Museum of Antiquity Part 54

The period when hieroglyphics--the oldest Egyptian characters--were first used, is uncertain. They are found in the Great Pyramid of the time of the fourth dynasty, and had evidently been invented long before, having already a.s.sumed a cursive style.[23] This shows them to be far older than any other known writing; and the written doc.u.ments of the ancient languages of Asia, the Sanskrit and the Zend, are of a recent time compared with those of Egypt, even if the date of the Rig-Veda in the fifteenth century B.C. be proved. Manetho shows that the invention of writing was known in the reign of Athoth (the son and successor of Menes), the second King of Egypt, when he ascribes to him the writing of the anatomical books, and tradition a.s.signed to it a still earlier origin. At all events, hieroglyphics, and the use of the papyrus, with the usual reed pen, are shown to have been common when the pyramids were built, and their style in the sculptures proves that they were then a very old invention. In hieroglyphics of the earliest periods there were fewer phonetic characters than in after ages, these periods being nearer to the original picture-writing. The number of signs also varied at different times; but they may be reckoned at from 900 to 1,000. Various new characters were added at subsequent periods, and a still greater number were introduced under the Ptolemies and Caesars, which are not found in the early monuments; some, again, of the older times, fell into disuse.

Hieratic is an abbreviated form of the hieroglyphic; thus each hieroglyphic sign--ikonographic, symbolic, or phonetic--has its abridged hieratic form, and this abridged form has the same import as the sign itself of which it is a reduced copy. It was written from right to left, and was the character used by the priests and sacred scribes, whence its name. It was invented at least as early as the ninth dynasty (4,240 years ago), and fell into disuse when the demotic had been introduced. The hieratic writing was generally used for ma.n.u.scripts, and is also found on the cases of mummies, and on isolated stones and tablets. Long inscriptions have been written on them with a brush. Inscriptions of this kind are also found on buildings, written or engraved by ancient travelers. But its most important use was in the historical papyri, and the registers of the temples. Most valuable information respecting the chronology and numeric systems of the Egyptians has been derived from them.

Demotic, or enchorial, is composed of signs derived from the hieratic, and is a simplified form of it, but from which figurative or ikonographic signs are generally excluded, and but few symbolical signs, relative to religion alone, are retained; signs nearly approaching the alphabetic are chiefly met with in this third kind of writing. It was invariably written, like the hieratic, from right to left. It is thus evident that the Egyptians, strictly speaking, had but one system of writing, composed of three kinds of signs, the second and third being regularly deduced from the first, and all three governed by the same fundamental principles. The demotic was reserved for general use among the Egyptians: decrees and other public acts, contracts, some funeral stelae, and private transactions, were written in demotic. The intermediate text of the Rosetta inscription is of this kind. It is not quite certain when the demotic first came into use, but it was at least as early as the reign of Psammetichus II., of the twenty-sixth dynasty (B.C. 604); and it had therefore long been employed when Herodotus visited Egypt. Soon after its invention it was adopted for all ordinary purposes.

The chief objects of interest in the study of an Egyptian inscription are its historical indications. These are found in the names of Kings or of chief officers, and in the dates they contain. The names of Kings are always enclosed in an oval called _cartouche_. An oval contains either the royal t.i.tle or praenomen, or the proper name or nomen of the King.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EGYPTIAN PILLAR.]

The dates which are found with these royal legends are also of great importance in an historical point of view, and monuments which bear any numerical indications are exceedingly rare. These numerical indications are either the age of the deceased on a funeral tablet, or the number of different consecrated objects which he has offered to the G.o.ds, or the date of an event mentioned in the inscription.

Dates, properly so called, are the most interesting to collect; they are expressed in hieroglyphic cyphers, single lines expressing the number of units up to nine, when an arbitrary sign represents 10, another 100, and another 10,000.

