FROM ROSETTA IN EGYPT TO EARNECA IN CYPRUS. 185 
the statues of Isis may yet be recognized in the features of the 
Egyptian women, and particularly in those of Rosetta, when 
they can be prevailed upon to lay aside their veils. Upon the 
sands around the city may be seen the scarahcens pilularius , 
or rolling beetle, as sculptured upon the obelisks and other 
antiquities of the country, moving before it a ball of dung, 
wherein it deposits an egg. Uhe natural history of this little 
insect exhibits, in a surprising manner, the force of that incom¬ 
prehensible emanation of the mundane soul, to which we give 
the name of instinct. With the ancients it was a type of the 
sun. We often find it figured among the characters used in 
hieroglyphic writing. As it makes its physical appearance in 
that season of the year immediately preceding the inundation of 
the Nile, it may have been so represented as a symbol,, general¬ 
ly, of the spring, of fecundity , or of the Egyptian month anteri¬ 
or to the rising of the water.* An argument for the second"hy- 
the stone. By this also it appears, that an officer of the name of Bouchard made the 
discovery. 
“ Parmi les travaux fortifications que le Citoyen d’Hautpoul, chef de bataillon du 
rg6nie, a fait faire a 1’ancien Fort du Raschid, nomme aujourd’hui Fort Jalien, situe 
sur la rive gauche du N it, a trois mi lie toisesfilu Bogha^de la branche de Rosette, il a 
etc trouve, dans des fouilles, une pierre d’un tres beau granit ncir, d’un grain tres fin, 
tres dure au marteau. Les dimensions sont de 36 polices de hauteur, de 28 pouces de 
largeur,et de 9 a 10 pouces d’epaisseur. tine seule face bienpolie offre trois inscrip¬ 
tions distinetes etseparees en trois bandes paralleles. La premiere etsuperieure est 
ecrite en caractdres Jiuroglyphiques : on y trouve quatorze lignes de caracteres, iriais 
dont une partie est perdue par une cassure dela pierre. La seconds et intermediate 
est en caracteres que 1’on droit etre Syriaque\ on y compte trente deux lignes. La- 
troisieme et la derniere est ecrite en Grecon y compte cinquante qua.tre lignes de 
carecteres tres fins, tres bien sculptes, et qui com.me ceux des deux autres inscrip¬ 
tions siipdrieures, sent tres bien conserves. 
“ Le General Menou a fait faire traduire en partie l’incription Greque. Elle porte 
en substance que Ptolemy Pkilopater fit rouvrir tons les canaux de, VEgypte , et que ce 
prince employ a a ces immens'es travaux tin hombre tr&s considerable d'ouvriers, des sommes. 
irnmenses et liuit anuees de ion regne. Cette pierre ofFre un grand interet pour 1’etude 
des caracteres hieroglyptiiques ; peut etre meme en donnera-t-elle enfin la clef. 
“ La Citoyen Bouchard, officier du corps de genie, qui sous les ordres du Citoyen 
d’Hautpoul, conduisuit les travayx du Fortdu Raschid , a bien voulu se charger de faire 
transporter cette pierre au Kai're. Elle est maintenant a Boulag.” Courier de 
VEgypte, Mb. 37. p. 3. Au Xairc, de VImprimcrie JSationale. 
* There are other reasons for believing it the sign of an epocha, or date ; and among 
these may be particularly stated the manner,of its occasional introduction in the apices 
of Egyptian obelisks, beginning their inscriptions according to the style of the translat¬ 
ed legend upon the Rosetta stone. With such evidence, ,we have, perhaps, something 
beyond mere conjecture for its illustration. We there find the promulgation and 
commemoration of a decree, inscribed in hieroglyphic characters, opening with a 
date : ** On the y k day of the month Xandicus , and the 18 ih of tjie Egyptian M&cheirA 
There seems to be as little reason for doubting that the characters upon Egyptian 
©belisks were used to register transactions, according to annals preserved by the 
priests of the country , ai that the pillar of Forres in Scotland, similarly inscribed, 
and other more ancient Gaelic monuments, were erected to record public events. 
Yet the learned Kircher, upon the authority of Plutarch, explains this symbol in a 
more abstract manner ; and to his illustration, tlie natural history of the insect offers 
■very remarkable support. He considers it as a type of the Ahirna Mundi , or Giver of 
Light. Inasmuch as every sign used in the writings of the priests had a mystical as 
■well as a literal signification, this may be true concerning its sacred and original im¬ 
port. The figure of Aries , used to denote the month of March, had also, among the 
ancients, its mythological signification. The image of the scarabaus was worn as ary 
amulet both by Egyptians and by Greeks; and so was the head the ram. “ Scarab&i 
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