lOG 
EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES. 
[ground 
ments are chiefly from Merapliis, the capital of the most 
important of the more ancient dynasties, and the ruins of 
which are on the left bank of the Nile, opposite Cairo. 
Other early remains are derived from the great burial-place 
of Abydos. The main portion of the collection, including 
most of the monuments belonging to the kings of the 18th, 
19 th, and 20th dynasties, was obtained from the ancient 
city of Thebes, which became the capital of Egypt under 
those monarchs. This city was built on both banks of the 
Nile, and included the four modern localities, Karnak and 
Luxor on the right bank, Gourneh and Medinet-Haboo on the 
left. The antiquities from Alexandria and Cairo are of more 
uncertain origin, as some of them had been only transferred 
to those cities in comparatively recent times. 
Most of these monuments, of whatever period, are inscribed 
with hieroglyphics, a form of writing almost peculiar to the 
Egyptians. These characters are all representations of visible 
objects, and are generally executed with great care and finish. 
They are employed in various ways, sometimes symbolically ^ to 
indicate the object represented, or the quality for which an 
object is remarkable : at other times alphabetically, to express 
the sound of the initial letter of the Egyptian name. 
SOUTHERN GALLERY. 
The visitor on entering this Gallery approaches the most recent of 
the antiquities of Egypt, the first recess on each side being occupied 
by monuments of the Roman dominion in that country, a period which 
commenced with the capture of Alexandria by Augustus, B.C. 30, and 
extended to the Mohammadan invasion, a.d. 640. 
In the second compartment are placed the remains of the Ptolemaic 
or Greek period, introduced by the conquests of Alexander the Great, 
and the accession of Ptolemy Soter to the throne of Egypt in b.c. 323. 
In the centre of the room is placed the celebrated Rosetta stone ; it 
is a tablet of black basalt, having three inscriptions, two of them 
in the Egyptian language, but in two different characters (Hieroglyphic 
and Enchorial), the third in Greek. The inscriptions are to the same 
purport in cacli, being a decree of the priesthood at Memphis in honour 
of Ptolemy Epiphanes about the year b.c. 196. This stone has 
furnished ihc key to the interpretation of the Egyptian characters. 
Cast of a similar trilingual tablet found at San, being a decree of the 
priests at Canopus in honour of Ptolemy Euergetes I. and Berenice, 
B.C. 238. 
