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The Value of Egyptological StudyAuthor(s): F. C. H. WendelSource: The Old and New Testament Student, Vol. 9, No. 5 (Nov., 1889), pp. 278-284Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3157412 .Accessed: 24/06/2013 13:44

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278 [Nov.,

Holy Ghost with the spirit of man, guaranteeing he reliable-ness of the record. That the record is absolutely devoid of

mistakes he author makes no claim to know, but that it issubstantially rue, s veracious, trustworthy nd historical,the inquiry hroughout bundantly maintains.

The Value of Egyptological tudy.

THE VALUE OF EGYPTOLOGICAL STUDY.By F. C. H. WENDEL, Ph.D.,

New York City.

So much has been done abroad of late years n Egyptology,that t may be well briefly osketch hehistory f this scienceand to call the attention f theologians and historians o the

value of Egyptological study.While Egypt was still a great power, while its beautifultongue was still living in the mouths of its people and wasstill cut into the stone and writ on the papyrus, no attemptwas made by the neighboring eoples to learn the Egyptianlanguage. The acquisition of foreign anguages was not apractice of the ancients. The Greeks, who were the mostintellectual ace that came into contact with the Egyptiansat a time when the old tongue was still spoken, contentedthemselves with appropriating what of science and art theyfound useful o themselves. The Phenicians, who had comeinto contact with Egypt long before the Greeks, while theyappropriated he art and alphabet of Egypt, yet were a purelycommercial people, little inclined to philological studies.Thus it happened that it was not until after the old tonguehad been dead for centuries that Horapollonmade the firstfutile ttempt o decipher the old monuments. In the middleages the study was again taken up; men like AthanasiusKircher applied themselves o it, but they met with no suc-cess. Their great mistake was that they looked upon thehieroglyphs s so many riddles that must be guessed. Thenonsense heyread out of the old monuments reatly discred-ited the new science and scholars urned to the Coptic, which

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1889] The Value of Egyptological tudy. 279

offered o paleographical difficulty, nd which, moreover, wasat the time still a living tongue.

Late in the last century new stimulus was given to thestudy by the discovery of the Rosetta stone August, 799).This was a decree of Ptolemy Epiphanes nscribed n a blockof black basalt n Greek, Demotic and Hieroglyphics. Schol-ars at once set to work t this nscription, nd two men, ThomasYoung, n English mathematician, and Franfois Champollion,French savant, ucceededat about the sametime 1819) n deci.phering a number of the royal names in the Hieroglyphic

portion nd in determining orrectly a number of the signs.Champollionwasthe more uccessful f the two, nd at the timeof his early death, n 1832, he had unravelled hecomplicatedpaleography, had correctly given the contents of entireinscriptions nd papyri, nd had even written grammar hatlong remained unsurpassed. Under his successors the newscience languished and had all but lapsed into a dilettantestate, when Richard Lepsius, he celebrated German scholar,

appeared.He

placedthe science on a firm oundation

gainand did much to advance it by his famous publications, . g.,Das Totenbuch der Aegypter nach dem hierogl. Papyrus n

Turin, Die Chronologie der Aegypter, Konigsbuchder alten Aegypter, and many others. But his chief famerests on his Denkmtiler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien,published s a result f the Prussian xpedition he led throughEgypt 1842-45. A further esult of this expedition was thatit gave to Berlin one of the finest gyptian collections n theworld. Lepsius found many pupils and successors in Ger.many.* Preeminent mong his contemporaries tands Hein-rich Brugsch-Pacha, ho as a young man gained celebritythrough his Grammaire D6motique; of his later works thebest and most famous are his Hieroglyphisch-DemotischesWoerterbuch and his Dictionnaire Geographique, whilehis other writings nd many publications re of great valhe.Yohannes onDaimichen as made a number f valuable publi-cations and written volume on the geography of ancientEgypt. Ebers, known chiefly hrough his novels, has pub-lished a great medical papyrus. Erman, one of the youngestpupils of Lepsius, has gained celebrity through his Neu-

* His most serious opponent was G. Seyffarth, hom mention merely o statethat his system was utterly wrong.


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280 The Value of Egyptological tudy. [Nov.,

Aegyptische Grammatik and his Aegypten und Aegypt-isches Leben in Alterthum. Eduard Meyer ained celebrity

through his Ge'schichte des Alterthums, ol. I. and hisGeschichte Aegyptens; another historian is Wiedemann.In France, Chabas gained renown through publication andtranslation f papyri; A. Mariette-Bey uilt up the Museumof Boulaq and has published extensively; G. Maspero sundoubtedly he greatest living French Egyptologist; Revil-lout s the greatest living Demotic and Coptic scholar; andthe Vicomte e Rouge' may mention 'as one of the pioneerscholars in France. In

England, Goodwin,he translator f

papyri, and Dr. Samuel Birch, the editor of the SelectPapyri, were the pioneers of the new science, while LePageRenouf nd Flinders Petrie are the only living Egyptologistsof repute. Eduard Naville has gained a reputation both aseditor of the Book of the Dead and as an explorer. Manyothers ould be mentioned, ut the imits f this paper forbid.

