DOI article:
Griffith, Francis Ll.: Progress of Egyptology, [1]: Hieroglyphic Studies, etc., 1892-3
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.10054#0036
Progress of Egyptology.
Religion.
Mr. Renouf has interested a wide circle of readers by his translation of
the Booh of the Dead in the Proceedings of the Soc. of Bibl. Archaeology.
He has now reached the 56th chapter of Lepsius' edition. A theory
that the god Sepd represents the zodiacal light has been suggested by
Herr Gruson in an ingenious book on the latter subject (Tm Ileiche des
Liehtes). The theory has been supported by Dr. Heinrich Brugsch with
many arguments, and is apparently accepted by Mr. Renouf, 8.B.A.,
Proc. xv. p. 231. Professor Wiedemann has made a useful " Index of the
names of deities and demons occurring in the third division of Lepsius*
Denl-viiiler."
Philology.
It is hardly necessary to state that the vocabulary of the Egyptians
has been the object of many studies during the year; Benouf and the
Swedish scholar Piehl in the English publications, the powerful German
schools of Erman and Brugsch in many articles and dissertations, the
French, led by Maspero, Lefebure, and Loret, have done good work.
Grammatical researches have been few; but important publications are
again pending in Germany, from which country we have received so
much since Professor Erman began to practise and teach the accurate
methods of modern study. Demotic has progressed but little ; Professor
Revillout has been absorbed in his great edition of the new MS. of
Hyperides; but Professor J. J. Hess, of Freibourg, provides us with an
important publication for the year—a photographic facsimile, with an
excellent glossary, of a partly bilingual gnostic papyrus in the British
Museum. This will be of great value to students of demotic, but it much
needs a complete transcript of the text from the original to accompany
the facsimiles. The minute writing is often obscure in the photographs,
and it is to be hoped that Prof. Hess will be tempted to issue the tran-
scription as a supplement.
The Egyptian alphabet has been re-studied by Georg Steindorff in an
able paper contributed to the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen
Gesellschoft, as a prelude to a more extensive discussion of Egyptian
Phonology. The transliteration used in the German school, and adopted
by us for the Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey, is largely due to his
earlier studies.
It has hitherto been held that the Egyptians possessed two interchange-
able alphabetic signs for s, but the analogy of some Semitic alphabets
Religion.
Mr. Renouf has interested a wide circle of readers by his translation of
the Booh of the Dead in the Proceedings of the Soc. of Bibl. Archaeology.
He has now reached the 56th chapter of Lepsius' edition. A theory
that the god Sepd represents the zodiacal light has been suggested by
Herr Gruson in an ingenious book on the latter subject (Tm Ileiche des
Liehtes). The theory has been supported by Dr. Heinrich Brugsch with
many arguments, and is apparently accepted by Mr. Renouf, 8.B.A.,
Proc. xv. p. 231. Professor Wiedemann has made a useful " Index of the
names of deities and demons occurring in the third division of Lepsius*
Denl-viiiler."
Philology.
It is hardly necessary to state that the vocabulary of the Egyptians
has been the object of many studies during the year; Benouf and the
Swedish scholar Piehl in the English publications, the powerful German
schools of Erman and Brugsch in many articles and dissertations, the
French, led by Maspero, Lefebure, and Loret, have done good work.
Grammatical researches have been few; but important publications are
again pending in Germany, from which country we have received so
much since Professor Erman began to practise and teach the accurate
methods of modern study. Demotic has progressed but little ; Professor
Revillout has been absorbed in his great edition of the new MS. of
Hyperides; but Professor J. J. Hess, of Freibourg, provides us with an
important publication for the year—a photographic facsimile, with an
excellent glossary, of a partly bilingual gnostic papyrus in the British
Museum. This will be of great value to students of demotic, but it much
needs a complete transcript of the text from the original to accompany
the facsimiles. The minute writing is often obscure in the photographs,
and it is to be hoped that Prof. Hess will be tempted to issue the tran-
scription as a supplement.
The Egyptian alphabet has been re-studied by Georg Steindorff in an
able paper contributed to the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen
Gesellschoft, as a prelude to a more extensive discussion of Egyptian
Phonology. The transliteration used in the German school, and adopted
by us for the Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey, is largely due to his
earlier studies.
It has hitherto been held that the Egyptians possessed two interchange-
able alphabetic signs for s, but the analogy of some Semitic alphabets