FLOOR.] 
FIRST EGYPTIAN ROOM. 
109 
NORTH-WEST STAIRCASE. 
On the staircase are placed Egyptian Papyri, which are 
documents of various character, inscribed on rolls formed of 
slices of the papyrus plant. They show the three forms 
of writing in use among the Egyptians : — 1. The Hieroglypldc, 
in which all the characters, or figures, are separately and dis- 
tinctly defined. 2. The ffiem^ic, in which the same characters 
are represented in what may be termed a running hand. 
3. The Demotic, or Enchorial, a still more cursive form, in 
which the language of the common people was written ; it 
was principally employed in civil transactions during the Ptole- 
maic period, and continued in use to the 3rd or 4 th century 
of our sera. 
The papyri exhibited present chiefly portions and extracts from the 
Ritual of the Dead, the small pictures in them referring to the subjects 
of the various chapters ; others are solar litanies and magical tracts. 
Amongst them is a caricature, and a treatise on arithmetic and geometry,' 
one on medicine, with recipes of the age of Cheops, the romantic tale 
of a doomed prince, songs, dirges, criminal reports, and several con- 
tracts or deeds of sale and a marriage contract in the demotic character. 
At the top of the staircase is the 
EGYPTIAN ANTEROOM. 
On the walls are placed casts from sculptured and coloured 
bas-reliefs in Egypt, painted in imitation of the originals. 
The principal are as follows : — 
Bas-relief from the North wall of the great edifice at Karnak, 
representing the victories of King Seti I. over the Tahennu, a people 
who dwelt to the North-west of Egypt. — Bas-reliefs taken from the 
tombs of Seti I., Seti II., and other kings of the 19th dynasty, 
in the Biban-el-Molook, or valley of the tombs of the kings, at Thebes. 
— Bas-reliefs from several portions of a fallen obelisk of red granite at 
Karnak, and some large Egyptian wooden cofiBns. 
To the right, or South side, is the 
FIRST EGYPTIAN ROOM. 
In this, and in part of the next room, are placed the 
smaller antiquities of Egypt. Most of these have been disco- 
vered in tombs, and owe their remarkable preservation to the 
