ANTIQUITIES. 
It seems to be formed out of the 
rock upon which the pyramid stands; 
a circumstance which confirms my 
conjecture concerning the place 
from which the stones for building 
the pyramids were carried. I 
found the chin of the Sphinx to 
measure ten feet six inches in height; 
and the whole length of the coun- 
tenance nearly eighteen feet. 
The memory of the authors of 
these stupendous and fantastic mo- 
numents has been Jost some thou- 
sand years since: the pyramids are 
visibly decaying, and must perish in 
their turn; although, if we may 
judge of the’ future by the past, 
several thousand years must still 
elapse before their entire decay. 
_ Of the Hieroglyphics.* 
From the same. 
VAHE most judicious and enlight- 
ened authors of antiquity, a 
part of whom had travelled into 
Egypt, speak of this country in the 
most favourable manner. They ce~- 
lebrate the wisdom of its govern- 
ment, and the knowledge of its in- 
habitants. Such a country, which 
must afford so much information 
concerning the earliest revolutions 
of human society, may well engage 
our particular attention. It is na- 
tural for us to wish to know its his- 
tory and institutions. — 
That we are at present ignorant 
of all these things, is not the fault 
of the Egyptians: no people on 
earth were ever more anxious than 
they to transmit to posterity the 
memory of their revolutions, and of 
their knowledge too, perhaps. No 
country in the world contains more 
inscriptions engraved upon stones 
of the most durable nature, than 
AAI 
Egypt. But this pains to inform us, 
has been rendered fruitless by the 
imperfection of the mode of writ- 
ing this peopleemployed. Instead 
of characters expressive of the dif- 
ferent sounds in their language, or 
signs marking each a syllable, with 
a determinate idea affixed to it, such 
as the Chinese use: the ancient 
Egyptians made use of emblems, to 
mark ideas somehow referable to 
them, although by a very forced and 
distant analogy. This is what we, 
after the Greeks, call Hieroglyphic 
writing. 
As the relation between allego- 
tical figures and the ideas which they 
are employed to represent, cannot 
be at all times equally evident; and 
as they depend often upon the way 
of thinking peculiar to those by 
whom the signs were invented, it is 
plain, that writing of this sort can- 
not be legible, without a key to ex- 
plain the original signification of the 
characters. Some of the ancients 
have, indeed, explained a few of 
those symbols; but we meet with 
an infinite number of which nothing 
can be known. The hieroglyphics 
therefore, cannot be decyphered, 
because we want the proper key. 
When the Tadlet of Isis became 
first known io Europe, some learn- 
ed men attempted to explain it by 
guessing from one figure the mean- 
ing of another ; but their data were 
insufficient. 
Yet, I would willingly hope that 
the key to those mysterious writings 
of the ancient Egyptians may yet 
be recovered, Various learned men 
have displayed astonishing sagacity 
and penetration in decyphering in- 
scripticns in unknown languages, 
where there has been a considera- 
ble quantity of characters for them 
* In our volume for 1768, p, 139, we have given from the French an explanation of 
Egyptian Hierog)yphics. 
to 
