E G 
ffae medulla of this plant glued to each other, with the fibres 
made to crofs, to give greater confidence to the leaf. It 
may alfo be feen that the writing goes from right to left. 
The hieroglyphic defign here reprefented is an ottering 
made by a pried to Ifis, in the form of a cow ; whole 
liead is drefled like the human figures of that deity ; be- 
fides having a kind of yoke about her neck, which I have 
alfo met with around the god Apis, in an hidorical bas- 
relief in the temple of Medinet-Abu, at Thebes. The 
frame upon which the cow, or Ifis dands, is perhaps an 
altar; beneath which the figure of a mummy is depicted, 
intended perhaps to reprefent Nature in a dormant date. 
Above the cow- is a dilk with eagle wing, whence a fer- 
pent, the emblem of divine power, is defeending. The 
pried is clothed in a white driped tunic, which covers 
his body from his loins down to the mid-leg ; it is fadened 
by draps, pading round his right flioulder, which other- 
wife is as naked as his arms; on his head he has a clofe- 
-fitting cap, which looks fomew'hat like a helmet, and is 
rounded off at the ears, leaving them bare : he holds in 
his hand a vafe, containing two fpecies of flowers, which 
I have often feen, without being able to make out what 
they are. Above the figures is an infeription compofed 
of feven vertical and four horizontal lines: the writing 
is here different from the red of the manufeript, and the 
charaiffers appear to be infinitely varied and numerous ; 
Ibrne of the emblematical figures, met with in other 
places, may be here didinguifhed, fuch as the ferpent, the 
eye, and birds ; but thefe are mixed with others that 
feem to be purely conventional, and exhibit no kind of 
image. The lines at the bottom exhibit an ur.mixed 
fpecimen of the true Egyptian written language. 
“ In copying the whole manufeript I have found the 
return of entire phrafes, and particular charariers, fo 
often repeated, that they can be only articles, conjunc¬ 
tions, or auxiliary verbs : from thefe, it would be eafy 
for thofe perfons who devote themfelves to this kind of 
ffudy, to compofe alphabets, or groups of words, which 
may aflid in the general explanation ; and a fingle one of 
thefe manuferipts would furniflt the whole of the fet of 
characters, if each character only expreffed a fingle letter. 
This manufeript belongs to the fird conful, who has been 
pleafed to allow me the life of it. ,J —From the feveral 
fragments of manuferipts collected in Egypt by the French 
literati, it is ardently to be hoped and expedited that their 
dialect may yet be recovered. With refpeCt to their 
hieroglyphics, it is really wonderful, that in a country 
where this mydical writing was fo long in ufe, it fliould 
now be wholly lod, even to the natives themfelves, and 
not a perfon exiding in the world who can be found to 
decypher or explain the connexion and meaning of thofe 
fymbolical characters. 
It is generally agreed that the Egyptian fymbolical 
writing, or hieroglyphics, was greatly anterior to their 
alphabetical character. They are faid to have fird ufed 
letters fimilar to the Ethiopic, which approach nearly to 
thofe of the Hebrew; but, after all the refearches that 
have been made, there appears nothing certain or decifive, 
either with regard to their language, or its characters. 
Dr. Edmund Fry, in his Pantographia, publidied in 
1799, has given feven different alphabets which are called 
Egyptian. The fird and fecond are on the authority of 
Thefeus Ambrofius, and are deemed the mod ancient; 
an affection which implies many revolutions in the people 
and the government; but of which hidory is totally fi- 
lent. The third is given by Fournier, under the title of 
IJiac-Egyptien , which he informs us was attributed to the 
goddefs Ids. The fourth is called by Fournier Lettres 
Sdcrees ; and he fays the characters were invented by the 
godThoth: this is mere fable. The fifth is faid, by 
Duret and Fournier, to be a character explanatory of 
their fymbolical or hieroglyphic alphabet; but for this 
opinion there does not appear either reafon or authority. 
