D'Athanasi, Giovanni; Salt, Henry [Hrsg.]: A brief account of the researches and discoveries in Upper Egypt: To which is added a detailed catalogue of Mr. Salts collection of Egyptian antiquities (London, 1836)

80 TWO SPHINXES.

the deceased in the tombs, nor to the affairs of
the priests, but that they treat of scientific and
commercial matters. M. Champollion was of this
opinion; he declared it to me himself when he
was in Spain. In the collection which I brought
over to this country were some of the largest and
best of this description of papyrus, which I found
partly in Thebes and partly in Memphis. I do
not, however, imagine that their contents, in the
event of their being deciphered, are of a nature to
throw much light on Egyptian history.

If all the rare objects of antiquity which we
daily discovered in the course of our excavations
in Thebes had been destined for any one Museum,
the world might by this time have seen at one
view, the complete picture of Egypt as it was
centuries ago :—unfortunately, however, the case
is very different; the greater number of these
objects having been dispersed here and there
throughout the principal museums of Europe.
The two sphinxes which were discovered at the
temple of Memnon have been sold to Russia.
These collossal pieces are the most magnificent
and weighty that have ever been removed to the
European continent from Egypt. The head of
the younger Memnon, of which Belzoni boasted