The most celebrated Egyptian inscriptions are those of the Rosetta stone. This stone, a tablet of black basalt, contains three inscriptions, one in hieroglyphics, another in demotic or enchorial, and a third in the Greek language. The inscriptions are to the same purport in each, and are a decree of the priesthood of Memphis, in honor of Ptolemy Epiphanes, about the year B.C. 196. "Ptolemy is there styled King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Son of the G.o.ds Philopatores, approved by Pthah, to whom Ra has given victory, a living image of Amun, son of Ra, Ptolemy Immortal, beloved by Pthah, G.o.d Epiphanes, most gracious. In the date of the decree we are told the names of the priests of Alexander, of the G.o.ds Soteres, of the G.o.ds Adelphi, of the G.o.ds Euergetae, of the G.o.ds Philopatores, of the G.o.d Epiphanes himself, of Berenice Euergetis, of Arsinoe Philadelphus, and of Arsinoe Philopator. The preamble mentions with grat.i.tude the services of the King, or rather of his wise minister, Aristomenes, and the enactment orders that the statue of the King shall be worshipped in every temple of Egypt, and be carried out in the processions with those of the G.o.ds of the country, and lastly that the decree is to be carved at the foot of every statue of the King in sacred, in common and in Greek writing"

(Sharpe). It is now in the British Museum. This stone is remarkable for having led to the discovery of the system pursued by the Egyptians in their monumental writing, and for having furnished a key to its interpretation, Dr. Young giving the first hints by establishing the phonetic value of the hieroglyphic signs, which were followed up and carried out by Champollion.

Another important and much more ancient inscription is the tablet of Abydos in the British Museum. It was discovered by Mr. Banks in a chamber of the temple of Abydos, in 1818. It is now greatly disfigured, but when perfect it represented an offering made by Remeses II., of the nineteenth dynasty, to his predecessors on the throne of Egypt. The tablet is of fine limestone, and originally contained the names of fifty-two Kings disposed in the two upper lines, twenty-six in each line, and a third or lower line with the name and praenomen of Remeses II. or III. repeated twenty-six times. On the upper line, beginning from the right hand, are the names of monarchs anterior to the twelfth dynasty. The names in the second line are those of monarchs of the twelfth and the eighteenth or nineteenth dynasties. The King Remeses II. probably stood on the right hand of the tablet, and on the other is the lower part of a figure of Osiris.

The lateral inscription is the speech of the deceased King to "their son" Remeses II.

The tablet of Karnac, now in one of the halls of the Bibliotheque at Paris, was discovered by Burton in a chamber situated in the southeast angle of the temple-palace of Thebes, and was published by its discoverer in his "Excerpta Hieroglyphica." The chamber itself was fully described by Rosellini in his "Monumenti Storici." The Kings are in two rows, overlooked each of them by a large figure of Thothmes III., the fifth King of the eighteenth dynasty. In the row to the left of the entrance are thirty-one names, and in that to the right are thirty, all of them predecessors of Thothmes. The Theban Kings who ruled in Upper Egypt during the usurpation of the Hyksos invaders are also exhibited among the lists. Over the head of each King is his oval, containing his royal t.i.tles.

A most valuable tablet of Kings has been lately discovered by M.

Mariette in a tomb near Memphis, that of a priest who lived under Remeses II., and was called Tunar-i. It contains two rows of Kings'

names, each twenty-nine in number. Six have been wholly obliterated out of the upper row, and five out of the lower row. The upper row contains the names of Remeses II. and his predecessors, who seem all meant for Kings of Upper Egypt, or Kings of Memphis who ruled over Upper Egypt, while the names in the lower row seem meant for contemporaneous High Priests of Memphis, some or all of whom may have called themselves Kings of Lower Egypt. The result of the comparison of this tablet with other authorities, namely, Manetho, Eratosthenes, and the tablet of Abydos, is supposed by some to contradict the longer views of chronology held by Bunsen, Lepsius and others. Thus, reading the list of names backwards from Remeses II. to Amosis, the first of the eighteenth dynasty, this tablet, like the tablet of Abydos, immediately jumps to the Kings of Manetho's twelfth dynasty; thus arguing that the intermediate five dynasties mentioned by Manetho must have been reigning contemporaneously with the others, and add no length of time to a table of chronology. There is also a further omission in this tablet of four more dynasties. This tablet would thus seem to confirm the views of the opponents of the longer chronology of Bunsen and others, by striking out from the long chronology two periods amounting together to 1,536 years. But a complete counterpart of the tablet of Memphis has been recently found at Abydos by M.

Mariette, fully confirming the chronology of Manetho, and bearing out the views of Bunsen and Lepsius. The _Moniteur_ publishes a letter from M. Mariette, containing the following statement:--"At Abydos I have discovered a magnificent counterpart of the tablet of Sakharah.

Seti I., accompanied by his son, subsequently Remeses II. (Sesostris), presents an offering to seventy-six Kings drawn up in line before him.

