Richard Lepsius, a biography

by Georg Ebers

Here, everything was still to be achieved, for before the hieroglyphics had been deciphered, scholars had been obliged to depend solely upon Grecian accounts of the Egyptian kings and gods, especially upon those given by Herodotus, and therefore had often relied on reports which were most inadequate, and which in many cases were misunderstood. The power recently acquired of reading the writing of the Egyptians disclosed a wealth of original material, which was unexpected, new, and authentic. The incontrovertible importance of this was self-evident, and even during Champollion’s lifetime many rushed upon the freshly discovered mines, and sought to rifle them for historical and mythological purposes. But, although at the outset many mistakes and uncertainties were rectified, and much that was incontestably new was established, yet on the other hand, error after error was introduced into the science by the rash course of the immediate successors of Champollion. They received on faith that which they only half comprehended, and applied it without care or criticism. They instituted comparisons upon bases either false or insufficiently established, and by means of them arrived at conclusions that we can now only regard with scorn and dismay. In place of the imperfect knowledge of former time, there appeared as its evil successor a disorder without parallel. The grateful, but difficult task undertaken by Lepsius, was to clear this away, and compel Egyptological research to conform to the same critical method which has become obligatory for other branches of study, and without which there can be no soundness in science.

Out of vague and unregulated fancies concerning Egyptian history and mythology, he formed a true Egyptian history and science of Egyptian divinities. By his strong hand were restrained the more or less ingenious and active divagations of Champollion’s successors, and he pointed out the path by which alone Egyptology could succeed in winning the name of a science.

His course was at the same time bold, prudent, and dexterous. He considered the whole extent of the monumental material collected by himself, or otherwise attainable, separated it into groups, sifted these, and treated the essential constituents which he thus extracted according to the same critical method to which he had become accustomed in other departments of science, under the tutelage of Hermann, Dissen, Müller, Bopp, Lachmann, and Boeckh.

After his journey to England and Holland, of which we shall soon have to speak, he possessed a sovereign comprehensive view of all of the written relics of the Egyptians to be found in Europe. But he carefully guarded himself against drawing conclusions from them which had not been thoroughly worked out, or from using them, like many other followers of Champollion, in the building of card houses.

In the historical group of his collectanea, which were arranged with the orderliness peculiar to himself, he brought together all the kings’ names which it was possible to obtain, and all texts provided with dates, as well as all writings on stone or papyrus which concerned the genealogical relations of the Pharaonic families. Thus, too, during his sojourn at Rome we see him chiefly occupied in collecting the building stones only for that chronological-historical edifice to be reared in more tranquil days, and which he expected to erect in common with Bunsen.

This self-control was to be well rewarded, for on his first and most important expedition to Egypt there flowed in upon him an affluence of new material, especially regarding the earliest epoch of Pharaonic history, which supplemented and in many ways modified that previously obtained. We can now take a comprehensive view of all the acquisitions of that time, and if we compare them with the two folio volumes of his Book of Kings,[29] or rather with the first draught of the same as he completed it in 1842, we must be astonished at the wealth of material which he had collected by the close of his sojourn upon the Tiber. The work mentioned contains in its present form all the names of the Pharaohs which have been preserved on monuments or papyrus, and is an indispensable handbook to anyone occupied in the study of Egyptian history. Its accuracy is equal to its copiousness, in which it had of course gained immensely, compared to the first sketch, which he willingly and frequently showed us.

The production of a new book of this kind could only mean the giving of a new title to Lepsius’ Book of Kings, for the arrangement of this great work is so fine and faultless that a change could but injure it. If we regard the first draft of the Book of Kings, which was completed before the Egyptian journey (it was never printed), as the foundation of Lepsius’ later chronological labors, we must acknowledge that at that time it would have been entirely impossible to add anything new to what was there collected.

It is with such weapons as these that victories are won, but he who had forged them imposed upon himself one preparatory labor after another before he entered upon the combat, and used them for the great historical purposes which he had in view.

In Turin he had also laid the foundations for his later researches in mythology, especially that of the ancient Egyptians, and in this group of studies we see him proceed with exactly the same method and circumspection as in his chronological works. His predecessors had found the innumerable and motley figures of the Egyptian Pantheon, often accompanied by their names, portrayed upon monuments of stone and papyrus, and had compared them with those divine beings of the Egyptians mentioned by the classic writers. They had attempted to explain the significance of these figures, and in so doing, where the sources of information at their command would not serve them, they had given free play to their imaginations,—it is only necessary to remember the ingenious phantasies of Creuzer, Roth, etc. The gods throng through their writings in a wild confusion, and it had occurred to no one, not even to Champollion (whose Panthéon égyptien[30] must nevertheless always be characterized as a valuable preparatory work), to proceed to an organization of the great crowd of gods, and to point out the historical principle by which they were to be classified.

This task Lepsius imposed upon himself, but here too, during his stay in Italy, he contented himself with sifting and studying all the materials at hand, and we are enabled to take a survey of his introductory labors in this province also. During his first sojourn in Turin he had already discerned that innumerable religious texts, existing in all the museums, on papyrus rolls, sarcophagi, mummy cloths, amulets, etc., belonged collectively to a larger work, to which he gave the name of “Book of the Dead.” This work, composed from many fragments, never reached a canonical conclusion, but the larger specimens of it included all the chapters which occurred alone, or in lesser number, on smaller papyri or monuments. Lepsius recognized the true significance of this book, which Champollion erroneously considered a book of ritual (rituel funéraire), that is, a book which comprised the prayers and formulas to be repeated and the hymns to be sung at the burial of the dead. It was usually found on the body of the deceased, under the mummy cloths, or in the coffin, and its contents only referred incidentally, and to a certain extent in a recapitulatory manner to transactions which were to take place on earth. The destiny of the soul which sprang from Osiris resembled the destiny of the god himself, and it is with this destiny that the “Book of the Dead” is occupied. It was given to the departed to carry with him into the grave as a passport and aid to memory. For in the other world it was necessary to sing hymns of praise, and with the help of the “right word,” which they imagined as endowed with magic power, to ward off demons and hostile beasts, to open gates, to procure food and drink, to justify oneself before Osiris and the forty-two judges, and finally to secure for the deceased all his claims as a god. Everything depended on being acquainted with the magical “right word,” and in order that it should always be at the command of the traveller through the next world, it was first written on the sarcophagus and then on the grave-clothes. From the collection of these formulas, then, arose the “Book of the Dead,” the vade mecum, the cicerone, for the pilgrim through the mysteries of the other life.