• Le vétéran, Y.

26. Nous ferons, nous aurons soin, etc. D'autres textes mettent aussi cette formule obséquieuse dans la bouche d'ouvriers promettant d'exécuter les ordres qui leur sont donnés.

27. Il est constant., le fait est que; c'est une tournure qui donne plus de force affirmative à la phrase.

28. Fais qu'on te le rende..

gative est

Fais qu'il te soit rendu. Je considère

comme un impératif dont la forme né

Mais je répète ici ce que

j'ai dit plus haut relativement à l'obscurité de la phrase

finale de la lettre.

In Sharpe's first series of Egyptian Inscriptions', there is a copy of a very fragmentary and mutilated inscription, from a stone now preserved in the British Museum, which has not, as far as I know, been thoroughly studied, but which, imperfect as it is, presents several points of much interest to the Egyptologist. M. Sharpe styles it: An unfinished and mutilated slab of the reign of Sevechus (Sabacon); but a careful inspection shows that only the two upper horizontal lines properly belong to the time of this king, while the perpendicular columns beneath, of which there must originally have been about sixty, were only restored by him, and are of a far earlier date.

The top line contains (or contained) the name and

1 Plates 36, 37 and 38.

titles of king Shabaka Neferkara, the Sabacon of Manetho, the first monarch of the Ethiopian (XXVth) dynasty, whose reign, according to Dr Lepsius, began B. C. 716. The family name, Sabaka, has

been erased, but the throne name o ‡, Ra-neferka

has been suffered to remain, and, from this and the minor titles which are perfect, we find to whom the inscription belongs.

The second horizontal ine begins thus:

Bullá

M

From this we learn that the inscription beneath was of great antiquity and that it had become more or less

Ch. 163 of the Ritual. That Chapter is said to have the effect of defending the flesh and bones of the deceased

The determinative w points to the original and proper meaning of the word, namely worms or destructive animals, just as we find in coptic aoqaeq, tineæ, moths (egypt.), used also to express corruption, putrefaction or corrosion. But supposing that worms and not corrosion be intended in the inscription before us, we are led to infer that the original inscription was written upon wood, and that what we have now engraved upon stone is merely a copy of as much of it as could be made out in the time of Sabako, and which was by him caused to be engraved upon the harder material. The gaps which have apparently been left in some of the columns, and which have led M. Sharpe to define the inscription as unfinished favour this conclusion. The latter part of the second horizontal line is as follows:

Tota (nen), qui dat vitam æternam.

ad patrem Ptah

It appears from this that the slab stood in the temple of Ptah at Memphis. The restoration of the inscription by Sabaco shows that it was considered to contain matter

of uncommon interest, and one may conjecture that there was something in it favorable to the titles and claims of the Ethiopian usurper, who here assumes the character of a genuine Pharao, a son of the Sun and a descendant of Ptah.

But alas! the inscription, after having been renovated, has suffered more woful mutilation than it did in its primitive state. The whole central part of it, comprising more than five and twenty columns, has been wholly obliterated, apparently in modern times. It is also clear that we do not possess the commencement of the text, which may possibly have been written on another slab. We cannot therefore determine what particular interest Sabaco had in repairing this venerable monument, and perhaps he may have had no further view than to gain favour with the priests by shewing himself a zealous conservator of historical antiquities.

Let us now examine the inscription itself. The first part of it is contained in Plate 38 of M. Sharpe's work. There is space in the page for twenty columns, but only the first eleven remain in a tolerably perfect state.

The twenty columns which should have filled Plate 37 are obliterated with the exception of a word or two. In Plate 36 we have the remains of twenty columns, of which the first seven are more or less obliterated, and of the remainder several appear to have been left in an unperfect state when the restoration was made.

Some necessary rectifications being made, the text begins as follows: