DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3720#0212
YOUNG'S RESEARCHES INTO THE DEMOTIC. 195
kings of Egypt. Lacour, a French savant, in 1S21, thought that
they contained Biblical phrases.1 The same year, so prolific in
works on hieroglyphics, saw also the work of Senkler,2 who
had advanced to the idea that the hieroglyphs represented
metaphorically the ideas of the sounds of the objects which
they represented, like what is called a rebus—a very near
approach to the truth; but the translations of Senkler, full of
philosophical and mythological ideas in very verbose style, are
false.3 Amidst this mass of error and contradiction, the
application of the phonetic principle by Young, in 1818, had
all the merit of an original discovery. Professor Vater had
suggested to him that the unknown language of the Bosetta
stone was capable of being resolved into an alphabet of thirty
letters. His attention was, however, aroused, in 1814, by
some papyri brought to England by Sir "W. E. Boughton; and
he communicated some anonymous observations on the en-
chorial writing, to the Society of Antiquaries4 in the summer
of that year, which, however, did not appear in print till 1817,
and were followed by others in 1818. His mode of analysis
was peculiarly clumsy, considering that means so available were
at hand. The method of his investigation was rather mecha-
nical than scientific. Having ascertained within certain bounds
the relative positions of the enchorial groups, or words, he
tried to determine in the same manner the hieroglyphical; but
this was by no means so easy, as he discovered that the
versions were paraphrases, not literal translations ; and it was
1 Essai sur les Hieroglyplies, Svo, Bourdeaux, 1S21.
- Auflosung und Erklarungsversuch der zehn hieroglypliiscen Gemaelde auf
■cinem Aegyptien Mumienkasten in dem Kaiserl. Koniglicli Antiken-Cabinet zu
Wien, in the Isis Journal, 1821.
3 Allgemeine Encyclopaedic der Wissenscliaften und Kunst, 4to, Lips. 1826,
ii. sect. 13, Theil, s. 183, u. f. Hieroglyphen.
4 Archreologia, 1817, xvii. GO.
o 2
kings of Egypt. Lacour, a French savant, in 1S21, thought that
they contained Biblical phrases.1 The same year, so prolific in
works on hieroglyphics, saw also the work of Senkler,2 who
had advanced to the idea that the hieroglyphs represented
metaphorically the ideas of the sounds of the objects which
they represented, like what is called a rebus—a very near
approach to the truth; but the translations of Senkler, full of
philosophical and mythological ideas in very verbose style, are
false.3 Amidst this mass of error and contradiction, the
application of the phonetic principle by Young, in 1818, had
all the merit of an original discovery. Professor Vater had
suggested to him that the unknown language of the Bosetta
stone was capable of being resolved into an alphabet of thirty
letters. His attention was, however, aroused, in 1814, by
some papyri brought to England by Sir "W. E. Boughton; and
he communicated some anonymous observations on the en-
chorial writing, to the Society of Antiquaries4 in the summer
of that year, which, however, did not appear in print till 1817,
and were followed by others in 1818. His mode of analysis
was peculiarly clumsy, considering that means so available were
at hand. The method of his investigation was rather mecha-
nical than scientific. Having ascertained within certain bounds
the relative positions of the enchorial groups, or words, he
tried to determine in the same manner the hieroglyphical; but
this was by no means so easy, as he discovered that the
versions were paraphrases, not literal translations ; and it was
1 Essai sur les Hieroglyplies, Svo, Bourdeaux, 1S21.
- Auflosung und Erklarungsversuch der zehn hieroglypliiscen Gemaelde auf
■cinem Aegyptien Mumienkasten in dem Kaiserl. Koniglicli Antiken-Cabinet zu
Wien, in the Isis Journal, 1821.
3 Allgemeine Encyclopaedic der Wissenscliaften und Kunst, 4to, Lips. 1826,
ii. sect. 13, Theil, s. 183, u. f. Hieroglyphen.
4 Archreologia, 1817, xvii. GO.
o 2