An account of some recent discoveries in hieroglyphical literature, and Egyptian antiquities : $b including the author's original alphabet, as extended by Mr. Champollion, with a translation of five unpublished Greek and Egyptian manuscriptsYoung, Thomas
History
An account of some recent discoveries in hieroglyphical literature, and Egyptian antiquities : $b including the author's original alphabet, as extended by Mr. Champollion, with a translation of five unpublished Greek and Egyptian manuscripts
Young, Thomas
Egyptian language -- Writing, Hieroglyphic
“The tablet of the last judgment, which is so well illustrated by
the testimony of Diodorus concerning the funerals of the Egyptians,
is found near the end of almost all the manuscripts upon papyrus,
that are so frequently discovered in the coffins of the mummies, and
among others in Lord Mountnorris’s hieratic manuscript, printed in the
collection of the Egyptian Society. The great deity sits on the left,
holding the hook and the whip or fan; his name and titles are generally
placed over him; but this part of the present manuscript is a little
injured. Before him is a kind of mace, supporting something like the
skin of a leopard; then a female Cerberus, and on a shelf over her
head, the tetrad of termini, which have been already distinguished by
the names “Tetrarcha,” Anubis, Macedo, and “Hieracion,” each having
had his appropriate denomination written over his head. Behind the
Cerberis stands Thoth, with his style and tablet, having just begun
to write. Over his head, in two columns, we find his name and titles,
including his designation as a scribe. The balance follows, with a
little baboon as a kind of genius, sitting on it. Under the beam stand
“Cteristes” and “Hyperion” [supposed by Mr. Champollion to be Anubis
and Horus], who are employed in adjusting the equipoise; but their
names in this manuscript are omitted. The five columns over the balance
are only remarkable as containing, in this instance, the characteristic
phrase, or the name of the deceased, intermixed with other characters.
Beyond the balance stands a female, holding the sceptre of Isis, who
seems to be called Rhea, the wife of the Sun. She is looking back at
the personage, who holds up his hand as a mark of respect, and who
is identified as the deceased by the name simply placed over him,
without any exordium. He is followed by a second goddess, who is also
holding up her hands, in token of respect; and whose name looks like
a personification of honour or glory, unless it is simply intended to
signify “a divine priestess,” belonging to the order of the Pterophori,
mentioned on the Rosetta stone. The forty two assessors, [noticed by
Diodorus and by these manuscripts], are wanting in this tablet; and,
in many other manuscripts their number is curtailed, to make room for
other subjects; but, in several of those which are engraved in the
_Déscription de l’Egypte_, they are all represented, sometimes as
sitting figures, and sometimes standing as termini, with their feet
united.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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