260 



EGYPTOLOGICAL AND ASSYRIOLOGICAL RESEARCH. 



enfeebled and obscured as the centuries from 

 a more remote antiquity accumulate. 



In 1855, in a summary notice of the Egyp- 

 tian monuments of the Louvre, M. de Rouge 

 thus expressed himself : " It will be very in- 

 correct to think that the multitude of divinities 

 adored by the Egyptians had completely oblit- 

 erated from their minds the knowledge of the 

 Supreme God, whatever may be the local name 

 which they gave to hirn. He is often desig- 

 nated by expressions which do not permit a 

 doubt on that point. * He is the only being in 

 truth living,' said the sacred legends ; ' He has 

 given birth to all beings and to all inferior 

 Gods ' ; ' He has made all things, and he has 

 not been made ' ; finally, ' He has begotten him- 

 self.' " 



The Egypt which Menes united under his 

 scepter was divided into nomes, having each 

 a capital city ; each one of these regions had 

 its principal deity, designated by a special name ; 

 bat it is always the same doctrine that is ex- 

 pressed by the different names. 



"God is the creator''; "He has made the 

 heavens," " He has created the earth," " He 

 has made all things which exist." "Thou art 

 alone, and the millions of beings come from 

 thee " ; " He is the Lord of beings and of non- 

 beings." These texts are at least fifteen hun- 

 dred years older than Moses. 



" God has regulated the order of nature." 

 From him comes likewise the moral element. 

 Murder, theft, adultery, fraud, are pursued in 

 his name through all the details of social life. 

 The sanction to that morality which is so com- 

 plete is not wanting: it is the immortality of 

 the soul. 



A treatise on morals, called by M. Ohabas 

 the oldest book in the world, is the work of 

 Phata-Hoteph, a son of King Assa. This be- 

 longs to the fifth dynasty, and invokes Osiris ; 

 but this Osiris, the only god of Egypt named 

 in the manuscript, is the abstract idea of the 

 divinity. It occurs frequently in the text. 

 The same name Osiris signifies the seat of ac- 

 tion, that is to say, he who made all things. 



A sarcophagus of the eleventh dynasty bears 

 these words, which have been found in the 

 seventeenth chapter of the treatise of Phata- 

 Hoteph: " I am the great existence by myself ; 

 I am the law of the existence of beings." 



In that chapter seventeen is also clearly ex- 

 pressed the idea of purification necessary to a 

 human being, and that of moral responsibility 

 is very lengthily explained to the hundred and 

 twentieth chapter, where are enumerated the 

 faults of which the deceased should be inno- 

 cent in order to be deified in the other world ; 

 an enumeration which expresses, especially in 

 the most ancient manuscripts, a very elevated 

 moral sense. 



In the new Egyptian empire, which com- 

 menced with the eighteenth and nineteenth 

 dynasties, the mythology is more developed ; 

 but the current of the ancient traditions con- 

 tinues to struggle against the invasion of poetic 



or popular dreams. At the beginning of the 

 nineteenth dynasty, the period of the youth and 

 ripe age of Moses, is clearly seen the tradition 

 of the sanctuaries still maintaining itself in the 

 liturgic poetry. 



M. MARIETTE'S RESEARCHES IN EGYPT. 

 Extensive excavations were conducted in Egypt 

 for several years previous to 1881, under the 

 direction of M. Auguste Mariette, more re- 

 cently known as Mariette Pasha, who, after 

 spending four years on his own account in ex- 

 ploring and laying open the remains of the 

 Serapeum, or tomb of the Apis bulls at Mem- 

 phis, was appointed by the Khedive Ismail 

 Conservator of Monuments to the Egyptian 

 Government, a position which he held for more 

 than twenty-five years, till his death, in Jan- 

 uary, 1881. His works were executed in dif- 

 ferent parts of the country where objects of 

 prominent interest could be looked for, and 

 included the disinter in ent of the magnificent 

 temples of Denderah and Edfoo, and the re- 

 covery of thousands of valuable inscriptions ; 

 the uncovering of the Sphinx, and the dis- 

 covery of the mysterious building known as 

 the Temple of the Sphinx ; extensive opera- 

 tions at Karnak, Deir-el-Baharee, Medinet 

 Haboo, and Abydos; the projection of a sys- 

 tematic exploration of the pyramids, beginning 

 with those at Memphis and Sakkara ; and the 

 formation of the museum at Boolak, where it is 

 designed to store and preserve, under the eye 

 of the Government, all the portable antiquities 

 that may be found. At the time of his death 

 M. Mariette was contemplating, in further in- 

 vestigation, the search for, and exploration of, 

 the ruins of This or Teni, the seat of the 

 foundation of the empire and of the royal 

 house of Menes ; the examination of the wall- 

 decorations of the tombs of the ancient em- 

 pire, which, formerly supposed to represent 

 actual scenes in the life of the deceased, he 

 believed, from the uniformity of their charac- 

 ter, and other evidences of their ideality, rather 

 to shadow forth the views of the future life, 

 and to be capable of affording valuable illus- 

 trations of the ritual and theology of the 

 Egyptians; and a more thorough examination 

 of the Sphinx, to discover whether there be a 

 tomb, or chamber, hidden within it. 



OPENING OF PYRAMIDS. The work begun 

 by M. Mariette was taken up where he left it 

 by his successor, M. Maspero, who, with Dr. 

 Brugsch, is continuing it on the same general 

 plan, and with the same ultimate ends in view, 

 that were entertained by him. Among M. 

 Mariette's last work was the opening of three 

 of the pyramids at Sakkara : those marked on 

 Perring's Map of the Pyramids as numbers 5, 

 6, and 8. The last-mentioned pyramid was 

 found to be bare. Of the other two, number 5 

 proved to be the pyramid of Pepi Rameri, and 

 number 6 that of his son and successor, Me- 

 renra, of the sixth dynasty, two of the most 

 distinguished monarchs of the ancient empire, 

 of whose reigns we have also in the biography 



