DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4668#0062
44 The House of Osiris. [Ch.
l)uildings stand clearly forth to attest their
pristine majesty; the canons of the kings
may be consulted in their original records;
and the errors made by careless scribes, who
thought no mortal eye would ever look upon
the papyri concealed within the breast of the
mummy, stand detected by the hieroglyphic
scholarship of Europe.
A peculiar fascination surrounds every de-
tail of life in early Egypt. For all other
empires can be assigned with more or less
certainty some point of historic origin. For
China, for Assyria, for even Babylonia, we can
dimly discern the traces of rude beginnings.
The days of Romulus or of Kekrops are but
the Middle Ages of history when compared
with the days of Khufu or of Mena. India does
not claim for her earliest Yedas an antitpiity
exceeding four thousand years. The sacred
writings of China count less than a thousand
more; the beginning of Babylonia about a
thousand still beyond. On the banks of the
l)uildings stand clearly forth to attest their
pristine majesty; the canons of the kings
may be consulted in their original records;
and the errors made by careless scribes, who
thought no mortal eye would ever look upon
the papyri concealed within the breast of the
mummy, stand detected by the hieroglyphic
scholarship of Europe.
A peculiar fascination surrounds every de-
tail of life in early Egypt. For all other
empires can be assigned with more or less
certainty some point of historic origin. For
China, for Assyria, for even Babylonia, we can
dimly discern the traces of rude beginnings.
The days of Romulus or of Kekrops are but
the Middle Ages of history when compared
with the days of Khufu or of Mena. India does
not claim for her earliest Yedas an antitpiity
exceeding four thousand years. The sacred
writings of China count less than a thousand
more; the beginning of Babylonia about a
thousand still beyond. On the banks of the