In writing their language, the ancient Egyptians employed three different kinds of characters. First, figurative; or representations of the objects themselves. Second, symbolic; or representations of certain physical or material objects, expressing metaphorically, or conventionally, certain ideas; such as, a people obedient to their king, figured, metaphorically, by a bee; the universe, conventionally, by a beetle. Third, phonetic, or representative of sounds; that is to say, strictly alphabetical characters. The phonetic signs were also portraits of physical and material objects; and each stood for the initial sound of the word in the Egyptian language which expressed the object pourtrayed: thus a lion was the sound L, because a lion was called Labo; and a hand a T, because a hand was called Tot. The form in which these objects were presented, when employed as phonetic characters, was conventional, and definite to distinguish them from the same objects used either figuratively or symbolically; thus, the conventional form of the phonetic T was the hand open and outstretched; in any other form the hand would either be a figurative, or a symbolic sign. The number of distinct characters employed as phonetic signs appears to have been about 120; consequently many were homophones, or having the same signification. The three kinds of characters were used indiscriminately in the same writing, [p177] and occasionally in the composition of the same word. The formal Egyptian writing, therefore, such as we see it still existing on the monuments of the country, was a series of portraits of physical and material objects, of which a small proportion had a symbolic meaning, a still smaller proportion a figurative meaning, but the great body were phonetic or alphabetical signs: and to these portraits, sculptured or painted with sufficient fidelity to leave no doubt of the object represented, the name of hieroglyphics, or sacred characters, has been attached from their earliest historic notice.
The manuscripts of the same ancient period make us acquainted with two other forms of writing practised by the ancient Egyptians, both apparently distinct from the hieroglyphic, but which, on careful examination, are found to be its immediate derivatives; every hieroglyphic having its corresponding sign in the hieratic, or writing of the priests, in which the funeral rituals, forming a large portion of the manuscripts, are principally composed; and in the demotic, called also the enchorial, which was employed for all more ordinary and popular usages. The characters of the hieratic are for the most part obvious running imitations, or abridgments of the corresponding hieroglyphics; but in the demotic, which is still further removed from the original type, the derivation is less frequently and less obviously traceable. In the hieratic, fewer figurative or symbolic signs are employed than in the hieroglyphic; their absence being supplied by means of the phonetic or alphabetical characters, the words being spelt instead of figured; and this is still more the case in the demotic, which is, in consequence, almost entirely alphabetical.
After the conversion of the Egyptians to Christianity, the ancient mode of writing their language fell into disuse; and an alphabet was adopted in substitution, consisting of the twenty-five Greek letters, with six additional signs expressing articulations and aspirations unknown to the Greeks, the characters for which were retained from the demotic. This is the Coptic alphabet, in which the Egyptian appears as a written language in the Coptic books and manuscripts preserved in our libraries; and in which, consequently, the language of the inscriptions on the monuments may be studied. [p178]
The original mode in which the language was written having thus fallen into disuse, it happened, at length, that the signification of the characters, and even the nature of the system of writing which they formed, became entirely lost; such notices on the subject as existed in the early historians being either too imperfect, or appearing too vague, to furnish a clue, although frequently and carefully studied for the purpose. The repossession of this knowledge will form, in literary history, one of the most remarkable distinctions, if not the principal, of the age in which we live. It is due primarily to the discovery by the French, during their possession of Egypt, of the since well-known monument called the Rosetta Stone, which, on their defeat and expulsion by the British troops, remained in the hands of the victors, was conveyed to England, and deposited in the British Museum. On this monument the same inscription is repeated in the Greek and in the Egyptian language, being written in the latter both in hieroglyphics and in the demotic or enchorial character. The words Ptolemy and Cleopatra, written in hieroglyphics, and recognized by means of the corresponding Greek of the Rosetta inscription, and by a Greek inscription on the base of an obelisk at Philæ, gave the phonetic characters of the letters which form those words: by their means the names were discovered, in hieroglyphic writing, on other monuments of all the Grecian kings and Grecian queens of Egypt, and of fourteen of the Roman emperors ending with Commodus; and by the comparison of these names one with another, the value of all the phonetic characters was finally ascertained.