Menes (the first King of the first dynasty on Manetho's list) is at their head. From Menes to Seti I., this formidable list pa.s.ses through nearly all the dynasties. The first six are represented therein. We are next introduced to sovereigns still unknown to us, belonging to the obscure period which extends from the end of the sixth to the beginning of the eleventh. From the eleventh to the eighteenth the new table follows the beaten track, which it does not quit again during the reign of Thothmes, Amenophis, and the first Remeses. If in this new list everything is not absolutely new, we at least find in it a valuable confirmation of Manetho's list, and in the present state of science we can hardly expect more. Whatever confirms Manetho gives us confidence in our own efforts, even as whatever contradicts it weakens the results we obtain. The new tablet of Abydos is, moreover, the completest and best preserved monument we possess in this respect. Its style is splendid, and there is not a single cartouche or oval wanting. It has been found engraved on one of the walls of a small chamber in the large temple of Abydos."

An important stone bearing a Greek inscription with equivalent Egyptian hieroglyphics has been discovered by Professor Lepsius, at San, the former Tanis, the chief scene of the grand architectural undertakings of Remeses II. The Greek inscription consists of seventy-six lines, in the most perfect preservation, dating from the time of Ptolemy Euergetes I. (B.C. 238). The hieroglyphical inscription has thirty-seven lines. It was also found that a demotic inscription was ordered to be added by the priests, on a stone or bra.s.s stele, in the sacred writing of the Egyptians and in Greek characters; this is unfortunately wanting. The contents of the inscription are of great interest. It is dated the ninth year the seventh Apellaeus--seventeen Tybi, of the reign of Euergetes I. The priests of Egypt came together in Canopus to celebrate the birthday of Euergetes, on the fifth Dios, and his a.s.sumption of the royal honor on the twenty-eighth of the same month, when they pa.s.sed the decree here published. They enumerate all the good deeds of the King, amongst them the merit of having recovered in a military expedition the sacred images carried off in former times by the Persians, and order great honors to be paid in reward for his services. This tablet of calcareous stone with a rounded top, is about seven feet high, and is completely covered by the inscription. The discovery of this stone is of the greatest importance for hieroglyphical studies.

We may mention here another inscribed tablet, the celebrated Isiac table in the Museum at Turin. It is a tablet in bronze, covered with Egyptian figures or hieroglyphics engraved or sunk, the outlines being filled with silvering, forming a kind of niello. It was one of the first objects that excited an interest in the interpretation of hieroglyphics, and elicited learned solutions from Kircher and others.

It is now considered to be one of those pseudo-Egyptian productions so extensively fabricated during the reign of Hadrian.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EGYPTIAN COLUMN.]

The Egyptian obelisks also present important inscriptions. Of these the most ancient is that of Heliopolis.

We have selected these few examples of Egyptian inscriptions for their celebrity. Almost every Egyptian monument, of whatever period, temples, statues, tablets, small statues, were inscribed with hieroglyphic inscriptions, all generally executed with great care and finish. The Egyptian edifices were also covered with religious or historical tableaux, sculptured and painted on all the walls; it has been estimated that in one single temple there existed no less than 30,000 square feet of sculpture, and at the sides of these tableaux were innumerable inscriptions, equally composed of ingeniously grouped figurative signs, in explanation of the subjects, and combining with them far more happily than if they had been the finest alphabetical characters in the world.

Their study would require more than a lifetime, and we have only s.p.a.ce to give a few general hints.

We have a much more accurate knowledge of Greek inscriptions than we have of Egyptian palaeography. The Greek alphabet, and all its variations, as well as the language, customs, and history of that ill.u.s.trious people, are better known to us. Greek inscriptions lead us back to those glorious periods of the Greek people when their heroes and writers made themselves immortal by their ill.u.s.trious deeds and writings. What emotions must arise in the breast of the archaeologist who finds in a marble worn by time the funereal monument placed by Athens, twenty-three centuries ago, over the grave of its warriors who died before Potidaea.

"Their souls high heaven received; their bodies gained, In Potidaea's plains, this hallowed tomb.

Their foes unnumbered fell: a few remained Saved by their ramparts from the general doom.

The victor city mourns her heroes slain, Foremost in fight, they for her glory died."

