How the Hieroglyphic Language was Recovered
On the triumph of Christianity, the idolatrous religion of the ancient Egyptians was regarded with pious abhorrence, and so in course of time the hieroglyphics became neglected and forgotten. Thus…
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
“How the Hieroglyphic Language was Recovered.” from Cleopatra’s Needle by James King.
On the triumph of Christianity, the idolatrous religion of the ancient Egyptians was regarded with pious abhorrence, and so in course of time the hieroglyphics became neglected and forgotten. Thus for fifteen centuries the hieroglyphic inscriptions that cover tombs, temples, and obelisks were regarded as unmeaning characters. Thousands of travellers traversed the land of Egypt, and yet they never took the trouble to copy with accuracy a single line of an inscription. The monuments of Egypt received a little attention about the middle of the eighteenth century, and vague notions of the nature of hieroglyphs were entertained by Winckelman, Visconti, and others. Most of their suggestions are of little value; and it was not until the publication of the description of ancient Egypt by the first scientific expedition under Napoleon that the world regained a glimpse of the true nature of the long-forgotten hieroglyphs.
In 1798 M. Boussard discovered near Rosetta, situated at one of the mouths of the Nile, a large polished stone of black granite, known as "The Rosetta Stone." This celebrated monument it appears was set up in the temple of Turn at Heliopolis about 200 B.C., in honour of Ptolemy V., according to a solemn decree of the united priesthood in synod at Memphis. On its discovery, the stone was presented to the French Institute at Cairo; but on the capture of Alexandria by the
British in 1801, and the consequent defeat of the French troops, the Rosetta Stone came into the possession of the English general, and was presented by him to King George III. The king in turn presented the precious relic to the nation, and the stone is now in safe custody in the British Museum.
The Rosetta Stone has opened the sealed book of hieroglyphics, and enabled the learned to understand the long-forgotten monumental inscriptions. On the stone is a trigrammatical inscription, that is, an inscription thrice repeated in three different characters; the first in pure hieroglyphs, the second in Demotic, and the third in Greek. The French savants made the first attempt at deciphering it; but they were quickly followed by German, Italian, Swedish, and English scholars. (Groups of characters on the stone were observed amid the hieroglyphs to correspond to the words, Alexander, Alexandria, Ptolemy, king, etc., in the Greek inscription. Many of the opinions expressed were very conflicting, and most of them were ingenious conjectures. A real advance was made in the study when, in 1818, Dr. Young, a London physician, announced that many of the characters in the group that stood for Ptolemy must have a phonetic value, somewhat after the manner of our own alphabet. M. Champollion, a young French savant, deeply interested in Egyptology, availed himself of Dr. Young’s discovery, and pursued the study with ardent perseverance.
In 1822 another inscribed monument was found at Philae, in Upper Egypt, which rendered substantial help to such Egyptologists as were eagerly striving to unravel the mystery of the hieroglyphs. It was a small obelisk with a Greek inscription at the base, which inscription turned out to be a translation of the hieroglyphs on the obelisk. Champollion found on the obelisk a group of hieroglyphs which stood for the Greek name Kleopatra; and by carefully comparing this group with a group on the Rosetta Stone that stood for Ptolemy, he was able to announce that Dr. Young s teaching was correct, inasmuch as many of the hieroglyphs in the royal names are alphabetic phonetics, that is, each represents a letter sound, as in the case of our own alphabet.
Champollion further announced that the phonetic hieroglyph stood for the initial letter of the name of the object represented. Thus, in the name Kleopatra, the first hieroglyph is a knee, called in Coptic kne, and this sign stands for the letter k, the first letter in Kleopatra. The second hieroglyph is a lion couchant, and stands for l, because that letter is the first in labu, the Egyptian name of lion. Further, by comparing the names of Ptolemy and Kleopatra with that of Alexander, Champollion discovered the value of fifteen phonetic hieroglyphs. In the pursuit of his studies he also found out the existence of homophones, that is, characters having the same sound; and that phonetics were mixed up in every inscription with ideographs and representations.
In 1828, the French Government sent Champollion’s conductor of a scientific expedition to Egypt. He translated the inscriptions with marvellous facility, and seemed at once to give life to the hitherto mute hieroglyphs. On a wall of a temple at Karnak, amidst the prisoners of King Shishak, he found the name "Kingdom of Judah." It will be remembered that the Bible states that "In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak, King of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem: and he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house" (i Kings xiv, 25, 26). The discovery, therefore, of the name "Kingdom of Judah" in hieroglyphs in connection with Shishak excited much interest in the Christian world, corroborating as it did the Biblical narrative.
In 1830 Champollion returned from Egypt laden with the fruits of his researches; and by his indefatigable genius he worked out the grand problem of the deciphering and interpretation of hieroglyphic inscriptions.
Since that time the study of Egyptology has been pursued by Rosellini, Bunsen, De Rouge, Mariette, Lenormant, Brugsch, Lepsius, Birch, Poole, etc. The number of hieroglyphs at present are about a thousand. A century ago there existed no hope of recovering the extinct language of the ancient Egyptians; but by the continued labours of genius, the darkness of fifteen centuries has been dispelled, and the endless inscriptions covering obelisks, temples and tombs, proclaim in a wondrous manner the story of Egypt s ancient greatness.
Dr. Brugsch has written a long and elaborate history of Egypt, derived entirely from "ancient and authentic sources;" that is, from the inscriptions on the walls of temples, on obelisks, etc., and from papyri. The work has been translated into English, and published with the title, "Egypt under the Pharaohs." The student also has only to turn to the article "Hieroglyphics" in Vol. XL of the ninth edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," to see what progress has been made recently in this direction.
But notwithstanding all this, the language of the hieroglyphs is not yet by any means perfectly understood and Egyptian grammar still presents many knotty problems that await solution. Rapid strides are daily being made in the study of Egyptology; and it may be hoped that the time is not far distant when the student will read hieroglyphic inscriptions with the same facility that the classic student reads a page of Greek and Latin.
King, James. Cleopatra's Needle : A History of the London Obelisk, with an Exposition of the Hieroglyphics. The Religious Tract Society.
About TOTA
TOTA.world provides cultural information and sharing across the world to help you explore your Family’s Cultural History and create deep connections with the lives and cultures of your ancestors.
