, which made it too expensive for use among any but the wealthy. It is not found at present anywhere in Egypt, but the writer of this work has seen abundance of it about the fountain of Arethusa, near Syracuse in Sicily. It is manufactured into writing material in that city, and sold to the curious. The outside rind of the plant is hard, like that of our Indian corn; but within, is a fibrous pith, which is cut into thin slices; and these, laid so as slightly to overlap, and then with a cross-layer for strength, and glued, form a pretty good paper, on which we may easily write with a pen. The sculptures show it to have been in use in the time. of Cheops, the builder of the first pyramid.

In these steps of progress we come now to the most important and useful of them all, that of the formation of a simple alphabet open to the use of every one, and without

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