DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12609#0009
PREFACE.
For two thousand years Egypt has been a region of
antiquarian research. So far however from being-
exhausted, the mine seems still but just opened.
From the conquest by the Moslems down to our
own century Egypt remained an inaccessible land of
romance and mystery, — her vast monumental re-
mains almost unknown, her hieroglyphics the theme
of fanciful and cabalistic speculation. At length
Young and Champollion, rejecting theories for facts,
discovered the long-lost clue to interpretation, and
now, graven on the imperishable monuments of the
Thebaic!, her records faithfully deliver up their
secrets, three thousand years after the heroes com-
memorated have slept in their tombs.
In our own island anything claiming an antiquity
of a thousand years is allowed to be very ancient.
At Rome a monument of this age is antique rather
than ancient. Two thousand years are there ad-
mitted as high antiquity. But in the land of Ham,
a 2
For two thousand years Egypt has been a region of
antiquarian research. So far however from being-
exhausted, the mine seems still but just opened.
From the conquest by the Moslems down to our
own century Egypt remained an inaccessible land of
romance and mystery, — her vast monumental re-
mains almost unknown, her hieroglyphics the theme
of fanciful and cabalistic speculation. At length
Young and Champollion, rejecting theories for facts,
discovered the long-lost clue to interpretation, and
now, graven on the imperishable monuments of the
Thebaic!, her records faithfully deliver up their
secrets, three thousand years after the heroes com-
memorated have slept in their tombs.
In our own island anything claiming an antiquity
of a thousand years is allowed to be very ancient.
At Rome a monument of this age is antique rather
than ancient. Two thousand years are there ad-
mitted as high antiquity. But in the land of Ham,
a 2