fleshy and muscular, and express admirably the idea of strength in a state of repose, which was probably the motive of the original design. The lion reclining on his right side is better preserved about the haunches than the other, and the stone is more highly polished; yet there seems no reason to doubt that the two were intended to form a pair. The material is a coarse-grained granite, with large pieces of feldspar, with black mica and quartz. The mane in front is inscribed with the prenomen and name of Amen-Asro, who is supposed to have been an Ethiopian monarch, and the base with a dedication to a King called Ra-neb-ma from his grandson Amenoph III. (Memnon), in whose reign it must have been sculptured.

The lion which is lying on his right side has the hieroglyphics only on the vertical front face of the plinth; and several of the cartouches have been purposely damaged, which does not appear to be the case with the other, so far as we can judge from the parts which are not broken off. It is probable that they were both excavated from the quarries at Tumbus.

4. SARCOPHAGI.

The British Museum contains several remarkable specimens of these funereal monuments, which, when carved out of stone, were generally used as the last and outer coverings of the body; though seldom, owing to its costliness, except by Kings or very wealthy persons. Such sarcophagi generally consist of two parts; the case containing the body, formed of one piece of stone and open at the top; and the lid which covered the opening. In some of the specimens in the Museum Collection the cover is wanting, but others are complete. The sarcophagus was generally a plain massive chest ; but occasionally it was carved somewhat in the shape of the mummy to be deposited within it, with the human face, &c., sculptured on the outside. These last were not, impossibly, actual substitutes for the cheaper and more common cases of wood, while the more massive ones, on the other hand, were adapted to contain the cases.

The first sarcophagus we shall describe is No. 10, and is called "The chest of the Sarcophagus of the Monarch Her-nechthebi, (supposed to be either Amyrtæus or Nectabes,) of the Twenty-eighth Dynasty." It was found, according to the French, who first discovered it, in the court-yard of the Mosque of S. Athanasius, at Alexandria, where it was looked on by the Turks with considerable veneration. Its material is a breccia from a quarry near Thebes, and resembles that called in Italy breccia verde. It is a composite stone, in many cases admitting a high degree of

polish, and very difficult to work: hence its rarity among Egyptian remains. This is a very remarkable specimen; and the carving on it is so minute that, in more than one instance, as many as twelve hieroglyphics may be found within the space of one square inch : the whole surface, which is more than 100 feet square, is said to contain in all 21,700 characters. It is about ten feet three inches long, and varies from nine to ten inches in thickness, and is sculptured within and without with figures of men and animals; the Hieroglyphics, however, on the inside are not so numerous as on the outside. The celebrated traveller, Dr. Clarke, fancied that this was the identical sarcophagus which once contained the body of Alexander the Great; but we do not think he has made out his case in the paper which he wrote on the subject, while there is no doubt that the stone case itself was not made for Alexander, but for another person who lived at least a century before his time. There are, however, some curious coincidences in the story of Alexander's funeral, taken in connection with the subsequent traditions, and it is just possible that the secondary use of this sarcophagus may have been that which Dr. Clarke has imagined.

We know that Alexander died at Babylon, and that his body was embalmed after his death; that, after two years which were spent in preparing a suitable vehicle for it, it was conveyed to Egypt, and eventually taken by Ptolemæus, the Son of Lagos, to Alexandria, instead of to the Temple of Jupiter Ammon; and that a temenos was constructed for the body of the Macedonian King, who became the Hero of the city he had founded, and was honoured in after times with periodical sacrifices and festivals. It appears, too, that the body was still in Alexandria when Strabo visited Egypt, though no longer in its original case, which had been stolen by one of the later Ptolemies; that Augustus ordered the corpse to be brought from the Tomb, and that he placed a golden crown and flowers upon it, paying adoration to the great Founder of the city. The tradition that the remains of Alexander were still within the walls of Alexandria lasted to the time of the French occupation of Egypt, at the close of the last Century.

On the other hand, we know that the bodies of the Ptolemaic Princes were embalmed and buried within the same building, and it is just as likely that the sarcophagus was used for one of them as for the remains of Alexander the Great; while the Hieroglyphic name, which has been read upon the monument, is that of Amyrtæus, one of the Saite Dynasty, who reigned from B.C. 414 to B.C. 408. The Muhammedan tradition that the body of Alexander was still in

Alexandria prevailed as late as the time of Leo Africanus, in the Sixteenth Century of our æra; but this alone would not prove anything at all in favour of Dr. Clarke's theory.'

Another monument of considerable interest, from the excellency of the workmanship on it, is No. 23, called the "chest of the Sarcophagus of Hapimen, a Royal Scribe." It is carved in black granite, and was discovered at Cairo, where it had been used by the Turks for a cistern. It occupied a niche under the steps of a mosque in one of the small squares of that city, and served as the basin of a fountain popularly called the "Lover's Fountain," it being believed that its waters had the power of curing love.

No. 32 is a remarkably perfect specimen of the large chest-formed sarcophagi, carved in black basalt. On its cover is a bas-relief of the goddess Athor, and in the interior the Sun, and the Heaven represented as a Female: at the bottom is another representation of the goddess Athor. It does not appear to have been satisfactorily determined for whom this sarcophagus was made. The inscriptions on it are for the most part addresses to different Deities: but among them the Queen of Amasis, of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, is mentioned, who is called the daughter of King Psammetichus and his wife Nitocris. This sarcophagus was discovered in an excavation 130 feet deep, behind the Palace of Rameses II., at Thebes.

