ve existed
among the nations of antiquity."

[Illustration: 318.jpg TAILPIECE]

[Illustration: 318b.jpg PHOENICIAN JEWLERY]

[Illustration: 321.jpg PAGE IMAGE]

CHAPTER VII--THE DEVELOPMENT OF EGYPTOLOGY

_Mariette, Wilkinson, Bunsen, Brugsch, and Ebers: Erman's speech on
Egyptology: The Egypt Exploration Fund: Maspero's investigations: The
Temple of Bubastis: Ancient record of "Israel": American interest in
Egyptology._

Accompanying Napoleon's army of invasion in Egypt was a band of savants
representative of every art and science, through whom the conqueror
hoped to make known the topography and antiquities of Egypt to the
European world. The result of their researches was the famous work
called "Description de l'Egypte," published under the direction of the
French Academy in twenty-four volumes of text, and twelve volumes of
plates. Through this magnificent production the Western world received
its first initiation into the mysteries of the wonderful civilisation
which had flourished so many centuries ago, on the banks of the Nile.
Egypt has continued to yield an ever-increasing harvest of antiquities,
which, owing to the dry climate and the sand in which they have been
buried, are many of them in a marvellous state of preservation. From
the correlation of these discoveries the new science of Egyptology
has sprung, which has many different branches, relating either to
hieroglyphics, chronology, or archaeology proper.

The earliest and most helpful of all the discoveries was that of the
famous Rosetta Stone, found by a French artillery officer in 1799,
while Napoleon's soldiers were excavating preparatory to erecting
fortifications at Fort St. Julien. The deciphering of its trilingual
inscriptions was the greatest literary feat of modern times, in which
Dr. Thomas Young and J. F. Champollion share almost equal honours.

Jean Francois Champollion (1790-1832) is perhaps the most famous of
the early students of Egyptian hieroglyphs. After writing his "_De
l'ecriture hieratique des anciens egyptiens_" at Paris, he produced in
1824 in two volumes, his "_Precis du systeme hieroglyphique des anciens
egyptiens,_" on which his fame largely depends, as he was the first to
furnish any practical system of deciphering the symbolic writing, which
was to disclose to the waiting world Egyptian history, literature, and
civilisation. Champollion wrote many other works relating to Egypt, and
may truly be consider