256 Mr. Champollion’s Discoveries 
Nerva, Trajanus Germanicus Dacicus, and Antoninus; all 
these principally at Philae: on the Pamphilian obelisc, which I 
had condemned as a Roman forgery, Domitianus and Vespasi- 
anus ; and on the Barberinian, Adrian, and Sabina, The names 
on the zodiac of Denderah, with which the French astronomers 
still persist in amusing themselves, he reads, if I recollect 
rightly, Caesar Autocrator. If only one or two of these names 
should be well authenticated by the authority of a Greek in- 
scription, the thing would be sufficiently established for every 
useful purpose: and at any rate, Champollion has displayed 
great ingenuity in the investigation. This morning only, he 
was showing me a particular form of the s, which I told him I 
thought was like a syrinx or a hand organ; he acknowledged 
the resemblance, and then observed that the Coptic word for a 
flute or pipe is seB1, which agreed exactly with his system. The 
name of Cleopatra he gets from Bankes’s obelise of Philae; and 
he has been so fortunate as to discover a collateral document of 
the highest importance, which gives him that name in the encho- 
rial character. Casati, an Italian speculator, has lately brought 
over four or five manuscripts on papyrus, all Greek, except one, 
which is exactly in the character of the second inscription of 
Rosetta, and the introductory part of which exhibits a date with 
the names of the sovereigns and of the chief priests, in a form 
perfectly intelligible, abundantly corroborating the interpreta- 
tion of the similar passages of the Rosetta stone. These manu- 
scripts are already secured for the king’s cabinet; and they are 
of so much the more value, as they lessen the impatience that 
one naturally feels to obtain a copy of the inscription of Menouf, 
which Drovetti keeps locked up at Leghorn; not without some- 
thing like disgrace to himself and to the nation that he represents. 
I have been told that a cast of it is in Paris, taken when the 
French were in Egypt; but the inscription is so much effaced, 
as to render any ordinary cast of no great value. Another ob- 
servation, in which Champollion has had the advantage of me, is 
that of a broken obelisc from the collection of the Duc de 
Choiseul, exhibiting six or seven of the months, followed by 
numerical characters indicating the days; although he has not 
