20. Bakakhuiu.
old papyri. Though many had utterly perished by being burnt to white ash, yet one basketful was only carbonized; and tenderly undermining the precious black mass, I shifted it out and carried it up to my house with fear and reverent joy. It took ten hours’ work to separate safely all the documents, twisted, crushed, and squeezed together, and all as brittle as only burnt papyrus is; a bend, or a jerk, and the piece was ruined. At last, I had over a hundred and fifty documents separated; and, each wrapped apart, and put in tin boxes, they travelled safely. They have now all been opened, and glazed; and two of them already prove to be of the greatest interest. One is a book of hieroglyphic signs in columns, followed by their hieratic equivalents, and the school-name by which they were learned: the greater part of this is preserved, and shows us, for the first time, the system on which the hieroglyphics were arranged and taught.
21. Hieroglyphics, with Hieratic Form and Explanation.
The other is a geographical papyrus, forestalling Brugsch’s great work on the geography and the nome divisions of Egypt; though defective in part all through, it is of the greatest value. Most of the other papyri are in demotic, and still await reading, while some are in Greek. Of course, being carbonized, the whole mass is black, and it is only by reflected light that it is possible to read anything; when the illumination is properly arranged, the duller surface of the ink can be seen on the brighter face of the papyrus. It is seldom such a treasure as this basketful of knowledge is so narrowly saved from destruction; a little more air in the burning, a little less care in the unearthing, the separation, the packing, or the opening, and these documents would have disappeared. Of course, under the usual system of leaving Arab overseers to manage excavations, all such discoveries are utterly destroyed.
22. Ruins of Fort, with Arab Cemetery.