Passing now to a discussion of the value of Egyptologicalstudy, we find t is of nterest o the theologian, he historianand the philologist.

The theologian will find here the oldest religion of theworld. Four thousand years before the Christian era theEgyptian religion was firmly stablished. The student ofreligious history an trace out here four thousand ears ofreligious development, while many features n the later relig-ious development point to the most primitive forms f wor-ship. Of course it is impossible here as elsewhere to tracehow the higher forms of religion were developed from helower; howpolydemonism rose from nimism nd howpoly-theism rose from polydemonism. But the student has onegreat advantage that he has nowhere else-the developmentlies clear before his eyes; he can take any one of the manyreligions of Egypt and trace it from ts earliest beginningsthrough its various forms f development. He can studyhere the growth of the earliest monotheism, ecessarily rude

and primitive hough t be, from more primitive polytheism.I refer here to the solar monotheism, heAten cult of Ameno-phis V. (cf.my paper, Prolegomena oan Historical Accountof the Egyptian Religion, in Proc. Am. Or. Soc., May, I889).But this is not the only advantage the theologian gains fromthe study of Egyptology. It is well known that the Egyptians


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S889] The Valueof Egyptological tudy. 281

exerted a powerful influence on the peoples living aboutthem. Among others he Hebrews came under his nfluence,and we can trace it in the Old Testament. I need only recallthe story of Abraham's ourney nto Egypt. On this passagethe Egyptian monuments hrow an unexpected light. Welearn from hem that t was quite customary or the nomads.living in Syria to enter the delta and obtain permission opasture their herds there. Thus we find n the tomb ofChenmhkteplived about 2000 B.C.)a representation f a bandof Syrians who came to beg of that dignitary permission oo

pasture their herds on Egyptian soil. The monuments lsothrow ight on the story of Joseph. Though we meet withthe name of Joseph nowhere on the Egyptian monuments;:yet we learn that arge numbers f foreign laves attained togreat eminence t the courts of some of the Egyptian kings(cf. Hebr. V., p. 112). Further the early part of Exodusstrongly hows Egyptian influence. It has also been con-tended that the decalogue was borrowed from gypt; and itmust be said that all of the ten commandments

maybe found

in the negative confession f the 125th hapter of the Book ofthe Dead.

When Christianity as still a young faith t was introducedinto Egypt, and made very rapid progress there. It was,moreover, largely modified by Egyptian thought. TheEgyptian neophyte naturally ntroduced nto his new religionmuch that was of Egyptian origin. Thus it has been statedthat the doctrine of the trinity s an addition made to theChristian aith by these Egyptian Christians. Whether hisdoctrine and some others be really of Egyptian origin isthe province f the philosopher f religion odetermine. Butit is only needful o refer o the many religious controversies.that were carried on in Egypt to show how active religiousthought was here in the formative eriod of the religion.

Again, there are extant n Coptic large numbers f apocry-pha and fragments f ecclesiastical history found nowhere

else. These writings re of great value to the theologian ndshould be carefully tudied. Especially the gnostic writingsare well represented, hief among them being the PistisSophia, published with Latin translation y Schwartze. TheCoptic translation of the Scriptures is important to the stu-dent of textual criticism, and this fact alone would make thestudy of Egyptology of incalculable value to the theologian.


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282 The Value of Egyptologicaltudy. [Nov.,

Of equally great value is the study to the historian. Al-ready the father f history, Herodotus, touched Egypt; he

gave a description of Egyptian manners and customs andincidentally reated of the history. He found many mitators,the chief mong whom were Hekataius of Abdera, DiodorosSiculus, Josephus, trabo and Pliny. These early writers llvisited Egypt as tourists nd while they accurately describewhat they aw,yet their historical otes are generall?j ntrust-worthy, being gleaned from guides and interpreters, hoknew very little themselves and whom the Greek touristsoften misunderstood. The first

