Dr. Adolf Erman, Professor of Egyptology in the University of Berlin, Director of the Berlin Museum, member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences, at Berlin, etc., was born 31st October, 1854, at Berlin. Professor Erman is the successor of Lepsius in the chair of Egyptology at the University of Berlin, and it is felt that the mantle of the great Egyptologist has fallen on worthy shoulders. Professor Erman’s writings have mainly had to do with grammatical and literary investigations. His editions of the romances of old Egypt are models of scholarly interpretation. They give the original hieratic text with translations into Egyptian hieroglyphics, into Latin, and into German. Such works are, of course, intended chiefly for the scholar. Persons capable of such works of scholarship are seldom interested in the exact manner of presentation of their subject, and very generally they scorn popular treatment in their writings. But Professor Erman, following the precedent of here and there a forerunner such as Heeren, has written a strictly popular work on the life of the ancient Egyptians that is by far the most complete treatise on the subject attempted since the time of Wilkinson. The reader will not have overlooked the masterly characterisation of Egyptian history which Professor Erman has written for the present work.
Ferguson, J., History of Architecture. London, 1874, 4 vols.
James Ferguson was born at Ayr, Scotland, 22nd January, 1808; died 9th January, 1886. The personal history of Ferguson is quite unlike that of almost any other Anglo-Saxon of similar achievements except Grote; but is in some ways closely suggestive of the great historian of Greece. It even more closely resembles the life of Schliemann, the great German, whose rediscovery of Troy has made his name familiar to every one. Like Schliemann Ferguson devoted the years of his early manhood to a purely commercial pursuit, and like him he followed this pursuit with such success as to acquire a fortune, which enabled him to retire while still in the prime of manhood. Oddly enough, the parallel between these two lives is made still closer by the fact that the particular commodity with which each dealt chiefly was indigo. But beyond this the parallel no longer holds, for the seat of Schliemann’s commercial activities, as will be recalled, was Russia, while Ferguson made his fortune in India. No sooner had Ferguson acquired a fortune that would justify him in retiring, than he turned at once to a field of study that undoubtedly stood in need of investigation, and made that study his life-work. Guided by the same energy and judgment that gained him a fortune in his commercial pursuits, Ferguson soon made himself master of the subject of architecture, and presently came to be known as the chief authority on the history of architecture in antiquity.
Fleay, I. G., Egyptian Chronology. London, 1899 (Jour. Brit. Archeol. Assoc., 1899).—Fries, S. A., 1st Israel jemals in Aegypten gewesen? In Sphinx, I, 207-221.
Gagnol, Cours d’histoire ancienne des peuples de l’Orient. Tours, 1891.—Ganeval, L., L’Égypte. Lyon, 1882.—Gardner, A., Naukratis. London, 1889.—Gau, F. C., Antiquités de la Nubie, ou monuments inédits des bords du Nil. Paris, 1822.—Geyersburg, C. H. de, Egypt and Palestine in Primitive Times. London, 1895.—Girard, Description de l’Égypte.—Golenischeff, Impérial Inventaire de la Collection égyptienne de l’Ermitage. St. Petersburg, 1891.—Gradenwitz, O., Einführung in die Papyruskunde. Leipsic, 1900. Grandbey, Rapport sur les temples égyptiens. Cairo, 1888.—Gravierre, I. de la, La marine des Ptolémées. Paris, 1885, 2 vols.—Groff, W., La fille de Pharaoh. Cairo.—Gruson, H., Im Reiche des Litches (Pyramiden nach den ältesten Quellen). Braunschweig, 1893.—Guimet, Plutarque et l’Égypte. Paris, 1898.—Gutschmid, A. von, Kleine Schriften, vol. 1. Schriften zur Aegyptologie. Leipsic, 1889.
Halévy, Jos., Revue Sémitique d’épigraphie et d’histoire ancienne. Paris, 1893.—Harkness, M. E., Egyptian Life and History. London, 1884.—Heeren, A. H. L., Ideen ueber die Politik, den Verkehr und den Handel der vornehmsten Völker der Alten Welt, 3 edit. Göttingen, 1815, 4 vols. English translation: Historical Researches, etc. Oxford, 1878, 5 vols.
Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren was born at Arbergen, near Bremen, 1760; died at Göttingen, 1842. The celebrated author of Historical Researches into the Politics, Intercourse, and Trade of the Carthaginians, Ethiopians, and Egyptians was, during the greater part of his life, Professor of History at Göttingen; he had, however, earlier in his career, filled the chair of Philosophy in the same university, and the happy mingling of the philosophical with the historical cast of mind is at all times evidenced in his writings. The historical writings of Professor Heeren cover a wide field, but his greatest renown was achieved with his History of the Nations of Antiquity. In this Professor Heeren broke new ground. His scheme of treatment was quite different from that of any one who had preceded him. His intention was not so much to elucidate the political history, as to deal with those commercial relations and social customs which, after all, are the chief foundations of a nation’s life. In particular he was perhaps the first great historian who fully grasped the import of the commercial relations of ancient nations. He made himself master of all knowledge obtainable in his day bearing on this topic, and his work at once took rank as the foremost authority on its subject. So much as this goes almost without saying, for hardly any one attains to professorship in a German university who has not the qualities of scholarship calculated to make him an authority on any topic which he will undertake to treat. But, what is much more unusual among the Germans, Professor Heeren had also the gift of style. His work is not only authoritative, but readable. Indeed, in this regard, it is surpassed even now by very few works in the domain of history. As evidence of this characteristic, the works of Professor Heeren were at once translated both into French and into English, and have the widest popularity in France, England, and America. In the nature of the case, the authoritative character of his works cannot have been maintained at their original standard, since the new discoveries and excavations in the Orient have so altered the phases of our conception of oriental history. In one sense, therefore, it is unfortunate that Professor Heeren could not have written after the excavations of Layard in Nineveh had given the new stock of material for ferreting out the history of Mesopotamia. Nevertheless, as far as it went, the history of Heeren was founded firmly upon facts which the new researches have left unshaken, and his work, as a whole, still has great value for the historical student of the period. There are sections of it, indeed, which have neither been supplanted nor duplicated.
Hegel, G. W. F., Lectures on the Philosophy of History. London, 1857.—Herodotus, History of Herodotus. London, 1806, 4 vols.
Herodotus, the celebrated “Father of History,” or, as K. O. Müller styles him, the “Father of Prose,” was born at Halicarnassus in Asia Minor, about 484 B.C., and died at Hurii, Italy, about 424 B.C.; there is no certainty as to the exact dates. Reference has been made to Herodotus in Egypt. Here it is desirable to add a few words as to the translation from which our excerpts are chosen. Needless to say, there have been numerous translations of Herodotus of varying degrees of merit. Doubtless the most authoritative, historically considered, is the famous one which Professor George Rawlinson, with the aid of his brother, Sir Henry Rawlinson, and of Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, made about the middle of the nineteenth century. This particular translation, however, is of chief value not so much for its text as for the scholarly notes which the translators have appended. As to the text itself, there is at least one still more recent translation—that by Macaulay—which may perhaps claim to give even a closer rendering. For the use of the scholar these translations cannot be too highly commended, but it still remains true that by far the most readable and, so to say, Herodotus-like, English rendering of the “Father of History” is that which was made about a century ago by the Rev. William Beloe (1756-1817), an English divine, who from 1803 to 1806 was keeper of printed books at the British Museum, and who produced a variety of writings of considerable note in their day. His version of Herodotus has been said, properly enough, to lack the close verbal accuracy of some more recent performances; but, on the other hand, the accuracy of its rendering as a translation in the best sense, rather than a mere literary transcription, is not in question, and modern critics concede that in point of readableness, Beloe is quite without a peer. And, broadly considered, one surely is justified in saying that Herodotus not readable is not Herodotus at all. Beloe explicitly repudiates the literal plan of translation, aiming, as he states in his preface, to give as nearly as possible the spirit of the author, along with a clear interpretation of his text. How well he succeeded is evidenced by a critical estimate which says of him that “something in his mental constitution qualified him admirably for reproducing the limpid simplicity and amiable garrulity of Herodotus.”
Hieratische Papyrus aus den Kgl. Museen zu Berlin, hrsg. von der Generalverwaltung Berlin.—Hommel, F. Der Babylonische Ursprung der aegyptischen Cultur. München, 1892.