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 Champollion, with a translation of five unpublished Greek and Egyptian manuscriptsYoung, Thomas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 Champollion, with a translation of five unpublished Greek and Egyptian manuscripts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
Important, however, as are the additions that are likely to be made
to our knowledge by means of this “Antigraph”, it is by no means the
only valuable acquisition for which we are indebted to the enterprise
and the diligence of Mr. Grey: a second papyrus, of considerably
greater magnitude, contains three Egyptian conveyances in the enchorial
character, with separate registries on the margin, in very legible
Greek. These are not only of use for the illustration of other similar
documents, but they afford us also many additional examples of
enchorial proper names, besides a general idea of the subjects of the
respective manuscripts, all of which relate to the sale of lands in the
neighbourhood of Thebes. It will be most convenient to consider them as
parts of a series, of which those are the first to be examined, that
are the most capable of affording an independent testimony; beginning
with the Greek papyrus in the possession of Mr. Anastasy, the Swedish
consul at Alexandria, and proceeding to the Antigraph and its original,
and thence to the three enchorial manuscripts, which are also the
property of Mr. Grey. It is scarcely conceivable, by a person who has
not made the experiment; how much the difficulty of reading a depraved
character is almost universally diminished by the comparison of two
or three copies of the same or of similar passages; the words, which
would be wholly unintelligible in either taken singly, being often very
easily legible when both are at once under the eye; and, still more
commonly, a word which is confused or contracted in one, being written
clearly or at length in another.
It is in this manner, that several of the deficiencies of the
manuscript of Anastasy, as edited by the learned and ingenious
Professor Böckh of Berlin, have been in some measure supplied, in
the late republication at Paris, by the care of Mr. Jomard, from a
comparison with the Greek manuscripts purchased of Mr. Casati, in order
to be added to the unrivalled treasures of literature contained in the
King’s library and cabinet. Several more of the obscurities of this
manuscript, if not the whole, I flatter myself are now removed, by the
further comparison, which I have attempted to make, by means of Mr.
Grey’s indulgence in allowing me the use of his manuscripts; and by
means of the duplicate which I have received from Paris in exchange
for the registry of his Antigraph.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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