As far as his expenses upon the journey were concerned, he had not exceeded his estimates, and these funds had paid for all excavations and purchases. Humboldt considered the journey “cheap beyond measure.” It had cost altogether thirty-four thousand, six hundred thalers.
Humboldt estimated the expenses for the publication of the store of inscriptions and monuments collected, as well as the maps and pictures prepared upon the journey, at sixty to eighty thousand thalers. Lepsius thought at the time that he had rated it too high, but it afterwards proved that it could not be completed even for this large sum. The King had received Lepsius most graciously, and never wearied of hearing his accounts of his journey and his acquisitions. This is confirmed by v. Reumont, and the following extract is taken from his book, “The Days of King William in Sickness and Health:” “After Lepsius’ return (from Egypt) in 1846, the importance of the results which he had achieved and the beautiful things which he had sent home, procured him the most gracious reception at court, and he was a frequent and welcome guest there, animated and suggestive, clever in relating his many experiences, etc.” It was therefore natural that the king should immediately grant him the fifteen thousand thalers, which according to Humboldt’s estimate was the first instalment necessary for the preparation of the work on monuments.
THE MASTER WORKMAN.
On the twenty-third of August, 1846, Lepsius was appointed a regular professor at the Berlin University. This was followed, in 1850, by his election as member of the Academy of Sciences, and in 1855 by his appointment as co-director of the Egyptian museum, in conjunction with Passalacqua, who, although a person of superficial education, was a good man, and could not be set aside. Lepsius thus obtained the necessary leisure to devote himself uninterruptedly to the great and varied labors which awaited him.
Now that his probation as a journeyman was completed, he established a home of his own, and on the fifth of July, 1846, was married to Elizabeth Klein. The lovely bride, then eighteen years old, was an orphan, the child of the celebrated musician and composer of the same name.
In 1856 were completed the twelve volumes of the great work on monuments which Lepsius had been commissioned by his king to prepare. At the time that he left Egypt he had thought that it would exceed his powers. It was published in sixty-two numbers, and the eight hundred and ninety-four plates which compose them are in folio form, and exceed in size all previous works of the kind. The size interferes with the convenience of the book for handling, and is the sole point to be found fault with in what is otherwise a model production. The late Mariette once said to us in jest: “One needs a corporal and four soldiers to use your Lepsius’ ‘Monuments,’” and it is true that these twelve gigantic volumes demand too much physical strength, and too much space on the study-table, when one is obliged to consult them one after another. Yet the labor is substantially lessened by the incomparable order in which the author has arranged them. “The Monuments of Egypt and Ethiopia”[62] embrace all the archaeological, palaeographic and historical acquisitions of the expedition. They contain the prodigious wealth of hieroglyphic, Greek and other written records which the travellers collected on the way, in addition to maps, sketches, landscapes and architectural pictures, many of which are finely executed in colors.
The thousands of sheets of paper containing the impressions taken in Egypt, from which the majority of the inscriptions were copied and transferred to the lithographic stone, are preserved in the Egyptian museum as valuable documents. Let it be noted here that Lepsius was the first to apply successfully and efficiently this excellent method of copying by means of paper impressions. It is now, however, only on rare occasions of minor importance that the investigator finds it necessary to refer to the original impressions of the expedition, so wonderfully accurate are the reproductions of them. In the great publications of Champollion and Rosellini, (page 78) we frequently find alterations and inaccuracies on comparing them with the monuments, but in the “Monuments” of Lepsius such defects are almost unknown. Yet still greater commendation is due to the classification of the immense material comprised in this inexhaustible mine. There is scarcely the least change to be made in the historical sequence of these hundreds of closely filled plates, although later researches and excavations have furnished much that is new, and many details have been elucidated by the monographic works of Egyptologists since 1850. Before his departure for the Orient Lepsius had already examined the succession of the Egyptian dynasties. Amidst the monuments of the Nile he succeeded in finding answers to all that had appeared questionable to him while in Europe, and in thus bringing light into darkness. While carrying forward his work on the “Monuments” he also established a scientific groundwork for all the knowledge which he had previously accumulated, and was thus able to assign their correct places to the ruling families or dynasties, and to the several Pharaohs among them. It was easy to give their proper positions to the latter, as in the historical inscriptions are recorded the names of the Pharaohs under whom they were made. For such as were not dated the ingenuity and experience of the savant fixed their correct places according to the indications of style, or on palaeographic or other grounds.
To the inquiry which of the achievements of Lepsius we consider the greatest, we do not hesitate to answer, the classification of his “Monuments,” when we consider the lamentable condition of Egyptian historical research at the time when it was produced, and the prodigious amount of new information to be reduced to order. In this work we see him surmount the mass of material which had been collected by his own energy, and transform the chaotic whole into a beautiful and faultlessly-proportioned organism. He never loses his broad outlook over the entire field, and nevertheless he gives the smallest detail its due with painstaking consciousness. We discern the divine likeness most clearly in a great man when he keeps in view the great whole, and yet does not disdain to give heed to small things; like the eternal and mysterious power which prescribes their wide and immutable orbits to the stars, and yet forgets not to give its antennae to the tiny insect.
This colossal work is accompanied by no explanatory text,[63] and the excellence of the classification makes it easy to dispense with one. Each separate inscription can only be sought for in the place where it occurs, and the marginal notes inform us as to the locality whence it came, and the ruler under whom it originated. Whoever wishes to know to what period the Pharaoh in question should be assigned, must consult the Book of Kings, which was begun by Lepsius at an early date, and completed in 1859. He will there find the desired information.
In the middle of the fiftieth year of this century, the time had not yet come for giving continuous and exact translations of great hieroglyphic texts, and therefore the editor of the “Monuments” wisely abstained from doing so. Such an undertaking would also have far exceeded the powers of one person. Even now an abundance of difficult problems are still presented to Egyptian philology, great as are the advances which that has made, by this unparalleled corpus inscriptionum. It contains the most important Egyptian inscriptions, from the most ancient times up to the period of the Roman emperors, classified in the most rigorously systematic manner.