But before this publication, thanks to the efforts of Thomas Young in England, and Champollion in France, the hieroglyphics had been deciphered, and at last the almost inexhaustible word treasures of Egypt were made available as witnesses for history. Very naturally, a large number of explorers entered the field, and from that day till this there has been no dearth of Egyptologists either in the field of exploration or of interpretation. Prominent among these in the first half of the century were the pupils of Champollion, the Italians, Rossellini and Salvolini. But the most important work, perhaps, was done by the German, Lepsius, who came to be recognised as the foremost Egyptologist of his time, and whose _Denkmäler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien_ is still one of the most monumental works on the subject. In England, Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson took up the study of Egyptian life in particular, and deduced from the inscriptions of the monuments and from the pictures a comprehensive understanding of Egyptian manners and customs. The various workers at the British Museum, beginning with Birch and continuing with Renouf and with E. A. Wallis Budge, have added an ever increasing complement to our knowledge of Egyptian archæology. The country of Champollion has been ably represented in more recent time by Mariette and Maspero; while in Germany, Dümichen, Meyer, and Wiedemann have worked and written exhaustively, the former with special reference to archæology, the two latter with reference to history. But no one else perhaps has given quite such attention to the language of old Egypt as Professor Adolf Erman. The field that Wilkinson occupied earlier in the century has also been entered by Professor Erman, and the most recent and authoritative studies of Egyptian manners and customs are those that he has deduced from the papyri and the monumental inscriptions. Wilkinson depended largely upon pictorial representations for his information, but Erman has been able to go beyond these to the subtler and sometimes more illuminative written records. As to the early history of Egypt, no one else has made such exhaustive studies as Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie, whose publications cover a wide range, from the most technical to the relatively popular. For a strictly popular presentation of the subject, however, the works of George Ebers, of Baron Bunsen, and of Amelia B. Edwards should be consulted, together with the books of Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson and the works of Professor Adolf Erman. A more comprehensive account of these writers and their labours, together with reasonably complete bibliographies of the entire subject, will be found at the close of the history of Egypt. The character of the materials with which the Egyptologists have worked in creating a new history of one of the oldest civilisations, will be revealed as we proceed.