5. THE OBELISKS.

The Obelisks are among the most characteristic specimens of Egyptian art, and directly connected with the system of architecture which prevailed in Egypt. The Obelisk is, properly, a single shaft of stone cut into a quadrilateral form, the horizontal width of which diminishes by a gentle gradation from the base to the summit, where the four sides make a sudden angle, converging to one apex, so as to form a small pyramid, or pyramidion. Originally, and when of a large size, they were generally placed in pairs opposite the entrances to the temples. In this position their peculiar form produced an imposing effect. Rising from their base in one unbroken line, they enable the eye to take in their whole height without check or interruption, while the absence of small lines of division allows the mind to be fully impressed with the colossal unity

1 The hieroglyphical subjects on the so-called tomb of Alexander of the passage of the sun in his boat through the liquid ether at the twelve hours of the day and night-with explanatory legends-subjects constantly found on the tombs at Thebes.

of the mass. The tapering form gives lightness, and the pyramidal termination has in itself an agreeable effect. Let any one but compare the relative effects produced on him by pyramidal shapes of the obelisk and that of the single column (such as that called Cleopatra's Needle with the Monument in London), and the far greater beauty of the former will be at once perceived. It has been well remarked that for a single object of large dimensions, a pillar with its extended base and heavy capital is one of the worst forms, and that some of the high chimneys attached to our manufactories produce a more pleasing and striking effect than the Monument of London could produce in any position.

Obelisks vary very much in their size, from that of the gigantic one at Luxor to that of the two small ones in the Museum; but the principle on which they have been constructed appears to be the same in all of them.

The two broken obelisks in the British Museum were brought by the French from Cairo. They must have been, originally, of small dimensions, the side of the base of each, as they now stand, being only 17 inches. Their material is a fine black basalt, admitting a high polish, and the figures which are cut upon them show that the artist has been well aware of the excellence of the material on which he was exercising his skill.

6. INSCRIBED SLABS.

The Inscribed Slab commonly called the ROSETTA STONE, NO. 24, is, beyond all question, the most valuable relic of Egyptian history which has survived the ravages of time, and the key to our present knowledge of the interpretation of the Hieroglyphical legends.

This stone was found in 1799 by M. Bouchard, a French officer of engineers, in digging the foundation of a house near Fort S. Ju-. lien, not far from the Rosetta mouth of the Nile, among the remains of an ancient temple dedicated by Pharaoh Necho to the god Necho: it came into the hands of the English by the sixteenth article of the capitulation of Alexandria, which required that all objects of art collected by the French Institute in Egypt should be delivered up to the English. The Rosetta Stone was among the objects so claimed, and was therefore conveyed from the house of the French commander, General Menou, whose private property it had become, by General Sir Hilgrove Turner, at the command of Lord Hutchinson. It was placed on board the frigate Egyptienne, which had been taken in the harbour of Alexandria, and confided to the care of Ge

Y

neral Turner, who came home in her in the beginning of 1802. Before he left Egypt, General Turner had been informed that a similar stone existed at Menouf, but that the inscription was nearly obliterated by the earthen jugs which had been placed on it, as it stood near the water, and also that there was a fragment of another built into the walls of the French fortification of Alexandria.

The stone itself is a piece of black basalt, in its present state much mutilated, chiefly at the top and on its right side. Its greatest length is about 3 feet, and its greatest breadth is about 2 feet 5 inches. The under part of the stone, which is not inscribed, is left rough: in thickness it varies from 10 to 12 inches.

On its arrival in England it immediately attracted attention; a copy of it was published by the Society of Antiquaries. The Greek and Demotic inscriptions were examined by Porson, De Sacy, Akerblad, and Dr. Young, whose sagacity in decyphering the name of Ptolemy in the Hieroglyphical portion afforded the key to the subsequently more extended and fruitful labours of Champollion the Younger.

Its peculiar value philologically consists almost wholly in this fact, that the inscriptions on it are a triple copy (bilingual, but tri-literal) of the same document; the languages being Egyptian and Greek, and the characters with which it is inscribed being the Hieroglyphic, Demotic, and Greek, arranged in this order-the Hieroglyphic at the top, the Demotic in the middle, and the Greek at the bottom. The larger portion of the Hieroglyphic legend is broken off; about fifteen lines of the Demotic are also wanting, and the end of the Greek inscription is mutilated. It is obvious, therefore, that the labour of interpretation is greatly increased, and that there are difficulties in limine which no amount of critical acumen on the part of those who might attempt to decipher it could overcome.

The ROSETTA STONE is a Record and Decree set up in the reign of Ptolemæus V. Epiphanes, probably about the year B.C. 196, in the twelfth year of his life, and the ninth of his reign; and the principal historical facts mentioned on it are the birth of the King on the 8th of October B.C. 209; the troubles in Egypt, and the decease of his father Philopator; the attack of Antiochus by sea and land; the siege of Lycopolis; the inundation of the Nile, August 12, B.C. 198; the chastisement of the revolters; the coronation of the King at Memphis, March 26, B.C. 196; and the issue of the Decree itself the following day. On the monument, the acts done by the Prince during his minority are attributed to him; he is commended for his piety, his liberality to the temples, his remission of arrears of taxes, and diminution of the