History of Egypt From 330 B.C. To the Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12)Rappoport, A. S. (Angelo Solomon)
History
History of Egypt From 330 B.C. To the Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12)
Rappoport, A. S. (Angelo Solomon)
Egypt -- History
Another famous German who was interested in the study of Egyptology
was Baron Christian Bunsen (1791-1867). From early youth he showed the
instincts of a scholar, but was prevented for many years from leading a
scholar's life, owing to his active duties in the diplomatic service for
Prussia at Rome and London. During the years 1848--67, Bunsen brought
out the famous work called "Egypt's Place in Universal History,"
which Brugsch deemed to have contributed more than any other work in
popularising the subject of Egyptology.
Heinrich Carl Brugsch was born at Berlin in 1827 and died there in 1894.
Like Bunsen, he was a diplomatist and a scholar. He entered the
service of the Egyptian government, and merited the titles of bey
and subsequently of pasha. He became known as one of the foremost of
Egyptologists, and was the greatest authority of his day on Egyptian
writing. He wrote a work of standard authority, translated into English
under the title of "The History of Egypt under the Pharaohs." The
chronology of Egypt now in use is still based upon the system created by
Brugsch, which, though confessedly artificial, nevertheless is able to
meet the difficulties of the subject better than any other yet devised.
Among distinguished German Egyptologists must be mentioned Georg
Moritz Ebers (1839-96). He is best known by his far-famed novels, whose
subjects are taken from the history of ancient Egypt, perhaps the most
popular being "An Egyptian Princess." Besides these popular novels and a
valuable description of Egypt, Ebers also made personal explorations in
the country, and discovered at Thebes the great medical papyrus, which
is called the Papyrus Ebers. This remarkable document, to which he
devoted so much labour, is our chief source of information regarding
the practice of medicine as it existed, and would alone keep the name of
Ebers alive among Egyptologists.
The leading German Egyptologist of to-day is Dr. Adolf Erman, who was
born at Berlin in 1854. He is the worthy successor to Brugsch in the
chair of Egyptology at the University of Berlin, and is director of
the Berlin Egyptian Museum. His writings have had to do mainly with
grammatical and literary investigations. His editions of the "Romances
of Old Egypt" are models of scholarly interpretation. They give the
original hieratic text, with translation into Egyptian hieroglyphics,
into Latin and into German. Doctor Erman has not, however, confined his
labours to this strictly scholarly type of work, but has also written a
distinctly popular book on the life of the ancient Egyptians, which
is the most complete work that has appeared since the writings of
Wilkinson.
The memorable speech of Erman, delivered on the occasion of his election
as a member of the Berlin Academy, sets forth clearly the progress
made in the science of Egyptology and present-day tendencies. On that
occasion he said:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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