184 • On the Elucidation of 



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 fre- 

 quently the purposes for which they were designed. This is in 

 itself no small achievement, when we reflect that these extraor^ 

 dinary 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 hie- 

 roglyphic histories, with which the walls of the palaces and 

 temples are covered. Already have we gained some very im- 

 portant facts in regard to the condition, political and other- 

 wise, of the countries adjoining to Egypt at that early period. 

 The monuments of Nubia are covered with hieroglyphics, per- 

 fectly similar both in form and disposition to those on the 

 edifices at Thebes ; the same elements, the same formulae, the 

 same language ; and the names of the kings who elevated the 

 most ancient amongst them, are those of the princes who con- 

 structed the most ancient parts of the palace of Karnac at 

 Thebes. As far as Soleb on the Nile, 100 leagues to the 

 south of Philse the extreme frontier of Egypt, are found con- 

 structions bearing the inscriptions of an Egyptian king ; evi- 

 dencing 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 architec- 

 ture as tlK)se 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 



