On the twenty-fourth of February he wrote to Bunsen: “I have not thought it necessary to hurry, as Turin is without doubt the most important point of my journey as far as the collection of materials is concerned. One realizes this thrice as strongly when one has staid here awhile and become familiar with the situation. I leave this excellent museum very unwillingly, but one would have to stay for years to exhaust it, and I do not think that I have employed my time ill. You will enjoy the rich harvest which I bring you from here. I have taken paper impressions of all the inscriptions engraved on hard stone; part of them with starch, which makes them indestructible. Unfortunately, I could not continue my Parisian collection of a hundred and twenty stelae in the same way, for they were unnecessarily afraid here of injury to the limestone from the damp paper, so that the most important stelae and many other objects in limestone I have partly counterdrawn with pith paper and partly copied, and have done this to some extent in the colors, the value of which I first learned to appreciate properly here. The greater part of the time, though, I have spent upon the rich stores of papyrus, almost the whole of which, with all the important fragments of every kind, I have counterdrawn or copied. I have taken special pains with the large perfect ritual, which can be found here and nowhere else.” He had not yet seen the stores of papyrus in London and Leyden. “It was a matter of special importance to me to possess some common basis for all the other fragments of the ritual (which are to be found everywhere; a portion of them are at Rome), for the special purpose of beginning an extensive collection of the different readings; very necessary for the study of hieroglyphics. Therefore, I have spared no pains to compare the whole Parisian papyrus, a copy of which I have, with that here. I have noted all the different readings, in the text as well as in the vignettes, and counterdrawn all that is lacking, which amounts to about twice as much as the Parisian copy. So that I now possess the most perfect ritual, in a volume of more than sixty sheets of paper, of half-folio size, stitched together, besides the collation of the Parisian ritual, a preparatory work which will be very valuable for future studies.”
In fact all the material that he so laboriously acquired at Turin formed the foundation for his celebrated edition of the Book of the Dead, of which we shall have to speak hereafter. Many historical dates, which are contained in the monuments preserved at Turin and the famous papyrus of the kings were also collected by him in 1836; yet he found, on his second journey to Turin in 1841, that in his first visit to the museum many of the treasures preserved there had been purposely withheld from him.
From Turin he went to Pisa, partly to make the acquaintance of Rosellini, with whom he had long been in scientific correspondence, partly to study the monuments which the latter had brought with him, and the papyrus and other written records which were intrusted to the care of the Italian Egyptologist.
“Rosellini,” he writes on the twentieth of March, 1836, “received me very cordially, and I find myself well off in this excellent family, where I spend the whole day, from nine o’clock in the morning till nine at night.” The monuments here had less to offer him, “but so much the more do I learn,” he writes, “from Rosellini’s Lexicon of Hieroglyphics. This also contains the accumulations of Champollion, and I shall copy it out in full. Besides this, I derive great benefit from the oral instruction and communications, which Rosellini gives me on all possible subjects without the least reservation. I quickly perceived, that I should not be able to leave this place as soon as I had expected.” The following verses, with which he took leave of the Rosellinis, may show how intimate the relation had become between the young German and the family of the Italian scholar:
From the South to the South
I am driven away;
From the North to the South—
Yet fain would I stay.
———
From country to country,
From dome unto dome;
From Strasburg to Pisa,
From Pisa to Rome.
———
Wert thou in the South land,
Thou home of my heart,
No farther I’d wander,
I’d never depart.
———
Yet linger I may not,
And so I prepare
In my heart a warm shelter,
And cherish thee there.
———
Then when farther I’m roaming
I’ll bear thee with me,
And Heaven, protecting,
Will guard me with thee.
Pisa, April 19, 1836.
After Pisa he visited Leghorn, where was lodged the Drovetti collection, which was afterwards purchased for the Berlin Museum, by the special advice of Lepsius. The owner had asked sixty thousand francs, and got thirty thousand. Amongst the monuments was the Colossus of Rameses II, and the valuable fragment of the statue of Usurtasen I. (throne and legs). This is now restored and is the great ornament of the Egyptian collection in the capital city of the empire. It may be seen, from a letter which Lepsius wrote to Bunsen about the collection, that the fragment of the statue of Usurtasen I. had only been brought to Europe by Drovetti in order to restore with it the slightly injured colossus of the same king. The fragment consisted of the same “black granite” (properly graywacke) as the better preserved statue of Rameses II.
In May, 1836, Lepsius at last arrived in Rome, richly laden with treasures. There, for the first time, he met Charles J. Bunsen, who had directed his attention towards Egyptian antiquity, and had assisted him with fatherly kindness during his residence in Paris. Bunsen was at that time living on the Tiber as Prussian Ambassador, under the title of Minister Resident. He presided as chief secretary over the Archaeological Institute, which had been founded by Gerhard, with his assistance, in 1829. Ten years before the arrival of Lepsius, Champollion had visited Rome, and found there an enthusiastic admirer and disciple in Bunsen. Absorbed in numerous affairs, and in other branches of research,[24] the latter could devote but a small portion of his time to Egyptological studies. In Lepsius he believed that he had found the right man to continue the work of Champollion with greater success, and in a more profound and independent spirit, than the Master’s two disciples, Salvolini and Rosellini. He also hoped that Lepsius would be specially fitted to take charge of the business of recording secretary of the Institute in conjunction with Braun. For this he had already proved his ability in Paris.
The affairs of this learned society were at that time in a very bad condition. The most necessary pecuniary means were wanting, differences of opinion, which seemed entirely irreconcilable, divided the Parisian and the Roman-Prussian sections, and indeed there was serious question as to the continued existence of this beneficient Institute. But, as Michaelis, its historiographer, expresses himself, “Danger stimulated Bunsen’s elastic spirit,” and at the right moment Lepsius, together with Braun, “who was delighted with his expert colleague,” stepped into the breach. We will not say that it was Lepsius alone who averted the threatened danger, but it is certainly to be partly ascribed to his warm personal relations with Panofka, de Witte, and the noble Duc de Luynes, who was so influential in France, that the relations of the society to Paris, and its affairs in general, improved soon after his participation in the management. What impression he made on his appearance in Rome may be shown by the following passage from a letter which Bunsen’s wife wrote to her mother on the twelfth of May, 1856: “Lepsius,” says this estimable lady, “has been here since Monday. He makes a very pleasant impression in regard to character as well as talents; in short, he fulfills the expectations roused by his letters, which were clear, upright, intelligent, copious, but not excessive. He has naturally refined manners, but no stiffness, and is neither presuming nor shy. It is incredible, what material he has collected for his study of Egyptian antiquities, and his drawings are wonderfully executed. You can fancy that Charles (Bunsen) is delighted to talk of hieroglyphics with him; yet it does not make him idle,—he is busily occupied the whole day, and only at meal times and in the evenings does he enjoy such a great pleasure.”
At that time Bunsen was already contemplating the execution of his great work “The Place of Egypt in the History of the World,” and from the first was disposed to confide many of the special researches for it to Lepsius. Soon, however, (indeed long before his recall from Rome), he felt inclined to offer him the honor of being his collaborator. “Bunsen and Lepsius” were to appear upon the title-page as the authors; and if the elder scholar and statesmen furnished the great leading ideas, the young doctor, with bee-like industry, collected everything in Rome that might prove useful for the details of the work.