58 Rev. Edward Hincks on the Egyptian Stele, or Tablet. 



which may occur to some, that the gifts enumerated were, in part at least, to 

 he enjoyed hereafter, appears to me to have no force ; and in truth the same 

 objection might be made against the passage on the Rosetta stone ; for among 

 the "ifts of the gods and goddesses there mentioned is " a kingdom estabhshed 

 to him and to his children for ever." The answer is easy. The gift was past, 

 though the enjoyment of it was future. 



8. Very little dependence can be placed on the contents of B as determining 

 the age of a tablet. It may, however, be stated that the abbreviated group. 



,i 



I 



which I believe means "the appointed nourishment of meat and drink," and 

 which begins B in almost all tablets of the reign of Osortasen I., and of his suc- 

 cessors to the very latest period, has not been met with, so far as I am aware, in 

 any tablet of an earlier reign. Before his time the characters for meat and drink 

 were placed after the words Hre taoue, " the appointed provision," or their abbre- 

 viation as above given ; and accompanied either by a circle, representing a cake 

 of bread, or by a long figure, resembling the prismatic spectrum, representing 

 a number of such cakes. This character, however, is not to be translated in the 

 present instance "bread" or "cakes," but "of all sorts." The Egyptian word 

 having that meaning, being homophonous, or nearly so, with the word signifying 

 bread, is often represented by the symbol for the latter ; and it is so, I conceive, 

 in this connexion. 



The group which occurs between B and C was naturally translated " for the 

 sake of" by those who imagined that B were offerings to the gods. As the 

 deceased person could not make these offerings himself, they conceived that the 

 survivors made them for his sake. It appears to me unaccountable that any 

 should have retained the old translation of this group, who perceived the mistake 

 in which it originated. I take the literal meaning of the group to be "to the 

 receiving of," a compound proposition, more definite in its signification than 

 the single N, which admitted a variety of meanings ; and probably also more 

 solemn, as being confined to the forms of religion. The middle character is a 

 pair of arms held up, as if to receive a gift,* which ideagraphically denoted the 



• This may derive confirmation from the speech of the ancestors of Rameses II. to that king, at 

 the conclusion of the tablet of Abydos, — " We hold up our arms to receive offerings." It is true, 



