Richard Lepsius, a biography

by Georg Ebers

Let us imagine, instead of the Egypt of that period, an Italian province of the Austrian monarchy, and let us suppose that the clergy of the place had drawn up a decree in honor of the imperial house; this might perhaps be published in the old ecclesiastical language, Latin, in Italian, and in the German language of the ruling house and its officials. Precisely thus was the decree of Rosetta written; first in the sacred language of the church, habitually rendered in the ancient hieroglyphic character, and only employed in ecclesiastical writings, next in the dialect current among the people, the demotic, which was recorded in a special abbreviated character in which the original form of the hieroglyphics is no longer to be recognized, and finally in the Greek language and character of the Lagid ruling house and its functionaries. Thus the Rosetta stone offered for investigation three tolerably long texts, the first two of which had for foundation a dialect of the ancient Egyptian language. These were in the two kinds of writing, the distinction between which had already been noted by the Greeks, (Herodotus, Diodorus, Clemens of Alexandria, etc.) and beneath them stood the Greek translation. In a special treatise,[13] to which the reader is referred, we have endeavored to show how two scholars, working independently, arrived simultaneously at the same result of correctly deciphering the principal hieroglyphic groups by a comparison of the names of the Ptolemy, of Cleopatra and of Alexander,[14] which were distinguished by being enclosed within elliptical ovals (cartouches), and appeared on the bi-lingual tablet in both hieroglyphic and Greek text. These two scholars were the gifted Frenchman, Champollion, and the Englishman, Thomas Young, an investigator of the first rank, whom difficulties served only to allure, and whose labors in the domain of physiology and optics would have assured him an immortal name. But Young arrived at results which were inaccurate in detail, chiefly by means of mechanical and arithmetical comparison, and then pursued his acquisitions no further, while Champollion applied all the energies of his lifetime to the prosecution and development of his epoch-making discovery. For this reason we ascribe it to him more willingly and with greater justice than to Thomas Young, who, however, undoubtedly presented his conclusions a little in advance of Champollion. Each had arrived at his results quite independently of the other, but, from the first, Champollion’s were the more correct, and what with Young remained a splendid but incomplete exploit of the most magnificent sagacity, was by the Frenchman prosecuted in the most brilliant manner, and reduced to a correct system which, taken as a whole, is still valid at the present day. The great master-pieces of Champollion, the Grammaire égyptienne, (1836-41), and the Dictionnaire égyptien en écriture hiéroglyphique, (1842-44), were first published after his death (1832), and subsequently to Lepsius’ sojourn in Paris. They give an idea of the profound insight into the ancient Egyptian language which had been attained by this scholar who died so young. Had Fate granted him a longer life his great works would have gained immensely in value, for his brother, Champollion-Figeac, who had undertaken to edit a portion of the manuscripts[15] of the deceased, which filled two thousand pages, although he fulfilled the task conscientiously and gladly, was yet obliged to take in hand much that was only half completed, and did not prove entirely equal to the undertaking.

It is true that François Champollion, in his Précis du système hiéroglyphique des anciens Égyptiens, (Paris, 1824), had presented a scheme of the hieroglyphic system of writing which, in its general features, was correct. But this work, though extraordinary for that time, was somewhat of the nature of a sketch, and criticism could find in it sufficient grounds for entertaining sundry doubts and scruples. Other scholars especially, who likewise styled themselves Egyptologists, attacked the system of Champollion, and brought forward other systems of their own in opposition to it. Amongst these guides to the labyrinth, whose errors have long since been refuted and lapsed into utter forgetfulness, Seyffarth of Leipsic lifted his voice most loudly. Sickler, also, wished to explain the hieroglyphics by paranomasia. He maintained that each one was intended to represent a whole series of words of similar sound. Klaproth adhered firmly to his acrological system, according to which each hieroglyphic could express all those Coptic words that begin with the same sound with which the name of the hieroglyphic begins.

