GEBÜHRT und die den Ausgangspunkt der späteren Entzifferungen bilden sollte. Dr. Young's glückliche Zusammenstellungen der oben aufgeführten ägyptisch-hieroglyphischen Eigennamen mit ihren entsprechenden griechischen Vorbildern sollten ihm plötzlich die Augen öffnen und ihn [i.e., Champollion] auf den rechten Pfad führen.Brugsch, Die Aegyptologie, Leipzig, 1891, pp. 9, 11.

fand sich nun auch an den betreffenden Stellen der Inschrift von Rosette und er musste den Namen des Ptolemäus bilden. Es war der bekannte englische Naturforscher Thomas Young, der im Jahre 1819 diesen scharfsinnigen und völlig richtigen Schluss machte und wenigstens für einige Zeichen des Namens den Lautwert feststellte.

Unabhängig von Young kam gleichzeitig ein junger französischer Gelehrter, François Champollion, zu der gleichen Vermutung und ihm war es beschieden, sogleich ein völlig richtiges Resultat zu erhalten.

Another supporter of Young is Wiedemann, who says:

Der erste, der es that und von dem richtigen Grundsatze ausging, dass die Königsnamen alphabetisch geschrieben sein müssten war der berühmte englische Physiker Thomas Young (geboren 1773). Er erkannte in der häufigsten in dem Dekret von Rosette vorkommenden Gruppe den Namen Ptolemäus, er vermochte ein später zum grossen Teile bestätigtes hieroglyphisches Alphabet aufzustellen und sie über das System der ägyptischen Schrift vollkommen richtige Ansichten zu bilden. So haben wir denn in Young den eigentlichen Entzifferer der ägyptischen Schrift zu sehen, wenn es ihm auch nicht gelang, der Sprache selbst Herr zu werden.-Wiedemann, Aegyptische Geschichte, S. 29.

The opinion of Dümichen is just but grudging, for he says :

Wenn wir die Frage so stellen: Wer hat zuerst einige hieroglyphische Zeichen in in ihrem Lautwerthe richtig bestimmt? oder besser gesagt, zufällig errathen, so müssen wir antworten: das war Th. Young; den Schlüssel zur Entzifferung der Hieroglyphenschrift jedoch hat er nicht gefunden. François Champollion, geb. den 23. December 1790, gest. den 4. März 1832, er ist es, den die Wissenschaft der Aegyptologie in dankbarer Verehrung als ihren eigentlichen Begründer nennt . . -Dümichen, Geschichte

des alten Aegyptens, Berlin, 1878, S. 304.

And Ebers held the same view :

Zwei grosse Männer, in England der auf vielen Gebieten des Wissens ausgezeichnete Thomas Young, in Frankreich François Champollion, begaben sich zu gleicher Zeit, aber unabhängig von einander, an die Arbeit. Beider Bemühungen lohnte schöner Erfolg. Champollion aber wird mit Recht vor seinem britischen Rivalen als Entzifferer der Hieroglyphen genannt werden müssen.-Ebers, Aegypten in Bild und Wort, Leipzig, 1879, Bd. II, S. 49.

French Egyptologists naturally supported Champollion, as will be seen from the extracts below. Chabas wrote:

Young, qui, le premier, fit l'application du principe phonétique à la lecture des hiéroglyphes. Cette idée fut, dans la réalité, le fiat lux de la science . . . . Il avait bien reconnu dans les hiéroglyphes les noms de Ptolémée et de Bérénice, mais sans réussir à assigner à chacun des signes qui les composent leur véritable valeur; . . Quelques minces qu'ils soient, ces premiers résultats constitueraient en faveur du docteur Young un titre considérable, s'il ne les avait pas compromis lui-même en s'engageant dans une fausse voie, et en publiant des traductions tout aussi imaginaires que celles de ses devanciers. La solution du problème était réservée au génie de Champollion le jeune; c'est un honneur que personne ne peut lui disputer.-Chabas, L'Inscription de Rosette, p. 5.

