United States or Belgium ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Wendell Phillips, numerous works on Oriental art, from the imperial governments of Japan and China, and many thousand folio volumes of Parliamentary papers and British patents, from the British government. Of its Orientalia and its department of Egyptology the library is especially proud. The latter so good an authority as Professor Seyffarth pronounces second only to that of the British Museum.
All she asked of fate at present was the continuance of their unique friendship and the life which she found so absorbingly interesting. A year ago she had longed to come to Egypt, but a year ago she had never dreamed that she would become so thrilled with the excavating of a tomb which had been made for a man who probably lived before Moses. The human side of Egyptology was being revealed to her.
Suffice it here that Young gained the first clew to a few of the phonetic values of the Egyptian symbols, and that the work of discovery was carried on and vastly extended by the Frenchman Champollion, a little later, with the result that the firm foundations of the modern science of Egyptology were laid.
That question cannot at the present time be fully answered. Even should it be proved, as it appears likely to be, that Egyptian civilisation was derived originally from Mesopotamia, much will still be dark and enigmatical. The foremost scholars in Egyptology confess that no history of Egyptian religion can as yet be written.
My pupils can bear witness that during my long period of teaching I always strove to urge students who intended to devote themselves to Egyptology first to strengthen the foundations, without which the special structure lacks support. Lepsius's plan of instruction provided that I should follow these principles from the beginning. The task I had to perform was a great and difficult one.
They set off towards Hampstead, but after a while they found themselves returning to Bloomsbury. They could not keep away from the house.... They tried to eat a meal at the Vienna Café, but they could not swallow the food, so they paid their bill and went away. They wandered into the British Museum, and tried to interest themselves in Egyptology....
A., in a paper read before the Diatribical Society, six weeks before, and it was manifestly at variance with the canon laid down by his friend, Dr. B., as a fundamental test of knowledge and common-sense in the domain of Egyptology. Thus discord was sown between Dr. A. and Dr. B., and the seed instantly sprang up, and put an end to all that was useful or amicable in that evening's discussion.
There is doubtless truth in this complaint, but it should be urged against the natural growth of the science, and not against the personal influence of individuals or its development. The state through which Egyptology is now passing is one from which no science escapes. It is a reaction against the enthusiasm and the rapid advance of its early days.
My second friend was a young Pole who devoted himself eagerly to Egyptology, and whom Lepsius had introduced as a professional comrade. So, during those hard winters, I did not lack friendship. But they also wove into my life something else which lends their memory a melancholy charm.
It seemed more than doubtful whether my health would ever permit me to devote myself to a practical profession or an academic career, and my interest in jurisprudence was too slight to have it allure me to make it the subject of theoretical studies. Egyptology, on the contrary, not only attracted me but permitted me to devote my whole strength to it so far as my health would allow.
Word Of The Day