buted among the museums of London, Berlin, and
Gizeh. The writing on these tablets is cuneiform, and the matter is of
profound historic importance, illustrating, as it does, the relations
between Egypt and western Asia in the fifteenth century B.C. While the
existence of these tablets proves that cuneiform writing was common to
Palestine and Syria as well as the Euphrates Valley, yet curiously enough
the manuscripts of Tell Amarna are different from any of the same kind
that have been found elsewhere, and the language resembles somewhat the
Hebrew of the Old Testament.

While most of these tablets are letters and despatches from friendly
powers in Syria, and from vassal princes in Palestine, others contain
interesting legends. The letters are addressed to the Pharaohs known as
Amenophis III and Amenophis IV, who reigned in the sixteenth and fifteenth
centuries B.C.

The Egyptians employed what practically were three alphabets--the
hieroglyphic, the hieratic, and the demotic. The hieroglyph is a symbol,
denoting something without letters or syllables; as, pictures of a bee
stand for king. The hieratic handwriting was a transition from symbols to
primitive letters; the papyrus reed, cut in slices and gummed together,
was used as paper for this writing, much of which is very beautifully
executed in black and red inks. These papyri are constantly being
discovered, but perhaps the earliest "find" of importance was that at
Thebes in 1846, when a number of literary compositions were brought to
light which must have been executed during the twelfth dynasty, about
twenty-five centuries B.C.

The Egyptian Tales are works written in a lighter vein than the literature
we have already described. They will be read with delight, and none the
less so because they show that the Egyptians, who are the Chinese of the
Mediterranean, possess that saving quality in literary and political life,
namely, a sense of humor.

(signed) Epiphanius Wilson

THE BOOK OF THE DEAD

According to the Theban Recension

Translated by E. A. Wallis Budge, Litt.D., D.Lit., F.S.A.

A Hymn To The Setting Sun

A HYMN OF PRAISE TO RA WHEN HE RISETH UPON THE HORIZON, AND WHEN HE
SETTETH IN THE LAND OF LIFE. Osiris, the scribe Ani, saith:

"Homage to thee, O Ra, when thou risest [as] Tem-Heru-khuti
(Tem-Harmachis). Thou art adored [by me when] thy beauties are before mine
eyes, and [when thy] radiance [falle