414 Decree of the Egyptian Priefts in Honour of Ptolomy V. [June f, 
On the HIEROGLYPHIC verfton of this 
Decree; little light can probably be thrown: 
im its prefent condition it is fadly muti- 
Fated ; and apparently no lefs than nine or 
ten of the firft lines have been broken 
away. The opening, had it been pre- 
ferved, might poflibly have led the way 
to fome dilcovery ; or convinced us, once 
for all, that the avenues to that knowledge 
which has been fo long perplexed, are at 
Faft thut againft us for ever. Religious 
Emblemry has been a ftriking article 
among the many national peculiarities of 
Egypt, froma period probably antecedent 
even to the time of Mofes. It was at 
firit eftablifhed in a few of the more 
fimple and obvious analogies which were 
. reprefented as the lively mirrors of divine 
perfection ; was afterward extended to 
faéts in nature or morals; and, in the lapfe 
ef time, found by no means foreign to the 
prefervation of hiftoric documents. Yet fo 
abitrufe and recendite were thefe allufive 
fymbols, that they were intelligible even 
then to none but thofe who had accefs to 
the volumes of the facred fcribes, 
By fome of the learned, the fymbolic 
writing, exhibited in the Rofetta Decree, 
ts thought to have been but of a fecon-’ 
o . 
dary fpecies, for that there ‘were mare 
kinds. than one in ufe among thole who 
compolfed the hierarchy of Egypt, is ad- 
mitted by the oldeft{ and molt authentic 
writers. Herodotus, indeed, only {pecifies 
the facred and the vulgar kinds of writing: 
CAiPeacioscs oe YORALATE nepewvlacs nob 
TO [AEH COUTW, b0%, TH Gb, ONMoTINE 
zaAterot. Euterpe xxxvi.)} that ufed by 
the priefts, and that by the inhabitants of 
the country at large: and in this, Diodo- 
rus Siculus agrees with him, who ob- 
ferves, Tlasivecs Ob Tes vies ob [43Y begets 
yeupynctla. owla, Th TE bEQd. LANE LEVER HOLS 
Ta nowolecay exoura tv wobnow. Cle- 
rnens Alexandrinus, and Porphyry, how- 
ever, remark three forts of letters; the 
ene (Stromata, lib.v.) {peaks of the epifa 
hoeraphic, the hieratic, and the hieorogly- 
phic; (avtma ov Tae Aryurtioss warevo-~ 
PPEVOE “ar gaNroyyeeY Tavioy Ti Asyurlioy 
YELULLATOY pefodoy exuawvavect, THV ETS 0~ 
AoyerPinny zsASwevny. deutegeey oe FHy 
HEOAT ILIV, v7] MEVYT As Gb bECCYEAIAUATELS” 
vyearny Of was TEALUTAIAY, THY seeoyAUPs- 
xqu) and the other, in the Life of Pytha- 
garas, flates, that the philofopher was in- 
ftruéted not only im the wifdom, but in 
the language, of the country; and enu- 
merates, in a particular manner, the three 
fpecies of letters the knowledge cf which 
Pythagoras obtained; the epifolic, the 
Luvoglyphic, and the fymbelic. 
In the fixth line of thofe which remain 
of the hieroglyphic portion, is a human 
figure with the head of Apis ; among the 
fymbols which follow is a hand and arm; 
and foon after a bird, and apparently two 
mummies: from their pofition on the ftone 
they appear to correfpond with the tnirty~ 
firit and thirty-fecond lines of the Greck; 
where Ptolomy is reprefented as making 
many gifts to Apis, Mnevis, and the 
other facred animals, and fupplying every 
thing requifite for their funeral folemar- 
ties. 
Detached conje&tures, however, on the 
mere face of the infcription, without in- 
veftigating the qualiies and fclations of 
the particular fymbols, would necdlefsly, 
occupy the place of that which may be 
advanced on o:her parts of the infeription 
with fomething more like moral certainty. 
hus much, however, feems certain, that 
they who have had their doubts whether 
the {acred feulpture cvery formed a regu- 
Jar difcourfe, appear to have been mii- 
taken. 
The VERNACULAR, or Coptic part af 
the Decree, (as it was at firft called,) has 
had two commentators: M, de Sacy, to 
whom the world has been lang indebted 
on the fcore of oriental literature, and 
Mr, Akerblad, a learned Swede. De Sacy, 
in his letter to Citizen Chaptal, minifter 
of the interior, thought he had difcovered 
fifteen of the letters, and feveral of the 
proper names. In the fourth line of the 
Greek, and the third of the Egyptian, he 
found the name of Alexander, bearing a 
{trong refemblance to the word 4lexan- 
dria, in the feventeenth Greek line, and 
the tenth of the Vernacular. The name 
anf{wering to Prolomy he believed himfelf 
to have found in Aftuclma; Arfnoé im 
-Arfinioua ; and a word very like the mo- 
dern Coptic abnoudi or abnouda for god, 
between the Greek words TiroAguoss 
EmiQave, anfwering to Qcoc. Where in 
the Greek, Orus is faid to be the fon ef 
Ifis and Ofiris, De Sacy found in the 
Egyptian If oub Ofnih; but was unable 
to difcover correfponding names to Bere- 
nice, Pyrra, Pnilinus, Diogenes, and 
others, in the fourth and fifth iines of the 
Greek. Mr. Akerblacd, who took the ~ 
fame method purfued by Barthélemy in 
the Palmyrenian difcoveries, endeavoured 
to confine himfelf to alphabetical analyfis ; 
and, though he coincides with De Sacy in 
the names themfelves, effentially differs 
from him in the dittribution of the letters. 
The firft of the three names already men- 
tioned, he reads ptlomeos, and finds Ar/invé 
and dlexantros written, with the excep- 
tion. 
