Accept this offering, then, as a slight countervailing gift for the many donations which you have bestowed upon me and every Egyptologist. Imitating the master’s example you have followed him to Egypt, and there, like him, undertaken the task of disclosing to your colleagues at home the wealth of unexplored inscriptions in which the temples and tombs of the Nile valley are still so rich. From hundreds of walls you have copied the pictorial and hieroglyphic decorations, and made them accessible for investigation by collecting them in convenient volumes. A stately row of folios,—yonder they stand and each contains cordial words which assure me of your faithful remembrance,—bears witness to your industry, the acuteness of your eye and intellect, and the precision of your hand. But few know what great sacrifices of comfort, sleep, health, and your own property, lie hidden within these volumes, for without assistance worth mentioning, either from the government or its chiefs, you, relying upon yourself alone, have achieved great results. You were aided by no firmans to afford you protection, no powerful patron to assume the cost of publication, no helpful fellow-traveller, as for years you made your way up the Nile far into the Sudān. Month after month have you been a self-invited guest of the god to whom the sanctuary of your choice was dedicated, you have passed the nights on a hard couch in a chamber of the temple which you desired to examine, and shared their scanty meal with the Arabs. To me it will ever be incomprehensible whence you derived the endurance to copy, through weeks of labor, the inscriptions on the walls of the tomb of Petuamenapt, the so-called bat sepulchre, while those misshapen creatures which dread the day extinguished your lights, flapped about you in swarms, and entangled themselves in that magnificent beard which procured for you among the Arabs the name of Abu Dakn (Father of the Beard).
But your endurance has borne admirable fruits. Through you and your works the inscriptions of the time of Ptolemy, formerly neglected, have for the first time received due honor. The keys to many mysteries lie concealed within them, and with what sagacity have you established the value of the enigmatical signs with which the priests during the Lagid period knew how to withdraw from the understanding of the multitude the mysteries to which they gave freer expression than their predecessors of earlier epochs. Golden Hathor of the beautiful countenance, under whose protection you spent such long months of privation, has endowed you with her dearest sanctuary, that of Dendera, entirely for your own, and Tehuti has aided you to apprehend correctly the fractional reckoning of the Egyptians, to determine many of their measures, and to make clear the division of the Egyptian land in ancient time.
It is a delight to offer a gift to such a giver, and if mine, my dear Johannes, pleases you, I shall be happy.
I have allowed neither diligence nor care to be lacking in its preparation, but nevertheless I should not have attained the goal which from the first I have had in view, if the family of the deceased had not committed to my use, with such great kindness and noble confidence, all the materials at their disposal. Of the greatest service have been the diaries of Mrs. Lepsius, her husband’s letters to her, to his parents, to Bunsen and many others, and the master’s own memoranda in the form of note-books and diaries, or on scraps of paper and in little books of poetry, in which are also included the poems of Abeken, the family friend.
The heads of the school, especially the principal, Professor Volkmann, as well as Professor Buchbinder, willingly furnished me with such information as I desired; memoirs and collections of letters already published helped me to make good many deficiencies, and where I wished to consult the records of public authorities I have everywhere met with a courtesy which merits thanks. I owe special acknowledgment for the many communications, both by letter and word of mouth, which I have received from the eldest son of the deceased, Professor R. Lepsius of Darmstadt.
As is natural, the principle materials have been drawn from the works of the master, and my own vivid memories of his character.
The index to his writings will, I think, be welcome to you and to many colleagues. To bring it to the perfection which he had desired was a task attended with many difficulties.
You must yourself judge whether the old adage “a pupil’s praise is lame,” is applicable to this biography. I am conscious of having handled my brush with love indeed, but also with all fidelity. On account of the great abundance of material there was far less need of original research than of sifting and selecting, and this had to be done with special pains and prudence in regard to the twenty-seven volumes of Mrs. Lepsius’ interesting diary.
I hope that you, the master’s eldest pupil, will miss, in this likeness painted by the hand of friendship, no essential trait of the dead who was dear to us both, and that you will find that the artist has introduced into it no more of his own personality than may be permitted to an historian. He tenders you this book with affection, and knows that you will receive it in the same spirit from
Your very faithful,