The hieroglyphic alphabet thus made out has been subsequently applied to the elucidation of the earlier periods of Egyptian history, particularly in tracing the reigns and the succession of the Pharaohs, those native princes who governed Egypt at the period of its splendour; when its monarchy was the most powerful among the nations of the earth; its people the most advanced in learning, and in the cultivation of the arts and sciences; and which has left, as its memorials, constructions more nearly approaching to imperishable, than any other of the works of man, which have been the wonder of every succeeding people, and which are now serving to re-establish, at the expiration of above 3000 years, the details of [p179] its long-forgotten history. To trace these stupendous monuments of art to their respective founders, and thus to fix, approximatively, at least, the epoch of their first existence, is a consequence of the restoration of the knowledge of the alphabet and the language of the inscriptions engraven on them. We propose to review, briefly as our limits require, the principal and most important facts that have thus recently been made known in regard to those early times; and shall deem ourselves most fortunate if we can impart to our readers but a small portion of the interest which we have ourselves derived in watching their progressive discovery.
The following are the authors to whom we are chiefly indebted for the few particulars we know of early Egyptian history. Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, Grecians, and foreigners in Egypt. Manetho, a native; and Eratosthenes, by birth a Cyrenean, a province bordering on Egypt, both residents. Josephus, a Jew, and Africanus, Eusebius, and Syncellus, Christians, Greek authors. Herodotus visited Egypt four centuries and a half before Christ, and within a century after its conquest by the Persians. In his relation of the affairs of the Greeks and Persians, he has introduced incidentally a sketch of the early history of Egypt, such as he learnt it from popular tradition, and from information obtained from the priests. It is, however, merely a sketch, particularly of the earlier times; and is further recorded by Josephus to have been censured by Manetho for its incorrectness. Diodorus is also understood to have visited Egypt about half a century before Christ; and from him we have a similar sketch to that of Herodotus; a record of the names of the most distinguished kings, and for what they were distinguished; but with intervals, of many generations and of uncertain duration, passed without notice. Manetho was a priest of Heliopolis in Lower Egypt, a city of the first rank amongst the sacred cities of ancient Egypt, and long the resort of foreigners as the seat of learning and knowledge. He lived in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, two centuries and a half before Christ, and wrote, by order of that prince, the history of his own country in the Greek language, translating it, as he states himself, out of the sacred records. His work is, most unfortunately, lost; but the fragments which have been preserved to us, by the writings [p180] of Josephus in the first century of the Christian æra, and by the Greek authors above named of the third and fourth centuries, contain matter, which, if entitled to confidence, is of the highest historical value, viz., a chronological list of the successive rulers of Egypt, from the first foundation of monarchy, to Alexander of Macedon, who succeeded the Persians. This list is divided into thirty dynasties, not all of separate families; a memorable reign appearing in some instances to commence a new dynasty, although happening in the regular succession. It originally contained the length of reign as well as the name of every king; but in consequence of successive transcriptions, variations have crept in, and some few omissions also occur in the record, as it has reached us through the medium of different authors. The chronology of Manetho, adopted with confidence by some, and rejected with equal confidence by others,—his name and his information not being even noticed by some of the modern systematic writers on Egyptian history,—has received the most unquestionable and decisive testimony of its general fidelity by the interpretation of the hieroglyphic inscriptions on the existing monuments: so much so, that by the accordance of the facts attested by these monuments with the record of the historian, we have reason to expect the entire restoration of the annals of the Egyptian monarchy antecedent to the Persian conquest, and which, indeed, is already accomplished in part.
Before we pursue this part of our subject, we must conclude our brief review of the original authorities in early Egyptian history, by a notice of Eratosthenes. He was keeper of the Alexandrian library in the reign of Ptolemy Evergetes, the successor to Ptolemy Philadelphus, under whose reign Manetho wrote. Amongst the few fragments of his works, which have reached us transmitted through the Greek historians, is a catalogue of thirty-eight kings of Thebes, commencing with Menes, (who is mentioned by the other authorities also as the first monarch of Egypt,) and occupying by their successive reigns 1055 years. These names are stated to have been compiled from original records existing at Thebes, which city Eratosthenes visited expressly to consult them. The names of the two first kings in his catalogue are the same with the names of the two first kings of the first dynasty of Manetho; but the [p181] remainder of the catalogue presents no further accordance, either in the names or in the duration of the reigns.
