K A L A RE SA W SA RE M HA HER RE M T

[Illustration: 

=_Kaharesapusaremkaherremt_=.

AN EGYPTIAN PROPER NAME SPELLED OUT IN FULL BY MEANS OF ALPHABETICAL AND
SYLLABIC SIGNS.]

Dr. Young was certainly on the right track, and very near the complete discovery; unfortunately he failed to take the next step, which was to learn that the use of an alphabet was not confined to proper names.  This grand secret Young missed; his French successor, Champollion, ferreted it out from the foundation he had laid.  The “Enigma of the Sphinx” was practically solved, and the secrets held by the monuments of Egypt for so many centuries were disclosed to the world.  Champollion proved that the Egyptians had developed an alphabet—­neglecting the vowels, as did also the early Semitic alphabet—­centuries before the Phoenicians were heard of in history.  Some of these pictures are purely alphabetical in character, some are otherwise symbolic.  Some characters represent syllables, others again stand as representatives of sounds, and once again, as representatives of things; hence the difficulties and complications it presented.