Eastern Life. Harriet Martineau

except the Libyans, no people were so blessed in point of health and temperament:²⁹ and he repeatedly records traits of their cleanliness, and nicety with regard to food and habits. It does not appear that they were insensible or reconciled to the plague of indigenous insects, as natives usually are, and especially Africans; for he tells us of their sleeping under nets to avoid the mosquitoes.³⁰ Their dress was of linen, with fringes round the legs,³¹ – and over this they wore a cloak of white wool, which must be laid aside before they entered the temples; – or the tomb; for it was not permitted to bury in woollen garments. Every man had but one wife:³² and the women were clearly in that state of freedom which must be supposed to exist where female sovereignty was a matter of course in its turn. Herodotus tells that the women went into the market, and conducted commerce while the men stayed at home to weave cloth.³³ He speaks of them as a serious-minded and most religious people. »They are very religious«, he says, »and surpass all men in the worship they render to the gods.«³⁴ He tells of their great repugnance to the customs of the Greeks and of all other men;³⁵ and everywhere attests the originality of the Egyptians, and their having given truth, knowledge, and customs to others, without having themselves derived from any.

      One of the most interesting inquiries to us is about the language of these people. To form any idea of the labours of modern interpreters of the monuments, we must remember that they have not only to read the perfectly singular cipher of these writers on stone, but to find their very language. Of course, the only hope is in the study of the Coptic: and the Coptic became almost a dead language in the twelfth century of our era, and entirely so in the seventeenth, after having been for ages corrupted by the admixture of foreign terms going on at the same time with the loss of old native ones. Egypt never had any permanent colonies in which her language might be preserved during the ages when one foreign power after another took possession of her valley, and rendered the language of her people compound and corrupt. Without repeating here the long and well-known story of the progress of discovery of the ancient language, it is enough to give the results thus far attained.

      The key, not only to the cipher but to the language, was afforded by the discovery of the same inscription written, as the inscription itself declared, in two languages and three characters – the Greek, the Enchorial or ordinary Egyptian writing, and the old sacred character. The most ancient was found to bear a close relation to the Coptic, as then known: a relation, probably, as has been observed by a recent writer,³⁶ »similar to that which the Latin does to the Italian, the Zend to the modern Persian, or the Sanscrit to many of the vernacular dialects now spoken in India.« This key was applied with wonderful sagacity and ingenuity by Champollion the younger, who proceeded a good deal further than reading the names and titles of the kings and their officers. He ventured upon introducing or deciphering (whichever it may be called) many words not to be found in the later Coptic, except in their supposed roots, nor, of course, anywhere else. The great difficulty is, that the language having, by lapse of ages, lost its original power of grammatical inflexion, a quality which it seems scarcely possible to restore, the relations of ideas in a sentence, which in the more modern Coptic are expressed by auxiliary terms, must be disposed by conjecture, or by doubtful internal comparison and analogy. It is easy to see how thus, while names and titles and all declaratory terms may be read, when once the alphabet is secured, all beyond must be in a high degree conjectural, at least till the stock of terms is largely increased. The stock is on the increase, however. Champollion made a noble beginning; Dr. Lepsius has corrected him in some important instances; and the Chevalier Bunsen has offered a Lexicon of the old Egyptian language, placing above four hundred words in comparison with the known Coptic, This is a supply which will go a good way in reading the legends on the monuments; by which process, again, we may be helped to more. The very singular nature of the alphabet being once understood, and the beginning of a Lexicon being supplied, there seems reason to hope that the process of discovery may be carried on by the application of one fresh mind after another to the task which all must see to be as important as any which can occupy the human faculties. Or, if all do not see this, it must be from insufficient knowledge of the facts: insufficient knowledge of the amount of the records, of their antiquity, and of their general nature. When the traveller gazes at vast buildings covered over in every part with writing; every architrave, every abacus, every recess, and every projection, all the lines of the cornice, and all the intervals of the sculptures, he is overwhelmed with the sense of the immensity of knowledge locked up from him before his eyes. Let those at home imagine the ecclesiastical history of Christendom written up thus on every inch of the surface of its cathedrals, and the civil history of any country, from its earliest times, thus engraved on all its public buildings and palaces, and he may form some conception of what it would be, in regard to mere amount, to be able to read the inscriptions in Egypt. If he is also aware that the religion, philosophy, and science of the world for many thousand years, a religion, philosophy, and science which reveal a greater nobleness, depth, and extent, the more they are explored, are recorded there, under our very eyes and hands, he will see that no nobler task awaits any lover of truth and of his race, than that of enabling mankind to read these earliest volumes of its own history.

      And the world has no other resource in regard to this object. There is no doubt about the ancient Egyptians having had an extensive written literature: but it is lost. It was shelved when the Greek language and literature became the fashion in Egypt: and previous circumstances had been unfavourable to the preservation of the rolls of goat and sheep skins, and the papyri, which contained the best thoughts of the best men of five or six thousand years ago. We may mourn over this; – we must mourn, for it is certain that they knew things that we are yet ignorant of, and that they could do things which we can only wonder at: but the records are lost, and no man can help it now. There has been later damage, too, clearly traceable. We know how early Christianity was introduced into Egypt: and all who have been there have seen how indefatigable the early Christians were in destroying everything relating to the ancient people and their faith that they could lay their hands on. Again, the Emperor Severus carefully collected the writings which related to the mysteries of the priests, and buried them in the tomb of Alexander. And again, Diocletian ordered all the Egyptian books on alchemy to be destroyed, lest these makers of gold should become too rich to remain dependent on Rome. Thus scarcely a vestige of the ancient writing on destructible substances remains, and the monumental records are our only resource. While we take to heart the terrible loss, let us take to heart also the value of the resource, and search for the charm which may remove the spell of dumbness from these eloquent old teachers. Perhaps the solemn Memnon may yet respond if touched by the warm bright rays of zeal and intelligence, and the great Valley may take up the echoes from end to end. And this is a case where he who gives his labour quickly gives twice. Time is a more efficient defacer than even the Coptic Christians: and the indefatigable enemy, the Desert, can bury old records on a vaster scale than any Severus. There are rulers bearing sway, too, who are not more enlightened than the mischievous Diocletian.

      As for the Egyptian method of recording the language, there were three kinds of writing: the Hieroglyphic or picture writing; the Hieratic – an abridged form of the hieroglyphic, used by the priests for their records; and the Enchorial, in popular use, which appears to be a still further abridgment of the Hieratic, whose signs have flowed into a running hand. Written language is found among the very earliest memorials of this most ancient people.

      As for their social organisation, we know more of it than of most particulars concerning them. The most important, however, in the state appears to have been that of the caste of Priests. The monarch must be of that class. If a member of the next (the military) caste was made king, he must first become a priest.³⁷ – Herodotus says that Egyptian society was composed of seven castes; Plato says six;³⁸ Diodorus Siculus says five.³⁹ The classification of Herodotus is so strange that it is clear that he included under his titles some division of employments which we do not understand. He declares⁴⁰ the seven classes to be the Priests, the Military, the Herdsmen, the Swineherds, the Tradesmen, the Interpreters, and the Pilots and Seamen. The classification of Diodorus will help us better. He gives us the Priests, the Military, the Husbandmen, the Tradesmen and Artificers, and, lowest of all, the Shepherds; and with them the Poulterers, Fishermen, and Servants. The division indicates much of the national mind, as I need not point out. We must remember, throughout our study