The most important monumental inscription which presents Greek records, ill.u.s.trating and establishing the chronology of Greek history, is the Parian chronicle, now preserved among the Arundelian marbles at Oxford. It was so called from the supposition of its having been made in the Island of Paros, B.C. 263. In its perfect state it was a square tablet, of coa.r.s.e marble, five inches thick; and when Selden first inspected it it measured three feet seven inches by two feet seven inches. On this stone were engraved some of the princ.i.p.al events in the history of ancient Greece, forming a compendium of chronology during a series of 1,318 years, which commenced with the reign of Cecrops, the first King of Athens, B.C. 1582, and ended with the archonship of Diognetus. It was deciphered and published by the learned Selden in 1628. It makes no mention of Olympiads, and reckons backwards from the time then present by years.

Particular attention should be paid, in the interpretation of Greek inscriptions, to distinguish the numerous t.i.tles of magistrates of every order, of public officers of different ranks, the names of G.o.ds and of nations, those of towns, and the tribes of a city; the prescribed formulas for different kinds of monuments; the text of decrees, letters, etc., which are given or cited in a.n.a.logous texts; the names of monuments, such as stelae, tablets, cippi, etc., the indication of places, or parts belonging to those places, where they ought to be set up or deposited, such as a temple or vestibule, a court or peristyle, public square, etc.; those at whose cost it was set up, the entire city or a curia, the public treasure, or a private fund, the names and surnames of public or private individuals; prerogatives or favors granted, such as the right of asylum, of hospitality, of citizenship; the punishments p.r.o.nounced against those who should destroy or mutilate the monument; the conditions of treaties and alliances; the indications of weights, moneys and measures.

Another early example of a commemorative inscription of which the date can also be positively fixed is that lately discovered by Dr. Frick on the bronze serpent with the three heads, now at Constantinople, which supported the golden tripod which was dedicated, as Herodotus states, to Apollo by the allied Greeks as a tenth of the Persian spoils at Plataea, and which was placed near the altar at Delphi. On this monument, as we learn from Thucydides, Pausanias, regent of Sparta, inscribed an arrogant distich, in which he commemorates the victory in his own name as general in chief, hardly mentioning the allied forces who gained it. This epigram was subsequently erased by the Lacedaemonians, who subst.i.tuted it for an inscription enumerating the various h.e.l.lenic states who had taken a part in repulsing the Persian invaders. The inscription contains exactly what the statements of Thucydides and Herodotus would lead us to expect; the names of those Greek states which took an active part in the defeat of the Persians.

Thirty-one names have been deciphered, and there seem to be traces of three more. The first three names in the list are the Lacedaemonians, Athenians, Corinthians. The remainder are nearly identical with those inscribed on the statue of Zeus at Olympia, as they are given by Pausanias. The names of the several states seem to be arranged on the serpent generally according to their relative importance, and also with some regard to their geographical distribution. The states of continental Greece are enumerated first; then the islanders and outlying colonies in the north and west. It is supposed the present inscription was placed on the serpent B.C. 476.

The dedicatory inscriptions on the statues at Branchidae probably range from B.C. 580-520. The famous Sigean inscription, brought from the Troad to England in the last century, is now admitted to be not a pseudo-archaic imitation, as Bockh maintained, but a genuine specimen of Greek writing in Asia Minor, contemporary, or nearly so, with the Branchidae inscriptions. Kirchhoff considers it not later than Olympiad 69 (B.C. 504-500).

A most interesting inscription of the archaic period is the celebrated bronze tablet, which Sir William Gell obtained from Olympia, and on which is engraved a treaty between the Eleans and Heraeans. The terms of this specimen of ancient diplomacy are singularly concise.

Kirchhoff places this inscription before Olympiad 75 (B.C. 480); Bockh a.s.signs it to a much earlier date. In any case, we may regard this as the oldest extant treaty in the Greek language. It must have been originally fixed on the wall of some temple at Olympia.

A series of Athenian records on marble has been found inscribed on the wall of the Parthenon, while others have been put together out of many fragments extracted from the ruins on the Acropolis and from excavations at Athens. Of the public records preserved in these inscriptions, the following are the most important cla.s.ses: the tribute lists, the treasure lists, and the public accounts.

An interesting inscription has been lately brought to light in the diggings on the Athenian Acropolis. It is the treaty-stone between Athens and Chalcis. The inscription is of the days of Pericles, and records the terms on which Chalcis in Euba was again received as an Athenian dependency or subject ally after its revolt and recovery in B.C. 445. The event is recorded in Thucydides. The inscription is in Attic Greek, but the spelling is archaic.

