VI OBITUARY NOTICES. 



egyptiennes et assyriennes, appearing quarterly. Maspero was not 

 only the editor but the main contributor during the nigh forty years 

 of its existence. Scarcely a number appeared without a contribution 

 from his pen, and a contribution from Maspero invariably meant 

 some addition to human knowledge, the result of an investigation of 

 a new Egyptian text or of one as yet imperfectly understood, the de- 

 termination of the meaning of an obscure Egyptian word or phrase, 

 or the discussion of a grammatical problem. Many of the articles 

 also dealt with archaological aspects or with the art, or entered into 

 the domain of religious thought and theological speculation of the 

 Egyptians on the basis of religious texts. In his articles in the 

 Recueil, as in the many other journals — notably in England and 

 Germany — to which he occasionally sent his contributions, he con- 

 fined himself strictly to Egyptological studies ; and through his ef- 

 forts and example the somewhat loose method formerly prevailing 

 in the interpretation of Egyptian texts, leading not infrequently to 

 wild vagaries, gave way to accuracy and had its natural outcome in 

 the creation of what is commonly known as the Berlin school of 

 Egyptologists with scrupulous attention to grammatical details under 

 the leadership of Adolf Erman — though it should at once be added 

 that Egyptologists, being as human as physicians, do not always 

 agree in their diagnosis of a grammatical form. Maspero often 

 found himself in opposition to Erman, and Professor Breasted, of 

 the University of Chicago, tells an amusing incident in this connec- 

 tion. Erman had written to Maspero to have the squeezes of the 

 Pyramid inscriptions examined to ascertain whether certain verbal 

 forms contained a letter t at the end. The point was of importance 

 for settling a question of Egyptian grammar. Maspero entrusted 

 several of his students with the task who reported that there were 

 no traces of the t. " You see," added Maspero, in recounting the 

 incident to Professor Breasted, " the old Egyptians who wrote the 

 Pyramid texts did not possess a copy of Erman's grammar." It sub- 

 sequently turned out, however, that Erman was correct and that the t 

 was there. 



The anecdote affords an illustration of the difficulties that schol- 

 ars in the earlier stages of the decipherment of strange signs, re- 

 vealing a strange language, have to contend with. Decipherment of 