To return to Manetho:—amongst the monarchs of the original Egyptian race there was one named by him Amenophis, (the eighth king of the eighteenth dynasty,) of whom it is stated, in a note of Manetho’s preserved by Syncellus, that he was the Egyptian king whom the Greeks called Memnon. The statue of Memnon at Thebes, celebrated through all antiquity for the melodious sounds which it was said to render at sunrise, is identified in the present day by a multitude of Greek inscriptions; one of which, in particular, records the attestation of Publius Balbinus, who visited the ruins of Thebes in the suite of the empress the wife of Adrian, to his having himself heard the “divine sounds of Memnon or Phamenoph;” which latter name is Amenophis, with the Egyptian masculine article φ prefixed, and omitting the Greek termination. The hieroglyphics carved on the statue, and coeval with its date, had been very carefully copied by the French whilst in possession of Egypt, and were engraved in the splendid work, the Description de l’Egypte, to which their researches had given rise. These hieroglyphics contain the alphabetic characters Amnf (being the initial vowel and all the consonants of the name Amenof) inclosed within a ring; a distinction which had been previously observed to take place with the names of the Roman emperors, and of the Grecian kings and queens; and as the rings have hitherto been found to occur in no other instance whatsoever than when containing the names and titles of sovereigns, they are regarded as characteristic signs. It should be remarked, that in the hieroglyphic writing, as in the languages of other eastern nations most nearly connected with Egypt, the vowels are often omitted, and when expressed, have not always a fixed sound. The coincidence of the reading of the hieroglyphic name with that recorded by Manetho, and with the Greek inscription on the statue itself, was so far confirmatory of Manetho’s authority; it was also highly interesting in the evidence it afforded of the employment of the same hieroglyphic alphabet, that was in after use in the times of the Ptolemies and the Cæsars, even in the very early periods of the Egyptian monarchy; for the reign of Amenophis was in the dynasty preceding that of Sesostris: it also indicated the further [p182] advantage to be gained by the application of the alphabet in decyphering other proper names, distinguished by being inclosed in rings, existing on other statues, and in the more ancient temples generally. Considerable progress had been made in reading these, which in several instances had been found to correspond with the names of the kings of the same and of subsequent dynasties to Amenophis, as given by Manetho, when a most important discovery was made of the existence of a genealogical record, in hieroglyphics, of the titles of thirty-nine kings anterior to Sesostris, chronologically arranged. We have already noticed that the names and titles of kings were distinguished by being inclosed in rings; the ring containing the proper name being accompanied usually by a second, inclosing certain other hieroglyphics, expressing the title by which that particular king was designated; and it appears probable that the kings of Egypt were distinguished by their titles rather than by their names, since the same name recurs frequently in different individuals, but the titles are all dissimilar; with a single exception amongst the very many that have come under observation, and in which the same title is common to two brothers. The signification of the titles is yet obscure, except that they are of the same general nature as is frequent in the East, such as “Sun of the Universe,” &c.; but for the purpose of individualizing, the sign is to us of the same value as the thing signified; and as other monuments furnish the names in connexion with the titles, we are enabled to compare the succession evidenced by the titles with the record of the historian, and thus to test the fidelity of the record. The discovery of this hieroglyphic table was made by Mr. William Banks in 1818, in excavating for the purpose of obtaining an accurate ground-plan of the ruins of Abydus, near Thebes. On a side wall of one of the innermost apartments, hieroglyphics were sculptured inclosed in rings, ranged symmetrically in three horizontal rows, each row having originally contained twenty rings, of which twelve of the upper row, eighteen of the middle, and fourteen of the lower row were still remaining, the others having been destroyed by the breaking down of the wall. The hieroglyphics having been copied and lithographed, it was speedily recognised that the rings in the two upper rows consisted of titles only; with the exception of one [p183] proper name, the last of the second row, since known to be the name of the king whose title is the last in the succession, and who was the fourth in reign and generation before Sesostris. The third row was recognised to consist of one proper name and one title, each repeated ten times, and alternating with each other: these are since known to be the name and title of Sesostris, to whose reign the construction of the table is with much probability ascribed. The titles in the same row with that of the ancestor of Sesostris and preceding it, have been identified on other monuments, coupled with names which are those of the predecessors of the same king in the list of Manetho.
