152 Rev. Epwarp Hincxs on the Number, Names, and Powers 
being also omitted. Of the first letter of this word, also, the eagle is constantly 
used as the expletive. 
There is a large slab in the British Museum which is admitted, I believe, by 
all Egyptian archeologists, to be anterior to the twelfth dynasty. It is copied, 
Sharpe, 36-38. In pl. 36, col. 12, the Egyptian word signifying *‘heart” or 
‘* middle’’ occurs, as in fig. 52. It consists of the two letters MT, and a deter- 
minative sign. Probably this word was connected with the Latin Med-ius, and 
also with A/ens ; for the Egyptian T, as well as the Latin NS, was a formative 
of the participle. In col. 22 of the same plate, the passage where it occurs is 
repeated; and here the word occurs as in fig. 53, an eagle being introduced, the 
known expletive of the character here used for M, the sickle. In the small 
horizontal line at the top of the stone, Pl. 36, 1. 2, the same word occurs (fig. 54), 
the form of the last letter being, however, changed, as well as the determinative 
sign. It is here used as the name of the stone of which the slab was formed. 
Champollion, in the 100th page of his Grammar, gives this name as in fig. 55, 
without the expletive letter, but with the determinative sign of the /eart, as well 
as the generic determinative, a block of stone. Champollion represented this 
word in Coptic characters 2x T9,HT, supposing that the hearé should be read 
by its Coptic name, Hit. ‘This is one of the many mistakes into which he was 
led by his dependance on that language. The whole word is 2x7, Met ; and as 
this signified, in the old Egyptian language, both “a heart’’ and “ rose-granite,”” 
or some other kind of stone, the determinative sign of the word in the former 
signification, which was the more common of the two, was used along with that 
which properly belonged to it in the latter signification. Instances of this are 
very frequent, and they require to be carefully watched. 
I will give one more instance of the use of an expletive in the time of the 
twelfth dynasty. Ina stele in the British Museum of the reign of Amenemhe 
III., we have a female name, which was common in those times, A¢ or Et, 
“bread,” connected, probably, with ed-o, &c., written as in fig. 56, the determi- 
native sign of a loafand also that of a woman being added (Sharpe, 6, 1. 6). 
In the stele of Mr. Harris’s, last cited (Sharpe, 104, 1. 6), the name occurs as in 
fig. 57. Tsay the name, for, though not applied to the same female, it has all 
the appearance of being identical with it. Here we have two additional charac- 
ters introduced, a second determinative of “bread,” namely, a row of cakes, 
