Adams, W. M., The Mystery of Ancient Egypt. The New Review, 1893; The House of the Hidden Places. London, 1895.—Ælianus, Claudius, The Variable History of Ælianus. London, 1576.
Claudius Ælianus was a Roman citizen who lived in the second century A.D., the exact date being uncertain. Though a Roman, he preferred Greek to Latin, and wrote all his works in the former language. He has been denominated the “honey-tongued,” from the character of his style, and the “sophist,” from his teaching rhetoric. Two of his works are still extant: the Varia Historia, from which our excerpts are taken, and a book on natural history, which enjoyed great repute in later classical and mediæval times. Both of these works are written apparently without system, though the author himself declared that it was his intention to shift from one topic to another to keep up the reader’s interest. The work on natural history, having of course no other than an antiquarian interest in modern times, has never been translated; but the Varia Historia has been rendered into English twice; the quaint old translation of Fleming, made in 1576, being the one which we select for our excerpts. The value of this work depends largely upon the fact that it is made up from the writings of still more ancient historians whose works are mainly lost.
Amélineau, E., La Géographie de l’Égypte à l’époque copte. Paris, 1893; Résumé de l’histoire de l’Égypte. Paris, 1894; Les nouvelles fouilles d’Abydos, Angero; Les Moines égyptiens. Paris, 1890; La morale égyptienne. Paris, 1892; Les idées morales dans l’Égypte ancienne. Paris, 1895; Essai sur l’évolution historique et philosophique des idées morales dans l’Égypte ancienne. Paris, 1896; Histoire de la sépulture et des funérailles dans l’ancienne Égypte. Paris, 1896.—Anonymous, Ausführliches Verzeichniss der aegyptischen Altertümer, Gipsabgüsse und Papyrus der Berl. Samml. Berlin, 1894.
Batten, S. H., Pharaoh of the Exodus. Melbourne, 1880.—Bénédite, G., Le temple de Philæ. Paris, 1895.—Berkley, E., Pharaohs and their People. London, 1884.—Birch, S., Records of the Past. London, 18 vols., 1873; Egypt to 300 B.C. London, 1875; Two Tablets of the Ptolemaic Period (Archeologia, vol. 39). London, 1863.
Dr. Samuel Birch was born in London, 3rd November, 1813; died there 27th December, 1885. He was a scholar of recognised profundity and also of remarkable versatility. He went early to the British Museum in the department of antiquities, his specialty at that time being Chinese. Later on he became chief of the department of antiquities, including oriental, classical, mediæval, and early British archæology. He became recognised as an expert in all these departments, and his publications cover almost the entire range of archæology. He was an innovator in both Assyriology and Egyptology. In the latter field his publications are many and varied, one of the most important being his Grammar of the Egyptian Language, which was incorporated with the great work on Egyptian history by Baron Bunsen. As the science of Egyptology was then in a transition state, this and the other works of Dr. Birch are of course now superseded, though by no means rendered valueless. One of the most important editorial tasks of Dr. Birch was the bringing out of a series known as The Records of the Past, which consisted of translations from Egyptian and Assyrio-Babylonian records. Dr. Birch himself contributed several of these. He also had the distinction of being the first translator of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. To some extent Dr. Birch suffered from his versatility; being known in so many fields, he is not thought of pre-eminently in connection with any one of them, but he will always be remembered as an innovator in the field of Egyptology.
Bokh, A., Manetho und die Hundstern-Periode. Berlin, 1845.—Borchardt, Zur Geschichte der Pyramiden, Ztschr. für Aegypt. Spr., 1894.—Boudier, E., Vers égyptiens, métrique démotique. Paris, 1897.—Breasted, I. H., De hymnis in solem sub rege Amenophide IV conceptis. Berlin, 1894.—Brimmer, M., Egypt. Three Essays on the History, Religion, and Art of Egypt. Boston, 1891.—Brugsch, H. C., Geschichte Aegyptens unter den Pharaonen. Leipsic, 1877, 2 vols. Genesis of the Earth and of Man. London, 1880. Die aegyptischen Altertümer in Berlin. Berlin, 1857. Recueil des monuments égyptiens. Leipsic, 1862-1863. Dictionnaire géographique de l’ancienne Égypte. Leipsic, 1877-1880. Thesaurus inscriptionum ægyptiarum. Leipsic, 1883-1891. Religion und Mythologie der alten aegypter. Leipsic, 1890. Die aegyptologie, Abriss der Entzifferungen und Forschungen. Leipsic, 1891.
Heinrich Carl Brugsch was born at Berlin, 1827; died there, 1894. He belonged to that rather large company of German investigators, who are at once scholars and diplomatists. His residence in Egypt was not as an ordinary tourist or investigator, but as an officer of the Egyptian Government, with the title of Bey and later of Pasha. Like his famous countrymen, Niebuhr and Bunsen, before him, he found time in the midst of official duties for a wide range of scholarly activities, and he soon became known, not only as one of the foremost Egyptologists, but as incomparably the highest authority on one form of the Egyptian writing, namely, the demotic. His History of Egypt under the Pharaohs, derived entirely from the monuments, is a work of the most standard authority. It is, in the main, a work rather for the scholar than for the general public; but it is by no means without popular interest, and, notwithstanding its bulk, it has been translated into English. The reader will recall that we have based our chronology upon the system of Dr. Brugsch,—a system confessedly artificial, which, however, meets the difficulties of the subject perhaps better than any other yet devised.
Budge, E. A. W., The Book of the Dead. London, 1895; Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life. London, 1899; Egyptian Magic. London, 1899; The Mummy: Chapters on Egyptian Funeral Archæology. Cambridge, 1893; Egypt in the Neolithic and Archaic Periods. London and New York, 1902.
Ernest A. Wallis Budge, M.A., Litt.D., D.Lit., F.S.A., Keeper of Assyrian and Egyptian Antiquities, British Museum. Dr. Budge has at once the profundity and the versatility of his famous predecessor at the British Museum, Dr. Birch. The list of his writings on oriental archæology is much too long to be cited in full here. Among other things he has put would-be students of the subject under lasting obligations by preparing an elementary treatise on the Egyptian language, and following it up with a more advanced work for the use of the student, He has also made an elaborate translation of the Book of the Dead, utilising the recent advances in the knowledge of Egyptian hieroglyphics to improve upon the former translations. His latest work in this field is a popular history of Egypt, in eight volumes, published at London, 1902. In addition to his recognised profound scholarship, Dr. Budge has in a high degree the capacity for literary presentation, and he has not felt himself above considering the needs of the unscholarly public and of the beginner in oriental studies. Thus his catalogue of Egyptian antiquities at the British Museum, which is ostensibly only a guide-book to the collection there, is in itself a work of real literary merit, which would serve as a valuable introduction to the study of archæology even if placed in the hands of students who have not access to the collection which it specifically describes.