It would exceed our limits, and it is not our purpose, to trace in detail the successive steps by which the existence of each of the kings of Manetho’s list, from the expulsion of the Phœnician shepherds from Lower Egypt, and the consequent union of Upper and Lower Egypt in a single monarchy, to the reign of Sesostris, has been attested by the monuments. Suffice it to say, that the same number of individuals as stated by Manetho, namely, eighteen, filling a space of four centuries, are shown, by the monuments, to have reigned in that interval, and to have borne the same relationship, as well as succession, to each other, as is expressed by the historian: that, of the eighteen names, eight in different parts of the list are read on the monuments identically as in the historical record; and that in regard to the names that are not identical, we have the testimony of Manetho that some amongst the kings, Sesostris, for example, were known by two and even by more names. The table of Abydus appears to have been strictly a genealogical record; a record of generations, in which view it is strictly accordant with the historian.
The period of the Egyptian annals on which this light has been thrown, is precisely that which might have been selected in the whole history of Egypt as the most desirable for such purpose. Independently of its very high antiquity, it was the period of the greatest splendour and power of the native Egyptian monarchy, and of the highest (Egyptian) cultivation of the arts. The greater part of the more ancient, and by far the most admirable in execution, of the temples, palaces, and statues, which still attest by their ruins their former magnificence, are the work of that age; and the hieroglyphic inscriptions still [p184] extant on them, and which, when not defaced by wanton injury, are almost as perfect as when first executed, make known the reigns in which they were respectively constructed, and frequently the purposes for which they were designed. This is in itself no small achievement, when we reflect that these extraordinary remains of ancient art were equally the objects of vague wonderment in the times of the Roman emperors, as they were in those of the generation preceding ourselves; but that they are become to us objects of a more enlightened curiosity, which they promise amply to repay, when the study that has already made known their founders, shall reveal the signification of the hieroglyphic histories, with which the walls of the palaces and temples are covered. Already have we gained some very important facts in regard to the condition, political and otherwise, of the countries adjoining to Egypt at that early period. The monuments of Nubia are covered with hieroglyphics, perfectly similar both in form and disposition to those on the edifices at Thebes; the same elements, the same formulæ, the same language; and the names of the kings who elevated the most ancient amongst them, are those of the princes who constructed the most ancient parts of the palace of Karnac at Thebes. As far as Soleb on the Nile, 100 leagues to the south of Philæ the extreme frontier of Egypt, are found constructions bearing the inscriptions of an Egyptian king; evidencing that, during the period of which we have been treating, Nubia was inhabited by a people having the same language, the same belief, and the same kings as Egypt. To the south of Soleb, and for more than 100 leagues in ascending the Nile, in ancient Ethiopia, very recent travellers have discovered the remains of temples, of the same general style of architecture as those of Nubia and Egypt, decorated in the same manner with hieroglyphics representing the same mythology, and analogous to those of Egypt in the titles, and in the mode of representing the names and titles, of the sovereigns. But the proper names of the kings inscribed on the edifices of Ethiopia in phonetic characters, have nothing in common with the proper names of the Egyptian kings in the dynasties of Manetho; nor is one of the Ethiopian names found either on the monuments of Nubia or of Egypt. Thus there was a time when the civilized part of Ethiopia,—Meroe, and the banks [p185] of the Nile between Dongola and Meroe,—were inhabited by a people having language, writing, religion, and arts similar to Egypt; but, in political dominion, independent of that country, and ruled by kings of whom it does not appear that any historical record whatsoever has come down to us.