DYNASTY XXX.—SEBENNYTE. Nekhthorheb (Nectanebo). Tether. Nekhtnebef. _This list, with some slight variations, follows that given by Sir Erasmus Wilson as an appendix to_ ‘EGYPT OF THE PAST.’ APPENDIX II. DECIPHERMENT OF THE HIEROGLYPHS. The idea long prevailed that the hieroglyphic characters were ideographic—_i.e._ that they represented ideas, not sounds; and any attempt at decipherment was hopeless. Before the end of last century, however, a hint had been thrown out that the characters might prove to be phonetic—_i.e._ representing sounds like the letters of our ordinary alphabets. And a further suggestion had been offered that the words enclosed within ovals might be the names of royal personages. But unless some means existed of comparing those names with the same names written in a known language, not a single hieroglyph could be read. The discovery of the Rosetta stone in 1799 supplied the means required. On that stone was engraved an inscription in three characters—the hieroglyphic, the demotic or popular Egyptian, and the Greek. Scholars, however, turned their attention at first rather to the comparison of the demotic and the Greek, as the idea still prevailed that the hieroglyphs were not phonetic. It happened, also, that the beginning of the hieroglyphic and the end of the Greek inscription were wanting, which added greatly to the difficulty of comparing the texts. Thus ‘the seals of the mysterious book were still unclosed’ when Champollion began his labours. He succeeded in identifying the names of Ptolemy and Cleopatra, and by comparing them with each other and with their Greek counterparts he identified ten letters which were clearly phonetic. The first and second characters in the king’s name were found in their right places in that of the queen, and the initial letter of Cleopatra did not occur in the name of Ptolemy, etc. By the examination and comparison of other proper names other letters were determined, and a phonetic alphabet gradually acquired. But the formidable task remained of examining, reducing to order, and deciphering the vast mass of characters that were still unread.