the art of writing must have been known before the pyramids, the burial-place of the Bull, were built; and as the hieroglyphics were not invented till after the building of the pyramids, it seems to follow, that they were not invented till after the invention of writing, consequently that they were not, as it has generally been thought, the origin of writing.
108. The intimate relations between India and Egypt, in some ancient period, cannot possibly be doubted. But what is the reason that there are no hieroglyphics in India? The days of the week are dedicated in each to the same Gods. The adoration of the Bull of the Zodiac or the Sun, in the sign Taurus, is common to both. The same Zodiac is, with a trifiing variation, also common to both. Then how came they not both to have hieroglyphics, if hieroglyphics were invented before writing, or figures in arithmetic?
109. I conclude that this connexion or intercourse (which will be proved over and over again in the course of the following work) must have existed before the invention of hieroglyphics, and must also, in a great measure, have ceased before their invention, because, if the contrary had been the case, hieroglyphics would, in some degree, have been common to the two countries. When the religion went from one to the other, the hieroglyphical system, if in existence, would have gone also. From which it almost necessarily follows, that hieroglyphics are, comparatively speaking, a modern invention.
110. In their endeavours to prove that hieroglyphics were the originals or parents of letters and writing, philosophers have done every thing which ingenuity could devise to establish the fact; but I think their arguments are founded upon no sufficient data, and therefore have always appeared to me unsatisfactory. For my theory I have a great number of facts and circumstances which cannot be disputed, and I think my arguments founded upon them are sound.[1]
111. From the whole investigation there can be no doubt, whether the leaf alphabets were the origin of hieroglyphics or not, that the latter were invented after the discovery of the art of writing, and were a secret and sacred system invented for the purpose of concealing certain religious or historical truths from the vulgar eye.
112. Before I quit this subject I think it proper to recall my reader’s attention to the observation, that whether Egypt was colonized from India or India from Egypt, it is very clear that the intercourse of colonization must have ceased before hieroglyphics were invented, or they would certainly have been found among the priests in both countries. And it is also probable that they were invented after Moses and the Hebrew tribe left Egypt, or we should have found some notice of them in the books of Moses—the Pentateuch. I only say it is probable; but it is by no means certain.
113. M. Denon[2] has given a description of a painting in one of the tombs of the kings of Thebes, in which, among other things, is described the sacrifice of a child, and he has these words: “Incense is offered to him in honour of these victories; a priest writes his annals, and consigns them to sacred memorial. It is, therefore, proved, that the ancient Egyptians had written books: the famous Thoth was then a book, and not inscribed tablets sculptured on walls, as has been often supposed. I could not help flattering myself that I was the first to make so important a discovery: but I was much more delighted when, some hours after, I was assured of the proof of the discovery by the possession of a manuscript itself, which I found in the hand of a fine mummy that was brought to me. In its right hand, and resting on the left arm, was a roll of papyrus, on which was the manuscript.” And here, with respect to this MS., end Mons. Denon’s observations; not another word of what became of the papyrus, or of the language or letters in which it was written. But in plate LV. a short description is given of a manuscript found upon a papyrus which, I suppose, is meant for it. Nothing can be made out from it except that it reads from right to left. In plate LVI. is a copy of another manuscript equally unintelligible, which was found upon a papyrus in a mummy.
114. In consequence of the attempts of Mr. Bankes to prove, from the style of building of the temples, confirmed by the explanations of M. Champollion, that many of the hieroglyphics on them relate to the Roman emperors, these manuscripts cannot be made use of to prove the antiquity of letters; but they prove that letters were known before the hieroglyphics on the temples, in which these mummies were found used, or, that hieroglyphics were continued in use after the invention of the art of writing, and along with it. I have no doubt that some of the buildings in Egypt were erected by the Roman emperors, that many others of them were partly their work, and that still more of them were erected by the monarchs of Egypt after the time of Cambyses. But the sepulchres, and many parts of the temples of Thebes and other temples of Upper Egypt, I have no doubt existed before Cambyses’s time, and escaped his fury.
115. I have no doubt that the churches of Notre Dame and St. Denis, at Paris, were both the workmanship of the
