ART. VI. Essay on Dr. Young's and M. Champollion's Phonetic System of Hieroglyphics; with some additional Discoveries, by which it may be applied to decypher the Names of the Ancient Kings of Egypt and Ethiopia, by Henry Salt, Esq., F.R.S. his Britannic Majesty's Consul-General in Egypt, &c. &c. Royal 8vo. pp. 72. Longman and Co. 1825.

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HE author of the above-mentioned essay was, at first, prejudiced against the phonetic system: but since his conversion he is become, to the full, as active in making proselytes as the first promulgator of the doctrine. Not but what he ought at least he ought to be active in acquiring that necessary information by which alone conversion can be fairly produced; and his future diligence will, no doubt, atone for any past remissness; or rather, for any apprehension that may have arisen as to his having been remiss.

Since Mr. Salt dwells at the fountain-head, and in a public capacity, the public might, at least, hope for superior success, from his superior opportunities of promoting his pursuits in this branch of inquiry; and from his known power with his pencil. The Egyptian hieroglyphics have, hitherto, like the sources of the Nile, not been traceable, at least by our modern virtuosi: but, transported as he is thither by a power which can open to him the deep recesses wherein these secrets lie, it is but fair to expect on this subject from his Majesty's Consul-General of Egypt more than from any of his precursors.

We know not whether his new zeal may have outrun his former and better judgment: but has that zeal been derived from consciousness that Mr. S. in Egypt has been doing less toward the developement of these recondite mysteries than Dr. Young in England, or M. Champollion in France? Mr. W. J. Bankes, also, ought to be here mentioned among the explorers; since he appears, while in Egypt, to have devoted himself actively to the pursuit to have liberally imparted what he discovered and to have effected as much as any other student towards decyphering these hieroglyphic devices. Let us, however, now ask, are the phænomena, the reasons, or the semblances, which have satisfied the Consul, such as should satisfy the general reader of his work? This is the simple question that we shall proceed to examine, and endeavor to solve. It seems that

'The first idea of certain hieroglyphics being intended to represent sounds was suggested by Dr. Young, who, from the names of Ptolemy and Berenice, had pointed out nine, which have since proved to be correct; the former taken from the Rosetta inscription, and the latter deduced with singular ingenuity from the enchorial of the same monument. Working upon this basis, Mons.

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Champollion, with happy success, made out four or five others, as also about thirty synonymes; and by the ingenious application of these, the merit of which is all his own, he has been able to turn to effect the discovery, and to decypher therewith a great number of the names of the Ptolemies and of the Roman emperors, together with their titles, which fortunately gives us the means of determining the date of most of the temples built within the period of their rule.'

Something towards determining these dates certainly seems done but criticism must follow up and carefully sift such evidence. Kings and emperors might cause their names to be cut upon old temples, either because they had repaired or had visited them; or from their having presented them with votive offerings; or for

"Any other reason why,"

that vanity might suggest, and the power of a ruler might accomplish. More than one antient Oriental despot is accused of having destroyed those archives of their country which preceded their own reigns, in order that history might appear to commence with themselves; and, as Mr. Salt reports further on in his essay, many erasures of names have actually taken place, and many new names have been superinscribed within old hieroglyphic "rings." The reader should here be informed that the elliptical tablets, or enclosures containing proper names, are throughout Mr. S.'s essay termed rings.

Mons. Champollion,' says Mr. Salt, has not only accomplished' what is stated above, but has suggested, though as Dr. Young thinks with little success, the application of these or other congeneric characters, to reading the names of the old Egyptian sovereigns, which undoubtedly is a great desideratum, and might lead to some important consequences in the way of illustrating the ancient history of the country.'

We think with Dr. Young, that this can have been done with but little success, or with, at least, but little certainty: for with regard to congeneric' characters and the thirty synonymes,' which are mentioned above, they are much, very much, to be distrusted, as we shall presently shew. Let us here, however, attend for a moment to the history of the author's conversion.

It may be right here to state, that I had conceived, from the cursory notice of this discovery in the " Journal des Savans,” and in the letters of my friends, a very decided prejudice against the phonetic system, as conceiving it to be founded on too conjectural a basis; but having lately received Mons. Champollion's pamphlet, as well as that of Dr. Young on hieroglyphics, I setmyself seriously to the examination of their contents, being un

willing

willing to suppose that so much importance could be given, without reason, by many persons of acknowledged talents in Europe, to a discovery which appeared to me only a very vague and conjectural hypothesis. This led to a complete conviction of my error, and induced me not only to entertain a just appreciation of its value, from having been able to confirm almost every point laid down by Mons. Champollion from my own sketches, but, with the assistance of the latter, to add some important names, as well as other phonetic characters, that are likely to conduct to results of still higher value than those already attained by its authors, and to give a new lustre to this interesting discovery.'

By a note we are let into the further history of the gradual steps by which hieroglyphical interpretation has advanced. Those steps, as taken upon firm ground, are but few, and some of the slips which have been made, en passant, we shall anon notice: but as the note shews the starting and progress of this phonetic principle, and the active share Mr. W. J. Bankes has had in promoting its advancement, we here give it

entire.

The developement of an hieroglyphical alphabet is allowed by Mons. Champollion to have been mainly derived from a comparison of the several signs whose combinations were known to compose respectively the names of Ptolemy and of Cleopatra: he is, however, less precise in informing us from what sources this important previous knowledge was obtained. The name of Ptolemy had long since been published as such from the Rosetta stone, and had subsequently been confirmed by a collation with other Egyptian monuments. The first discovery of the name Cleopatra is due to Mr. W. J. Bankes, in 1818.

