THE BILINGUAL DECREES OF PHILAE. 45 
THE ROYAL SHRINE—Continued. 
HIEROGLYPHIC TEXT. DEMOTIC TEXT. 
12b I2b 
shn(t)} hr-tp |- [Rk)t-in m—s(wy)—n | sh(?)nt n—-nb X ?] | hr(?) nb(?) 
a(!) double crown ontop of [this shrine instead of | ten(?) golden double crowns?], ona éb-hieroglyph(?)> 
wrty wnt) hr-tp] e® wit—r'yi e(?)-h p- | [nf] hp 
the two (kinds of) uraei? which are on top of] being an uraeus-asp like that [whichis] proper 
: (or: custom) 
kiwt 'y—-[s?] e n'—shn[ti?|ew(!)  n—nb(?) [n-z2 
the (ordinary) shrines, to make for the double crowns!] of gold [upon 
12d 
r(l)? shn(t) i-git = n-t-sbyt(?) tE‘r'ywt =| nil kpr 
(there) being (that) double crown the shrine instead of the uraeus-asps which] are 
m  hr-b —-()r(y)w zr—nit psd e-228 = [p-sp g,(wt)]. 
in the middle thereof, since (there) resplended | upon [the rest of the shrines]. 
n—st byty Ptw,rwmys Nt(u) (2) p-shnt(2)e(!) | hpr® n(?) t-mtét 
the king of Upper and L. Egypt, Ptolemy, (There) shall(?) the double crown be _ inthe middle 
‘nh a | Pth mr *m—f r(?) n mn-—sh(?)nt(1)w nt-e nt(u)f® nt—é 
living forever, beloved of Ptah, with it towards (?)* | of the crowns which is the (one) (with) which 

‘This orthography imitates the demotic form. It seems to betray that, in some parts of Egypt, and / began 
to be confounded as in Coptic pronunciation; also a popular etymology from s/n: ‘‘command”’ seems to underlie. 
In Ros., the sign 7d, originally the basis for the crown and not to be pronounced, has been detached erroneously(?) ; 
this reading, which our text avoids, might also be interpreted as “‘a double crown with a lord-sign (zd) under- 
neath.’”’ See note 5 on the demotic text for a possibility of finding this sense also there. ‘The demotic orthography 
in Ros. tries to distinguish shnt(i) as the ordinary, shnt(7) as the archaizing, solemn form of the word for “crown,” 
but fails in this distinction. See also above, on demotic line, p. 43, note 7, on the orthographic difficulties which 
this word gave to the scribes. 
? With allusion to the mythological double character of the uraeus serpents. ‘That the ornamental crowns 
_were to be ten (as Ros. states in the Greek and demotic text) is not expressed here and, consequently, does 
neither seem to have been expressed in the hieroglyphic text of Ros., which furnishes, in general, a very poor 
description of those details compared with the demotic version. 
* E(r) stands erroneously for the correct e(w) of Ros. as in the demotic parallel and often. 
* We should expect m ‘‘in” (Ros. 10) and the 7 might be disfigured from this (see above, rzf) but it is also 
possible that the writer, having in mind the demotic expression /‘ e(7) ‘‘ going in procession towards,” really meant 
(e)r “towards,” as written above. 
° The text is very puzzling. The model text (Ros. demot. 25) reads: ‘“‘and that be given (i e., placed) twin 
golden king’s crowns” (shnt n nb X (n) pr-’). The place on which those crowns are to be placed (i. e., the shrine) 
follows (1. 26). The unusual expression “‘of a king, royal’’ agrees with the Greek text, line 43: ras rou Bacthéws 
xpucas Baotdelas déxa, in which that expression seems doubly strange to us, being already contained in the likewise 
unusual word Baovdeia “‘sign of royalty, royal crown.” The demotic text of Phile, 726, could be brought into 
an approximative agreement by reading “‘king’”’ and seeing before it “‘gold” as a disfigured sign (or X?). I 
believe, however, that I recognize n— either as original reading instead of “king” or as half-finished correction of 
the latter word, and have tried to restore this sense, whether it be original or an improvement, after these traces 
and the hieroglyphic text. Cp. directly below (136) the same word, as nbé. This interpretation leads to assum- 
ing an exceptional independence of the demotic Phile text and can not be considered as quite certain, but 
the possibility of such a correction deserves,attention. 
-® Rather common, faulty orthography for ¢. See on the hieroglyphic parallel. 
7’The engraver made the e too vertical or, rather, treated s and e m— as a doublet. 
8 The traces look like this rather than like the ir—zz of Ros. 26. Notice the variants with /ir—, n—, and e-. 
*’ The e before hpr seems accidental or abandoned from “ which (e) is.” 
” An interesting parallel to Ros. dem. 26, which confirms the reading entof in that text and tries to express itself 
more clearly than the original decree, correcting the short relative e— before the verb to an apparent repetition mt-é. 
