Discoveries in Egypt, Ethiopia and the peninsula of Sinai, in the years 1842-1845, during the mission sent out by his majesty, Frederick William IV of Prussia.Lepsius, Richard
History
Discoveries in Egypt, Ethiopia and the peninsula of Sinai, in the years 1842-1845, during the mission sent out by his majesty, Frederick William IV of Prussia.
The quantity of Greek inscriptions at Philae is innumerable, and
Letronne will be interested to hear that I have found on the base of the
second obelisk, still in its own place, of which a portion only went to
England with the other obelisk, the remains of a Greek inscription
written in red, and perhaps once gilt, like those lately discovered on
the base in England, but which is, of course, extremely difficult to
decipher. That the hieroglyphical inscriptions of the obelisks, which I
myself copied in Dorsetshire, besides the Greek on the base, and
subsequently published in my Egyptian Atlas, have nothing to do with the
Greek inscriptions, and were also not contemporaneously set up, I have
already stated in a letter to Letronne; but whether the inscription on
the second base had not some connection with that of the first is still
a question; the correspondence of the three known inscriptions seems
certainly to be settled.
The principal temple of the island was dedicated to Isis. She alone is
named “Lady of Philek;” Osiris was only Θεὸς σύνναος, which is
peculiarly expressed in the hieroglyphics, and is only exceptionally
called “Lord of Philek;” but he was “Lord of Ph-i-uêb,” _i. e._ Abaton,
and Isis, who was σύνναος there, is only occasionally called “Lady of
Ph-i-uêb.” From this it is evident that the famous grave of Osiris was
upon his own island of Phiuêb, and not on Philek. Both places are
distinctly indicated as islands by their determinations. It is therefore
not to be thought that the Abaton of the inscriptions and historians was
a particular place on the island of Philae; it was an island in itself.
So also do Diodorus and Plutarch intimate by their expression πρὸς
Φίλαις. Diodorus decidedly refers to the island with the grave of Osiris
as a distinct island, which was named ἱερὸν πεδίον, “the holy field,” by
reason of this grave. This is a translation of Ph-i-uêb, or Ph-ih-uêb
(for the h is also found expressed hieroglyphically), Koptic
[Illustration: Koptic] Ph-iah-uêb, “the sacred field.”[63] This
consecrated place was an Abaton, and unapproachable except for the
priests.
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