And Maspero wrote :—

Un savant anglais du plus grand mérite, Th. Young, essaya de reconstituer l'alphabet des cartouches. De 1814 à 1818, il s'exerça sur les divers systèmes d'écriture égyptienne, et sépara mécaniquement les groupes différents dont se composaient le texte hiéroglyphique et le texte démotique de l'inscription de Rosette. Après avoir déterminé, d'une manière plus ou moins exacte, le sens de chacun d'eux, il en essaya la lecture. Ses idées étaient justes en partie, mais sa méthode imparfaite; il entrevit la terre promise, mais sans pouvoir y entrer. Le véritable initiateur fut François Champollion. .-Maspero, Histoire

Ancienne, Paris, 1886, pp. 729, 730.

It could hardly be expected that the system of decipherment proposed by Champollion would be accepted by those who had rival systems to put forth, hence we find old theories revived and new ideas brought to light side by side with Champollion's method of decipherment. Among those who attacked the new system were: Spolm, the misguided Seyffarth, Goulianoff and Klaproth. Spolm and Seyffarth divided hieroglyphs into euphonics, symphonics and

aphonics, by which terms they seem to imply phonetics, enclitics and ideographics. Their hopelessly wrong theory was put forth with a great show of learning in De Lingua et Literis veterum Ægyptiorum at Leipzig, 1825-31. Goulianoff1 did not accept Champollion's system entirely, and he wished to consider the phonetic hieroglyphs acrologic; this also was the view taken by Klaproth in his Lettre sur la découverte des hieroglyphes acrologiques, adressée à M. de Goulianoff, Paris, 1827, and also in his Examen critique des travaux de feu M. Champollion sur les Hieroglyphes, Paris, 1832. To the first of these two works Champollion published a reply entitled Analyse critique de la lettre sur la découverte des hieroglyphes acrologiques par J. Klaproth (Extr. du Bulletin de Férussac), Paris, 1827, in which he showed the utter worthlessness of the theory. In 1830, when the correctness of Champollion's system was not fully demonstrated, Janelli published at Naples his Fundamenta Hermeneutica Hieroglyphicae, in three volumes, in which the old symbolic theory of the hieroglyphs was re-asserted! and there were many who hesitated not to follow the views of François Ricardi, the soundness of which may be estimated by the title of one of his works, "Découverte des Hieroglyphes domestiques phonétiques par lesquels, sans sortir de chez soi, on peut deviner l'histoire, la chronologie (!!), le culte de tous les peuples anciens et modernes, de la même manière, qu'on le fait en lisant les hieroglyphes égyptiens selon la nouvelle méthode," Turin, 1824.1

Champollion's system of decipherment and translation owes its acceptance chiefly to the famous Lettre which Lepsius addressed to Rosellini in 1837. In his discussion of the whole question of Egyptian decipherment Lepsius added to Champollion's system the cohesion and stability which it lacked, and stated clearly the facts which it would seem Champollion only partly realized. About this time Samuel Birch, who was then an Assistant in the Record Office, and Dr. Edward Hincks (1792-1866) in Ireland devoted themselves to a careful study of Champollion's system. To these men we owe the true explanation of the use of determinatives and phonetic complements, and the correct values of a large number of hieroglyphs. Hincks's paper in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy (Dublin, 1848, 8vo.), entitled “An attempt to ascertain the number, names, and powers of the letters of the Hieroglyphic Ancient Egyptian Alphabet," was so epoch-making that Dr. Brugsch declared that he was the first to use the correct system of decipherment.

1 See his Essai sur les Hieroglyphes d'Horapollon, Paris, 1827.

2 As regards Hincks's work on the demotic text on the Rosetta Stone Brugsch says, "Es liegt mir davon ein Abdruck vor unter dem Titel: 'The Enchorial Language of Egypt' (Dublin Univ. Rev. No. III, 1833, 8vo.). In dieser Abhandlung werden zum erstenmale diejenigen grammatischen Bestandtheile der Volksschrift, welche weniger leicht auf der Hand liegen und schwieriger aufzufinden sind, richtig bestimmt und aus bekannteren demotischen Texten nachgewiesen." Zeitschrift der Deutsch. Morgen. Gesellschaft, Bd. III, p. 263.

