Without telling him too many details, I related the story I had heard of the finding of a bronze cylinder in the tomb of King Merenptah, and that certain papyri were discovered with it. Could he give me any information upon the subject.
“Well—a little,” replied the tall, grey-bearded, bald-headed man, looking at me through his spectacles with great deliberation. “It is true, I believe, that an interesting cylinder of metal was found in the tomb of Merenptah, coeval with Moses, and with it were some fragments of papyri fairly well-preserved, but on examination they were found not to be of the nineteenth dynasty, as would have been expected.”
“Who examined them?” I asked eagerly.
“I did myself, about two years ago, if I recollect aright,” replied the Professor. “They were brought to me one day for my opinion by a man whose name I now forget. He was elderly, grey-bearded, and apparently possessed considerable knowledge of Egyptian subjects. He left them with me, so that I might decipher them, as he wished to compare his own decipher with mine. But, curiously enough, I have never seen him since. The papyri I have still locked away, awaiting his return.”
“Then they are here?” I cried eagerly.
“Certainly. Would you like to see them?”
I replied eagerly in the affirmative, and he left me for some minutes, returning with a big cardboard portfolio, which he opened, showing half a dozen pieces of brown crumbling paper-like substance covered with puzzling hieroglyphics. With them were several sheets of blue foolscap, upon which he had written his translation.
“Here is what the record contains,” he said.
“Perhaps, if you are interested in such matters, you would like to read it. It is a curious piece of literature of apparently the Pharaonic dynasty of the Ptolemies—or 323-30 B.C., which ended with Cleopatra.”
I took the folios of modern paper in my hand and from them read as follows, written in the Professor’s own crabbed writing:—