Funeral monuments usually bear an inscription which gives the names and t.i.tles of the deceased, his country, his age, the names of his father and of his mother, his t.i.tles and his services, his distinguished qualities and his virtues. Frequently a funereal inscription contains only the names of the deceased, that of his country, and acclamations and votive formulae generally terminate it.

The Sigean marble is one of the most celebrated palaeographical monuments in existence. It is written in the most ancient Greek characters, and in the Boustrophedon manner. The purport of the inscription, which in sense is twice repeated, on the upper and lower part of the stone, is to record the presentation of three vessels for the use of the Prytaneum, or Town Hall of the Sigeans. The upper and lower inscriptions, in common letters, read thus:

The first inscription is thus translated: "I am the gift of Phanodicus, the son of Hermocrates, of Proconnesus; he gave a vase (a crater), a stand or support for it, and a strainer, to the Sigeans for the Prytaneum." The second, which says, "I also am the gift of Phanodicus," repeating the substance of the former inscription, adds, "if any mischance happens to me, the Sigeans are to mend me. aesop and his brethren made me." The lower inscription is the more ancient. It is now nearly obliterated. Kirchhoff considers it to be not later than Olympiad 69 B.C. (504-500).

_The Athenian People erects this Statue of Socrates, the Son of Socrates of Thoricus._

"The Sons of Athens, Socrates, from thee Imbibed the lessons of the Muse divine; Hence this thy meed of wisdom: prompt are we To render grace for grace, our love for thine."

_Wordsworth's Athens._

To Perpenna the Roman, of Consular dignity, the Senate and People of Syracuse.

A man by whose wise counsels this city of Syracuse hath breathed from its labors, and seen the hour of repose. For these services the best of its citizens have erected to him an image of marble, but they preserve that of his wisdom in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

_Museum of Syracuse._

_On a Gateway at Nicaea_ (_Translation_):

"The very splendid, and large, and good city of the Nicaeans [erects]

this wall for the autocrat Caesar Marcus Aurelius Claudius, the pious, the fortunate, august, of Tribunitial authority, second time Proconsul, father of his country, and for the Sacred Senate, and the people of the Romans, in the time of the ill.u.s.trious Consular Velleius Macrinus, Legate and Lieutenant of the august Caesar Antoninus, the splendid orator." A.D. 269.

[Page Decoration]

THE CATACOMBS.

The catacombs, or under-ground cemeteries, are among the most stupendous wonders of antiquity, and have ever since their discovery excited the keenest interest of archaeologists.

The cut on page 875 is a plan of the catacombs of Rome. These alone were years ago computed to be 590 miles in length, while Mr. Marchi, in the light of more recent investigations and new discoveries has calculated their length to be between 800 and 900 miles, and, that in the sepulchral enclosures of their vast hollows between 6,000,000 and 7,000,000 of the human race have been entombed. Most of the catacombs are situated from fifty to seventy-five feet below the surface of the earth, not a ray of natural light can penetrate the dense blackness of night which everywhere abounds. Woe to the man whose boldness leads him to venture alone into these dark depths! So extensive and so intricate are the corridors and pa.s.sages that he must be irrevocably lost and miserably perish in this endless labyrinth. Even the most experienced guides, with burning torches in hand, would rather follow only thoroughly explored pa.s.sages, and care not to leave well-beaten tracks.

The pa.s.sages are from six to twelve feet high and have an average width of from three to six feet. In the tufa rock of which their walls are composed niches are hollowed out, one above the other, in which the dead were laid, from three to six persons having been placed on each side. All the pa.s.sages and galleries have these ghastly linings, and most of them end their long and dreary course in a chamber, as the reader may observe on examining the cuts below.

These chambers are often of large dimensions, and were originally adorned with great splendor and high art. They were the tombs of wealthy and n.o.ble families, who spared neither labor nor money in beautifying their final habitations. The walls and ceilings were exquisitely sculptured and painted by the most gifted artists of the age. Sarcophagi or coffins of bronze, of porphyry and other rare marbles contained the bodies of the dead. On their ma.s.sive lids and sides were carved the forms and features of those lying within, so that even to-day we are in possession of fine and accurate portraits of ancient people. Around the sarcophagi were placed rich vases of gold, drinking cups of silver, and many other valuable treasures dear to the departed when alive. Statues of bronze and marble were ranged about in lavish array and gleamed under the soft light which fell from quaint lamps of precious metals, curious in shape and wrought with elaborate skill.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SECTIONS OF CATACOMBS WITH CHAMBERS.]