It is worthy of remark, that the Egyptian religion, intended to be abolished by Theodosius in his sweeping edict of 381 a.d.,[35] still existed at Philæ seventy years later—namely, in 453, as is proved by the sculptures on the walls of the temple. And Philæ further claims the honour of being the resting-place of a portion of the body of Osiris, to whom a monolithic shrine, now standing in the sanctuary, is dedicated. Osiris, it will be remembered, was slain by Typhon, or Set, who cut his body into pieces, and dispersed the fragments over the country; so that Philæ is not alone in the possession of so sacred a relic: although Isis, the wife of Osiris, presumedly gathered all the pieces together, when they became united, and Osiris was restored to life. Horus, the son of Osiris, was his father’s avenger, and, in his turn, destroyed Typhon. This fable bears several allegorical readings: for example—Osiris, as the setting sun, sinks into the regions of Set, or Saturn, and becomes king of Hades; Isis, or the moon, comes in search of her lost husband; but the sun rises again from the shades of Hades, as Horus, and dispels the darkness of Saturn, and the deadly influences of Typhon.[36] This is, perhaps, more obvious if we join with the Greeks in calling Horus, Phœbus. Osiris, Isis, Horus, are one form of the Egyptian trinity, in which the humble worshipper of the ancient faith still believes. The trinity was the creed of the earliest family of human beings; and so was the death of one member of that trinity, his descent into Hades, and his subsequent resurrection; with the consequent immortality of the soul. This is all pourtrayed in the Egyptian Triad. Moreover, the name of Osiris among the Egyptians was an unspoken word; it was a holy secret, breathed with extremest caution by the priests themselves. Even Herodotus mentions the word with reluctance; while the most solemn of all adjurations was the name of “him who sleeps in Philæ.” Here, then, was a secret, a holy secret, which has descended to Freemasons, and they have since held it, and must ever continue to hold it, sacred.
Cartouche of Ptolemy, or
Ptolemais.—The hieroglyphs
composing the name are—a
square cross-barred, which
represents P; a hemisphere,
T; a knotted ribbon, O or U;
a lion, L; an open quadrangle,
M; two leaves of a plant, I
or AI; the back of a chair, S;
making together, PTOLMAIS;
the vowel e being lost.
Cartouche of Cleopatra.—The
hieroglyphs are—an angle,
Q or C; lion, L; leaf,
A short, for E; knot,
O or U; square cross-barred,
P; eagle, A; hand, T; mouth,
R; eagle, A; then follow an
egg; and a hemisphere t,
which indicate sex, and
signify daughter. The whole
together making CLEOPATRA,
a daughter.
The decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs was a curious accident, and, at the same time, an important step in the science of Egyptology. The French, in the year 1799, while digging the foundation of a fortress at Rosetta, exhumed a slab of black stone—a precious relic, as it proved to be, now carefully preserved in the British Museum.[37] On this stone was carved an inscription in three languages:—Hieroglyphic, the sacred tongue of Egypt; Demotic, the common language; and Greek. The inscription itself is a decree of the priests in honour of Ptolemy V., Epiphanes. Twenty years elapsed before the value of this writing was realised, although the Greek inscription had not failed to inform its readers that its two companions were translations of itself. The inclusion of royal names and royal titles within an oval had been made known by Zoëga some years before; and, comparing the Greek with the hieratic characters, the signs which indicated the name of Ptolemy were next made out. But it did not suffice to identify the emblazonment of Ptolemy alone; it needed the genius of Champollion to discover that the signs represent the letters of the alphabet. The word Ptolemy had supplied him with certain fixed signs, when a happy chance presented him with the cartouche of Cleopatra as certified by a Greek inscription on the base of an obelisk from Philæ. Comparing the signs of the two ovals, he was put in possession of three consonants and two vowels, which were identical in both, and corresponded as to position in the construction of the words. The three consonants were P T L, and the vowels E and O. Further research supplied him with the ovals of Berenice, Alexander, Cæsar, Tiberius, Trajan, and Hadrian; which together made up a complete alphabet. He was now in a position to read names in Greek when expressed by hieroglyphic signs. The next step was to convert the signs of the hieroglyphic text into words; and these he found to be Coptic, the national language of Egypt. All