great historyf

Egyptwas

written y an Egyptian, Manetho, who claims that he gainedhis knowledgefrom study of the monuments. Unfortunatelywe possessonly fragments f his work. For long years thesewriters, espite the great discrepancies among their works,were the only sources of Egyptian history. Since the deci-pherment of the hieroglyphics, he monuments hemselveshave been studied, nd the historical details of all of thesewriters have been found very naccurate and untrustworthy.The modern cholar s then entirely ependent n the monu-ments or correct history f Egypt, and it is of paramountimportance that he can read them himself. He has a vastfield here. For three thousand years he has an authentichistory, nd for nother thousand years he has the names ofthe kings. There are two great gaps in this history, ne atthe close of the VI. Dynasty (about 2500 B.C.), extendingpossibly over two or three centuries, nd one at the close ofthe XIII. Dynasty, xtending over about three or four cen-turies, the sb-called Hyksos period. But with these twoexceptions the historical narrative s continuous; kings andprivate citizens have combined o give to posterity n accu-rate and coherent account of the history nd civilization oftheir native and.

It is certainly no truism to say that Egypt is the cradle ofthe world's civilization. Back to old Egypt we must go to

find he first eginnings f the arts and sciences. Egypt wasthe teacher of Phoenicia, nd Phoenicia hatof Greece. Phoe-nicia was an apt pupil and she immediately aught otherswhat she had learnt. Her brightest pupil was Greece, whosoon surpassed her teacher and then went straight to thefountain-head for further nstruction, and she found it. To


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1889] The Valueof Egyptologicaltudy. 283

Egypt she was indebted for the first essons in medicine,mathematics nd astronomy; but Greece was no mere imita-

tor as Phoenicia had been. She improved upon her nstructorand in so doing she was herself busy builder on the grandedifice f human knowledge, he first oundation f which hadbeen laid by Egypt.

The philologist will find here a written anguage that xistedfor lmost five housandyears. He can study ts developmentf-rom he oldest form, written B.C. 2800to the Coptic, whichwas a living tongue until the seventeenth entury nd is stillthe

liturgic anguage of the Christian Church of Egypt. Wecount eight forms f the language:I. The Pyramid Texts discovered by Maspero in Pyramids

of Kings of the IV., V. and VI. Dynasties (3000-2500B.C.).The texts are, however, ertainly much older than even thetime of the IV. Dynasty 3000 B.C.), the orthography f thetexts being antiquated already in the official nd privateinscriptions f that early date.

2. Texts f the Old Empire300o-2500B.C.),

mostlynscrip-tions.

3. Texts of the Middle Empire. These subdivide into twoclasses in which the language is quite different: a) theinscriptions, hich have a peculiarly heavy and often nintel-ligible style; and (b) the language of some few papyri, whichdiffers grammatically nd linguistically from that of theinscriptions.

4. TheLanguageof the Transition eriod XVII. and XVIII.Dynasties, bout 1530-1320B.C.). The language here appearsin a new shape; the older forms ave mostly een thrown ff,but the new forms ave not as yet been fully developed.

5. The New Egyptian Language XIX. and XX. Dynasties,1320-oo000 B.C.). In this period the new forms ave assumeddefinite hape, though few old forms have been retained.

6. The Period of Decline (Iooo--about 800 B.C.). In thisperiod the language rapidly deteriorates.

7. Demotic(from bout VII. century n). The language hasreached its lowest ebb, the grammar s much the same as inCoptic; the difficulties re entirely aleographic n nature.

8. Coptic.These forms ll blend more or less. The greatest difference

observable is between the language of the Middle Empire


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284 The Value of Egyptological tudy. [Nov.,

and that of the Transition Period, and may be owing tothe Hyksos influence. The study of this linguistic develop-

ment s of the greatest interest o him who would acquainthimself with the laws of development n language.Enough has been said of the importance of this study to

the modern cholar, nd it might not be amiss to give here ashort ist of books from which the general reader can learnmuch, though full knowledge of the subject can be gainedonly from he study of the monuments hemselves. Booksonce valuable but now antiquated are: Bunsen's Egypt'sPlace in Universal

History,Wilkinson's Manners and Cus-

toms of the Ancient Egyptians, Brugsch's History of Egyptunder the Pharaohs, Birch's History of Egypt, Rawlin-son's History of Egypt, Records of the Past, and theEgyptological notes in Rawlinson's Herodotus. Of valueare: Adolph Erman: Aegypten und Aegyptisches Lebenim Alterthum; Ed. Meyer: Geschichte des Alterthums,'Vol. I, and Geschichte Aegyptens; Wiedemann: Aegypt-ische Geschichte Maspero: Histoire anciennedes Peuplesde' l'Orient, and Arch6ologie Rgyptienne; and Perrot etChipiez: Histoire de l'Art dans l'Antiquit6, Tome I.egypte.

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