The frxth was difeovered by the abbe Barthelemi, under 
a monument in Egypt; and is very different from all the 
Vgl. VI. No. 357, 
Y P T. 373 
preceding. The feventh alphabet differs entirely front 
all the others, both in the form of its characters, and in 
the mode of placing them, being written, like the He¬ 
brew, from right to left ; for which reafon Dr. Bryant 
feems to have confidered it as mod likely to be the true 
one ; and on this ground he is of opinion, that their hie- 
roglyphics, and all their manuferipts, are to be read back¬ 
ward : but this, like all the red, is mere conjecture. It 
is however to be noticed, that the fird letter of all thefe 
alphabets, is .the A, whereas Pauw afferts, that the fird 
letter of the true Egyptian alphabet was the T, but in 
that given by Barthelemi, the T is placed lad, and the Z 
the fixth. It is dill more remarkable, that neither of the 
alphabets above-mentioned Gorrefpond in the form of 
their characters with the manuferipts recently difeovered 
in Egypt by the French literati. Bee the annexed en¬ 
graving of the manufeript found under the fwathings of 
a mummy in the necropolis of the ancient Memphis ; 
from which it will appear that the Egyptians fometimes 
wrote in a vertical direction, as well as in the horizontal. 
Bochart mud have been wholly unacquainted with the 
antiquities of Egypt, when he afferted that the Hebrew 
was the elded of nations. Abraham, who lived fix hun¬ 
dred years before the Trojan war, on his paffing into 
Egypt, found it a great and flouriflting kingdom; and 
the Jews do not pretend to trace their origin, as a people, 
higher than Abraham. As to Bochart’s fecond affertion, 
that the Egyptians borrowed their arts and faiences front 
tlie Jews, it will be lufficient to obferve that, at the time 
of Abraham’s vifit, the great pyramid was Banding ; this 
pyramid exhibits a correCt meridian, the contrivance c£ 
an adronomer far advanced in the fcience ; and the build¬ 
ing itfelf could not have been raifed without a co.nfumv 
mate knowledge of mechanics. The facility with which: 
the Egyptians raifed thofe immenfe obelifks which formed 
avenues to their temples, and which of courfe lejft little 
room for the working of engines, brings to fliame the 
complicated machinery employed by Fontana in erecting 
the obelifk before the church of St. Peter at Rome. 
Even the Romans, notwithdanding their boaded improve¬ 
ment in the arts, and defpairing to equal the Egyptiaa 
architects, thought it a fufficient honour to borrow from 
that people the mod fplendid ornaments of their capital. 
When Octavius, afterwards Augudus Crefar, had re¬ 
duced Egypt to a Roman province, he caufed a pair of 
thefe obelifks to be tranfported to the imperial city ; but 
thinking it impracticable to move a third, which is faid 
to have afforded employment to twenty thoufand men 
in the reign of Ramifes, he fuffered it to remain without 
moledation. Condantius, however, effected what Au¬ 
gudus durd not undertake, and actually ordered this du- 
pendous monument to be carried to Rome. Thefe obe- 
lifks formerly abounded in every part of Egypt : their 
fliape was that of a quadrangular taper fpire, terminating 
in a point, to ferve as an ornament to fome open fquare, 
or to form avenues to their temples, or a fumptuous en¬ 
trance to their cities. Their pofition was perpendicular, 
and their decorations confided of fuch inferiptions and. 
hieroglyphics as were commonly ufed by the Egyptians 
for the purpofe ofdifplaying the myderies of their reli¬ 
gion. The pair of obelifks now Banding at the entrance 
of Luxor, as fhewn in the preceding engraving, affords 
an ample fpecimen of this majedic decoration. 
Among the proofs of their high antiquity, great and 
early advances in the fciences, particularly in adronomy, 
are the mod decifive. The Egyptians knew, at a very 
early period, that the fun was fixed, a common center ta 
the earth and planets, which move around it. They 
gave the fird hint of the fublime idea of every Bar being 
a fun to a fydem like our own. Nor did they Bop fliort 
of the invedigation of comets, which they held to be 
planets, moving in orbits fimilar, but eccentrical, to our 
fydem. It is admitted that the Jews, on their coming 
out of Egypt, one thoufand five hundred years before 
our era, brought with them the Egyptian year of twelve 
j C , lunar 