What was a critically trained linguist to think of a science which had not yet positively decided how to read or explain the characters of that writing, which it was incumbent upon it to interpret, and which could not even declare, with the concurrence of all its collaborators, what language was the basis of the text which it nevertheless sought to translate and expound?

It is difficult to understand how, after the appearance of the Précis du système hiéroglyphique, these card-houses could have stood their ground for a single month beside the well-founded edifice of Champollion. But the more dubious the condition of affairs was with the authors of these false systems, the louder did they raise their voices, while Champollion, without regarding them, worked on with admirable tranquillity, and added stone after stone to his great construction. The principal parts of this he completed, but he was destined to bequeath it to posterity without roof or ornaments.

At the time when Lepsius was invited to make the investigation of the ancient Egyptian the occupation of his life, he had heard as much in favor of Seyffarth, Klaproth and Sickler as of Champollion. From the beginning he placed greater confidence in the latter. Yet he did well to inform himself exactly as to the true state of Egyptology at that time before placing at its disposal his energy, his ability, and his time. He was of too prudent a disposition to embark for the journey through life on a paper boat.

A deeper insight into the system of Champollion reassured him, and soon led him to a decision. He might undertake the work with favorable expectations, for Lepsius could feel himself far superior in thoroughness of preparation and synthetic acumen to those intellectual imitators of the giant Champollion, who, even during his lifetime, had ventured forth with their own works. We shall have to tell with what blunt sickles they destroyed the grain which they thought to reap. Destiny had forbidden the master to train up worthy disciples, for after the first professorship of Egyptology in the University of Paris had been conferred upon him, and when he had scarcely entered on his office as a teacher, the fine vigorous man of forty-one was overtaken by death.

Prior to this, however, he had already found disciples in Salvolini and Rosellini. The latter had followed him to Rome, Turin and Naples, after having taught at Pisa as Professor of Oriental Languages. The extraordinary talent of E. de Rougé was developed later. Birch in London and Leemans in Leyden were indeed his contemporaries, but should be called his successors, not his pupils, and published their first Egyptological works after his death, and after Lepsius had decided in favor of this science.

When our friend entered the arena of Egyptological research the nature of the demotic writing was as yet entirely undetermined, for although the greatest Orientalist of this century, Silvestre de Sacy, had addressed his attention to the demotic portion of the Rosetta stone, and it had been examined not only by Thomas Young, but also by the sagacious Swede, Åkerblad, neither they nor Champollion had been able to come to any satisfactory understanding of it. Lepsius, also did little towards a more thorough comprehension of the nature of the demotic dialect and writing. It was H. Brugsch and E. Revillout who first discovered the significance of the demotic, and proved the importance of this “writing and language of the people” as a middle term between ancient Egyptian and Coptic.

As far as this, (the Coptic), is concerned, it was the language used by the Egyptians in speaking and writing, after the introduction of Christianity into Egypt. It was written in Greek letters, with some additional alphabetical characters for sounds which the Hellenic alphabet would not reproduce. It represents the most recent dialect of the Egyptians, replete with many borrowed and alien words from the Greek, and it succeeded the demotic as this sprang from the ancient Egyptian language which was written in hieroglyphics. As we possess many of the Scriptural books in Coptic translations, and more recent Coptic manuscripts with an Arabic version in the margin, it is scarcely less intelligible for us than Greek and Arabic themselves. The church of the monophysitic Coptic Christians on the Nile employs it to-day in the liturgies according to which divine worship is conducted. The founder of a scientific knowledge of the Coptic language in Europe was the same Athanasius Kircher who attempted the deciphering of hieroglyphics without success. To him we are, however, indebted for the first Coptic vocabularies and essays at grammar, (these were taken from the Arabic, and written in Latin.)

A succession of European scholars afterwards extended and perfected his work, which, although fundamental, was full of defects and errors. When Lepsius began the study of Coptic it had already been treated by Lacroze, Wilkins, Scholz, Woide, Tuki, Quatremère, and Zoega, in part grammatically, and in part lexicographically. Peyron’s lexicon was also approaching completion.