136 Rey. Epwarp Hincxs on the Number, Names, and Powers 
in every point of view defective ; and, though highly creditable to him as a first 
attempt, is quite unworthy of the present state of hieroglyphical knowledge, 
and unfit to be even made the basis of a more perfect arrangement. 
Of those who have endeavoured to rectify and complete the old Egyptian 
alphabet, left by Champollion in the state I have mentioned, I need only name 
Salvolini, Dr. Lepsius, and Chevalier Bunsen. The alphabets which have been 
published by others are all, so far as I am aware, inferior to that of Champollion. 
To Salvolini must be assigned the merit of adding some characters to the alpha- 
bet which Champollion had omitted, and which certainly ought to find places 
among the phonoglyphs. He added, however, many others improperly; and in 
respect to classification he must be considered as having made a retrograde move- 
ment. His absurd notion that a phonoglyph might have two different values, 
independent of each other, and equally proper, has been made a handle of by 
those who have denied the truth of Champollion’s discoveries, in order that they 
might turn the whole system into ridicule. If it were well founded, as Cheva- 
lier Bunsen justly remarks, it would put an end to all clear and certain investi- 
gation in this department. Except, however, in the case of a very few syllabic 
signs, it is a groundless fancy; and neither Salvolini nor Dr. Seyffarth, who 
carried it to a still greater extent, have been able to procure for it the belief of 
any large number of Egyptian scholars. 
The object of Champollion and Salvolini appeared to be to extend the list of 
phonoglyphs as much as they could. Dr. Lepsius was more anxious to classify 
those which had been already discovered. He divided them, in respect to their 
nature, into three classes: those which were used in early times to express simple 
sounds, without reference to their connexion; those which were only used to 
express simple sounds in particular words or syllables; and those which were 
first used to express simple sounds in the Ptolemaic or Roman period. To each 
of the peculiar letters of the second class there belonged one or more complemen- 
tary letters, which, if not appearing after it, were to be supplied. Thus, the 
phonoglyph representing a battlemented wall (fig. 7), expresses the sound M, 
but only before the waved line N. It is thus virtually equivalent to the combi- 
nation MN (fig. 8). The waved line is the complement of the battlemented 
wall, and is always to be understood after it, if it be not expressed. In like 
manner the crux ansata (fig. 9), which Dr. Lepsius supposed to be equivalent 