Birch and Hincks showed that they were able to translate Egyptian texts and to obtain valuable historical information from them, and this work was developed to a most remarkable degree by Emmanuel de Rougé, who produced translations of hieratic papyri and of many hieroglyphic stelae and other monuments. These three men were the real founders of Egyptology as we now know it, and their work formed the foundation on which Chabas, Goodwin, and H. Brugsch built with such conspicuous success.

Briefly, the way in which the greater part of the Egyptian alphabet was recovered is as follows:-It will be remembered that, on account of breakages, the only name found on the Rosetta Stone is that of Ptolemy. Shortly before Champollion published his letter to M. Dacier he had published an account of the obelisk1 which Mr. Bankes brought from Philae, which was inscribed with the name of a Ptolemy, written with the same characters as that on the Rosetta Stone, and also contained within a cartouche. It was followed by a second cartouche, which Bankes and Young said was that of a queen. The obelisk was in a socket, bearing a Greek inscription containing a petition of the priests of Isis at Philae, addressed to Ptolemy, to Cleopatra his sister, and to Cleopatra his wife. Now, it was argued, if this obelisk and the hieroglyphic inscription which it bears commemorate the petition of the priests, who in the Greek speak of the dedication of a similar monument, it follows of necessity that the cartouche must contain the name of a Cleopatra. The names of Ptolemy and Cleopatra having, in the Greek, some letters that are alike, may be used for comparing the hieroglyphs which are used in each; and if the characters which are similar in these two names express the same sound in each cartouche, their purely phonetic character is at once made clear. A previous comparison of these two names written in the demotic character shows that when they are written phonetically several characters, exactly alike, are used in each. The analogy of the demotic, hieratic, and hieroglyphic methods of writing in a general way leads us to expect the same coincidence and the same conformity in these same names, written hieroglyphically. The names Ptolemaios and Cleopatra written in hieroglyphs are as follows:No. 1, PTOLEMY

14

Observations sur l'Obélisque Égyptien de l'île de Philæ," in Revue encyclopédique, Mars, 1822.

L

Now in No. 2 cartouche, sign No. 1, which must represent K, is not found in cartouche No. 1. But we find

=

as a variant, therefore both and K, the first letter of the name of Kleopatra. Sign No. 2, a lion lying down, is identical with sign No. 4, in cartouche No. 1. This clearly is L. Sign No. 3, a reed, represents the short vowel E; two of them are to be seen in character No. 6 in No. 1 cartouche, and considering their position their value must be AI in atos. Sign No. 4 is identical with No. 3 in No. 1 cartouche, and must have the value O in each name. Sign No. 5 is identical with sign No. 1 of No. 1 cartouche, which, being the first letter of the name of Ptolemy, must be P. Sign No. 6 is not found in No. 1 cartouche, but it must be A, because it is the same sign as sign No. 9, which ends the name KAEOПATPA; sign No. 10 is No. 2 in Ptolemy; sign No. 11 is not a letter, but is a determinative that accompanies feminine proper names, e.g., proper names, e.g.,, Isis, and Nephthys. Sign No. 7, an open stretched out hand, must be T. It does not occur in No. 1 cartouche, but we find from other cartouches that takes the place of, and the reverse. Sign No. 8 must be R; it is not in No. 1 cartouche, and ought not to be there. In No. 1 cartouche sign No. 7 must be S, because it ends the name which in Greek ends with S. The remaining sign in cartouche No. 1 is, which must be M. Thus from these two cartouches we may collect twelve characters of the Egyptian alphabet, viz., A, AI, E, K, L, M, O, P, R, S, T, T. Now let us take another cartouche from the Description de l'Égypte, tom. III, pl. 38, No. 13, and try to make it out; it reads:

Now signs Nos. 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, and 8, we know from cartouches Nos. 1 and 2, and we may write down their values thus :

ΑΛ ..ΣΕ . . ΤΡ.

The only Greek name which contains these letters in this order is Alexander, therefore let us assign to the signs, www, and, the value of K, N and S respectively. We find on examination that the whole group corresponds, letter for letter, with the group which stands in the demotic text of a papyrus in the place of the Greek name AɅEXANAPOZ. We have, then, gained three new phonetic signs-K, N, and S—and have determined the value of fifteen in all.

Again, let us take the cartouche of another lady :—