RIGIITHAKDEDNESS. 221 



ters are turned ia opposite directions corresponding to those of the 

 immediately adjacent figures. 



I have dwelt on this question of the direction of the hieroglyphic 

 characters with some minuteness, because the proof of a uniform adher- 

 ence to either direction would have tended strongly to sustain the idea 

 of their being the work of a right or of a left-handed people. The whole 

 question might indeed seem to be settled beyond dispute, by the repeated 

 representations both of gods and men, engaged in the actual process of 

 writing. Among the incidents introduced in the oft-repeated judgment 

 scene of Osiris — as on the Adytum of the Temple of Dayr el Medineh, 

 of which I have a photograph, — Thoth, the Egyptian God of Letters, 

 stands with the stylus in his left hand, and a papyrus or tablet in his 

 right, and records against the deceased, in the presence of the divine 

 judge, the results of the literal weighing in the balance of the deeds 

 done in the body. 



So conclusive does this and other monumental evidence seem, in 

 proof of the assumption that the Egyptians were a left-handed people, 

 that, on writing to an Egyptian traveller, who has spent successive 

 winters on the Nile, photographed its temples, and brought home paper 

 casts of the Judgment of Osiris at Dayr el Medineh, as well as of other 

 sculptured scenes, he referred to it as decisive. He thus writes : " I have 

 looked over my photographs, casts, and paper impressions of subjects 

 on the walls of temples and tombs in Egypt and Nubia, and I find in 

 them that the left hand is always used where we use the right. On 

 the wall of the Temple of Karnac, Thotmes III, is represented making 

 an ofi'ering contained in a vase. His right side is towards the looker-on, 

 but he holds the vase on the palm of the left hand, which is extended 

 at arm's length." He then refers to the Judgment scene at Dayr el 

 Medineh, and adds, '' In other smaller representations of the same 

 Judgment scene, Thoth is always represented holding the style in his 

 left hand. In the sculpture on the wall of the great chamber in the 

 rock-temple of Abou Simbel, llameses is represented slaying his enemies 

 with a club; which is held in his left hand. In the sculptures of Pasht, 

 she is represented decapitating her prisoners with a scimiter, which is 

 always held in the left hand." The evidence thus adduced seems so 

 direct and indisputable as to settle the question ; yet further research 

 leaves on my mind no doubt that it is illusory. 



When, as in the Judgment scene at El Medineh and elsewhere, 

 Osiris is seated looking to the right, Thoth faces him holding in the 