this seems to be simple enough when it is known; but Champollion had yet to discover that some of the signs were simply alphabetical, others syllabic, and others again symbolic; moreover, that the three kinds of signs were intermingled, without order, in accordance with the taste of the writer; and that the words were one while abundantly, and another while sparingly, interspersed with symbols. Here the funereal hymns of the Ritual, or Book of the Dead, so often repeated in the papyri, came to his help; for sometimes, in these writings, the words were expressed in symbols, and sometimes in alphabetical signs: the latter disclosed the secret of the former, and so the grammar of hieroglyphography came to be conclusively established. Shall we not, then, in admiration of their fruitful labours, invoke the favour of the Horus, the powerful, the sanctified of truth and wisdom, on these our Egyptographical pioneers, sons of the sun, lords of the diadems, beloved of science, children of genius and industry, establishers of alphabets—the de Sacy, Akerblad, Young, Champollion the resplendent, Lepsius, Hinckes, Brughsch, Saulcy, de Rougé, Birch, the Tum of the western hemisphere, approved of the learned, Bonomi, Tomlinson, and all the rest of the scholarly host, beloved of the birds, which follow in their wake like the stars of the firmament. To all and every, we, lord of the panegyrics, piercer of the sheep, convey our warmest congratulations, veneration, and respect, and wish for them a strong and pure life.
As we float gently away adown the sleepy stream of the Nile, luxuriating in the dreamy ease of Dahabeeyah life, to our far-away northern and western home, let us try to summarise the results of our exploration into the history of Our Obelisk and its stately family.
I.—Usertesen I., a Pharaoh of the twelfth dynasty, corresponding with the year 3064 b.c., supplies us with the earliest example of an obelisk, in the venerable monolith still standing at Heliopolis. Its consort is lost, but the pedestal has been recently cleared of rubbish to prove its former existence. The Heliopolis or Matareeah obelisk was originally capped with metal, which has left its mark on the pyramidion; and its shaft is engraven with a solitary column of boldly carved hieroglyphs.
Another quadrangular shaft of syenitic granite, covered with hieroglyphs, and also the work of Usertesen, exists at Biggig in the Fyoom, on the western bank of the Nile, but broken into two pieces. The title, however, of this monument to the rank of an obelisk is a matter of dispute; and for several reasons: first, that it is wanting in the proper proportions of the typical obelisk; secondly, that it is rounded, instead of being pointed, at the apex, and is fashioned in a manner to receive an ornamental finial; and thirdly, and most cogently, that obelisks being consecrated to the rising sun, appertain solely to the eastern bank of the river, whereas this has been set up on the western bank; on which bank it was believed, until quite recently, that no other trace of an obelisk had ever yet been found.
Putting aside the poetical superstition affecting the eastern and western banks of the Nile, and the respective claims of Ra and Tum, the rising and the setting sun, a monolithic shaft, of which the two fragments together measure nearly forty-three feet in length, without accounting for a portion which may have been lost, might, without extreme license, be regarded as an obelisk.[38] It is true that the apex is rounded; but this may have been the consequence of accident; or perchance, being the first, or nearly the first, obelisk hewn from the granite rock, it may simply prove evidence of the “’prentice hand,” and be merely a ruder example of those more elegant, pointed shafts, which were afterwards to follow. It had a groove on its summit; but this was doubtless to bear a cap, like its big brother at Matereeah; and who knows but that this cap may have completed the point of the rounded head, and, to outward inspection, have made the shaft an obelisk complete. Another allegation against the Biggig monolith is, that it is broader on one side than on the other; but so are the majority of obelisks, as is evinced by our own Cleopatra’s Needle; although we are quite willing to confess that the deviation in the candidate before us is more considerable than usual; its mean breadth on two of its sides being 5 feet 2 inches, while that of the other two is 4 feet: its greatest diameter at the base being 6 feet 9½ inches. Under these circumstances it is, that while, by Sir Gardner Wilkinson and M. Mariette, the Biggig monolith is accepted as an obelisk, its privilege to that rank is rejected by Mr. Bonomi.