Georg Ebers.
CONTENTS.
| PAGE. | |
| Preface, | [1] |
| Boyhood and Apprenticeship, | [3] |
| The School, | [5] |
| Leipsic, | [9] |
| Göttingen, | [18] |
| Berlin, | [40] |
| The Journeyman, Paris, | [51] |
| Egyptological Studies, as Lepsius found them in 1834, | [69] |
| Lepsius in Paris as an Egyptologist, | [79] |
| Italy, | [93] |
| Holland, England, and the Season of Waiting, in Germany, | [123] |
| The Prussian Expedition to Egypt, under the direction of Lepsius, | [140] |
| The Master Workman, | [167] |
| The Home of Lepsius, | [218] |
| Richard Lepsius as a Man, | [282] |
| Appendix: I. The Göttingen Insurrection, | [301] |
| Appendix: II. Lepsius’ Report to the Berlin Royal Academy of Sciences on the commencement of his Egyptological Studies, | [308] |
| Appendix: III. Extract from the Report addressed to the Ministry, on the Acquisitions and Results of the Expedition to Egypt under R. Lepsius, | [314] |
| Index to the works of R. Lepsius, | [325] |
RICHARD LEPSIUS,
the head master of Egyptology, closed his eyes during the past summer, and his departure has been deeply lamented, not only in our own country, but among scholars of all lands. The task of portraying his life has fallen to me, and this task I have willingly assumed, for I am—with the exception of my dear and excellent friend and colleague, Dümichen of Strasburg—the oldest of his pupils. Till his latter end an intimate untroubled friendship united me to the beloved master, the benevolent promoter of my studies, the colleague, the man who followed with sympathy my poetical as well as my scientific productions. His family have assisted me in the kindest manner by placing at my disposal everything left by the deceased which could possibly aid my purpose. Diaries, memorandum books, letters of great interest, were submitted to my inspection, and these abundant materials confirmed my conviction that the personality of a German scholar has seldom presented so rounded and happily balanced a whole as that of the man whose life it has devolved upon me to describe. In him are united all things which can be required of a scholar in the highest sense of the word, and hence his biographer, while depicting the development, the individuality, and the vast activity of the man, can at the same time present to his nation such a model, such a beautiful type, of the German master of science, as is worthy of imitation.
In that great community which we call “the cultivated world,” and which has its home in every civilized land, the name of Richard Lepsius stands among those which are well known. Everyone within this circle knows, too, that he was a great Egyptologist. As one holds the diamonds in a king’s crown for genuine, even if he sees them only from afar, so one believes in the value and importance of the works of the celebrated scholar, although one may not even so much as know their titles, and although it is scarcely granted to one amongst ten thousand to comprehend them, or even to study them deeply.
The brief obituaries and biographical sketches published in the papers and periodicals shortly after the death of the great master, could give but a general idea of his labors, and yet these extended over many important domains of science, and his strong and firm hand laid the foundations upon which a long and varied series of future researches can and must be based.
It will be ours to show, in a way accessible and intelligible to every educated person, of what nature were the scientific achievements to which Lepsius owed his high and well-deserved honor and renown, and what a man the nation lost in him.