The signs are pictures of material obiect*- natural and artificial,-^r of parts of such o^je«t8. PrimarUy, each sign must have had for i.t« P'^o^^t J value merely the name of the object depicted. But since no provision was thus made for expr^sing abstract Weas or the grammatical needs of the language, a secondary use of the signs had been developed, and abstractions were expressed by the same signs as those material objecU of wluclithe names contained the identical consonants, tor example, ^ is the picture of a rib .^vritten by the consonants sp r j the verb ' reach is also spelt s p r ; it. too, is therefore written with the s'g" 'T;^: Besides such signs as these, capable unassisted of expressing complete words, there are many with only the value of single syllables (i.e. consonant + vowel + consonant). These are, no doubt primitive word-signs which have lost their origmal function, and so become available as pure phonetics for the writing of longer words. A still remoter stage of the language is recalled by the 24 signs called by us the 'alphabet,' and reduced from the representation of 24 monosyllabic words (? consonant + vowel) to that of 24 consonants, the initials of those forgotten words. To these three phonetic elements is to be added one purely ideographic and complementary. To avoid Ambiguities certain signs, 'determina- tives,' are added, as in Babylonian and Chinese, to phonetically written words in order to indi- cate the class of ideas to which such words refer. Thus, dignity or age would be followed by the figure of an old man, strength or power by that of an armed hand, literature or learn- ing by that of a papyrus roll. The absence of written vowels leaves us ignorant of the correct pronunciation of Egyptian words ; our "nly Guides are the transcriptions in vocalized f ore^m lan<mages-cuneiform or Greek,-or in Coptic, whfch is but the youngest stage of Egyptian expressed in the Greek alphabet Yet by these aiJs we merely approximate to the ,7-^^.^^^^°" of tlie later epochs ; for that of the Old Kmgdom we have no guide. The Egyptians themselves did indeed, during the period of their intimacy with Asia (18th and following Dynasties) feel the need of some system of vowel-transcnption, and they naturally took aa their model. the cuneiform syllabary, already in common use in Syria. Ihe vowels which under this influence they aimed at representing were a, i, and «, and for their hiero- glyphic representation the signs for three approxi- nite weak consonants were selected. SimiJ" necessities were met at later periods (the Persian Ptolemaic, and Roman supremacies) by similar means, though during these the elements of the ancient hieroglyphic system were speedily osing their originaf Values, and complete irregularity already feigned in the transcription of foreign consonants as well as vowels.
vii. CHROSOLOGY.-Many of the problems in- volved in this subject still await satisfactory lolution. Astronomical calculations combined with the monumental evidence have doubtless done much already to fix the dates of later epochs but beyond the age of the New Kmsdora 't seems impossible to fini ""animousaccept.ance for more thin approximate dates. Mucli obscurity stiU prevails as to the eras and methods employed by the Etrs'ptians in their calculations.
A The available Egj-ptian documents are-(l) The li.sts of kings inscribed in temples or private tombs. The three most important (at Aby^os Kar- nak Sakkara) date from Dynasties 18 and 19, and gh e the nam.; of 76, 61, and 47 kings respectively^ Tombs and MSS of the same penodliave preserv^ shorter li«ts. In such lists the sequence of namei
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is not always correct, nor is more than a gelection (political or ritualistic?) from the full series of past kings given. They aupjjly no data as to lengtii of reign. (2) The lists in a dilapidated papyrus of the Ramesside period at Turin, which probably enumerated when complete all kings from the 1st to the Uyksos Dynasty. (3) Dates are found in, or can be reckoned from, the annals inscribed in the temples by certain kings, or incidentally in the tombs of private persons. This is the most reliable class of document, and the records in private tombs are the sole contemporary source for a chronology of the early Dynasties.
B. Of Greek writers, by far the most important ia Manetho, a native priest, e. B.C. 250, whose works are known only by the excerpts preserved by Josephus, Africanus, and Ensebius, or by the medium of still later chronologista. We are ignorant of the sources upon which his AlyvimaKi was based ; presumably, he had at his disposal documents far fuller and more reliable than any now available, though his chronology of the remoter periods can be proved much at fault. Nor can we judge how far ne manipulated his authorities to suit his own views ; and it is, moreover, probable that his Jewish and Christian abbreviators had their own systems to harmonize with his state- ments. The misfortunes inevitable in the long transmission of such writings must also be con- sidered in estimating their present value. The lists appended to Alanetho's history divided the Egyptian kings into 31 DjTiasties. The grounds for such divisions are often ditlicult to appreciate ; they do not always coincide with the divisions in the Turin papyrus. The lists compiled by Eratos- thenes, B.C. 275-194, in which pretended Greek Interpretations of the royal names are jjiven, con- tain in reality many words which are but inaccurate transcriptions of titles, formulae, etc., which accom- panied the names.