As a reproduction of the Rosetta decree, however, the Philæ version is incomplete. The Rosetta text, after setting forth with official pomposity the victories and munificence of the king--Ptolemy V, the ever-living, the avenger of Egypt--concludes by ordaining that the record thereof shall be engraven in hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek characters, and set up in all temples of the first, second, and third class throughout the empire. Broken and battered as it is, the precious black basalt[56] of the British Museum fulfills these conditions. The three writings are there. But at Philæ, though the original hieroglyphic and demotic texts are reproduced almost verbatim, the priceless Greek transcript is wanting. It is provided for, as upon the Rosetta stone, in the preamble. Space has been left for it at the bottom of the tablet. We even fancied we could here and there distinguish traces of red ink where the lines should come. But not one word of it has ever been cut into the surface of the stone. Taken by itself, there is nothing strange in this omission; but, taken in connection with a precisely similar omission in another inscription a few yards distant, it becomes something more than a coincidence. This second inscription is cut upon the face of a block of living rock which forms part of the foundation of the easternmost tower of the second propylon. Having enumerated certain grants of land made to the temple by Ptolemies VI and VII, it concludes, like the first, by decreeing that this record of the royal bounty shall be engraven in the hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek; that is to say: in the ancient sacred writing of the priests, the ordinary script of the people, and the language of the court. But here again the sculptor has left his work unfinished. Here again the inscription breaks off at the end of the demotic, leaving a blank space for the third transcript. This second omission suggests intentional neglect; and the motive for such neglect would not be far to seek. The tongue of the dominant race is likely enough to have been unpopular among the old noble and sacerdotal families; and it may well be that the priesthood of Philæ, secure in their distant solitary isle, could with impunity evade a clause which their brethren of the Delta were obliged to obey.