The several steps by which this name, the most perfect in orthography of any yet decyphered, and that which has, in a manner, furnished the key to all the rest, was first ascertained, deserve to be recorded, since, while they exhibit the process of the discovery, they furnish also a plain and popular proof of its authenticity.

All who are conversant with the sculptures on Egyptian monuments will have remarked on them the multiplied recurrence of a single figure, or of a pair of figures, offering to the gods, or receiving something from them, in almost every compartment, the more advanced figure, where there are two, being the male, and the female following: in other numerous instances the male is alone; the occurrence of the female singly is comparatively rare.

In each of these cases, however, it is observable that where the pair appear once upon an edifice, they will, for the most part, be seen similarly associated throughout; and the same systematic repetition obtains with the figure, whether male or female, when represented singly, to a multiplication almost without limit, and REV. JUNE, 1825.

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with little other variation, excepting in the details of the dress, or nature of the offering.

This circumstance led Mr. Bankes to suspect such figures to have been intended rather for conventional portraits of the founder and foundress of the building, or occupant of the sepulchre, than for priests or priestesses, or mere mythological persons in the abstract, as more commonly supposed. In order to try the grounds of this conjecture farther he caused a search to be made for the original sarcophagus in one of the very few tombs at Thebes, (for there seem to be only two there of any note so circumstanced,) where the female figure is seen represented singly throughout. The granite cover was accordingly found, and exhibits externally a female figure, habited as Isis, sculptured in high relief; whereas in the innumerable tombs, on whose walls the representation of the other sex predominates, this place is uniformly allotted to a male with the attributes of Osiris. Thus was a strong additional presumption obtained, that the female upon the walls was identified with a female whose remains had occupied this depository, and the deduction seemed to extend to other cases of analogy. Mr. Bankes next observed that, as the Greek inscription upon the propylæum at Diospolis Parva furnishes the only example extant in all Egypt of the name of a queen Cleopatra preceding (instead of following) that of a king Ptolemy, (which is to be accounted for by referring it to the regency or reign of that Cleopatra who was guardian to her son,) so does the sculpture on the same building furnish the only example, where the female figure, offering, takes a precedence over that of the man: these, therefore, it seemed more than probable, must be intended for Cleopatra and Ptolemy. Accordingly, Mr. Bankes proceeded to confront the supposed name of Ptolemy, as furnished to him from the Rosetta stone by Dr. Young, with the hieroglyphical designation over the male figure, and found an exact agreement.

Here was a fresh testimony afforded to the soundness of that discovery, and the strongest presumption established, that the characters surmounting the female must be those which designated Cleopatra.

The next step was to examine, whether the same two names could be found on the shaft of the obelisk which Mr. Bankes was removing from Phile, that being a known memorial of a Ptolemy and his two Cleopatras; and upon both being detected, not upon that only, but upon a little temple also at Philæ, where Mr. Bankes had discovered a dedicatory inscription in Greek of the same sovereigns, the matter was brought to complete proof, and the result was accordingly communicated by Mr. B. both to Mr. Salt and to Dr. Young, and noted by him also in pencil in the margin of many copies, which he afterwards distributed, of the lithographic print of his obelisk; it was so noted, amongst others, in the margin of that sent to Paris to be presented to the French Institute by Mons. Denon.

To the plate of that obelisk Mons. Champollion refers for the discovery and proof of this important name; but it will be obvious

that,

that, without other data, a mere collation of the Greek on the pedestal with the hieroglyphics on the shaft could not, in this instance, have led to such a result, the name of two distinct Cleopatras being recited in the Greek text, whilst the only name (besides that of Ptolemy) which occurs twice in the hieroglyphs, is not that of Cleopatra, but one which seems to contain the mystic title, whose precise interpretation is still unknown, as is that also of a fourth name, which, like Cleopatra, occurs once only, and is different from all.

These facts are stated, not so much with a view of detracting from any credit assumed, on whatever grounds, by Mons. Champollion, as of proving that the chain of evidence which establishes this important name is much more full and complete than Mons. Champollion has been able to make it appear to his readers.'

Another firm step was made in the year 1818, for which also the public is indebted to the enterprise and observation of Mr. Bankes. We must, however, exhibit the author's own array, of his own convictions, before we bring forward a body of opinions to oppose it.

It may,' says he, be here a proper place, as I am about to leave my guides, to sum up the reasons which have induced me to believe in the correctness of the phonetic system, vague as it must appear on the first view, and unlike as it is to every thing appertaining to what we have been taught to conceive of a written character. In the first place, the fact of there being a similar usage of phonetic characters in an existing language, the Chinese, as very aptly instanced by Dr. Young, is a circumstance much in its favor; then the progress of the discovery, and the facts connected with it, the name of Ptolemy being taken from the Rosetta inscription, and consequently resting on the basis of an accompanying Greek translation; the name of Berenice, so happily deduced by Dr. Young from the enchorial on the same stone; the circumstance of the same name of Ptolemy being found on so many buildings evidently of a posterior date in the style of their architecture to the older monuments of Egypt; the name of Cleopatra being found as mother to a young Ptolemy at Ernent and Koos, at the latter of which there is a Greek inscription, in which Cleopatra is represented as reigning with her son; the same being represented as wife to a Ptolemy at Gau Kibeer, at Dakké, in a little temple at Philæ, dedicated to Venus Aphrodite, and in another discovered by me, dedicated to Esculapius, of which I shall have hereafter to speak; in all of which it corresponds to the same name in Greek inscriptions found there; and also the same name accompanying in so many other temples the name of Ptolemy; the name of Ptolemy with Cleopatra being, on the fine propylon at Karnak, represented as son of Ptolemy and Arsinoe; the name of Alexander, son of Amun, being found together with that of Philip; the name of Ptolemy being, as at Edfou, followed by the title of Alexander, and by the name of Berenice his wife;

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