has come down to us is that of the lotus.  A more advanced type of decoration utilised the goddess Hathor for the support of the superincumbent weight and has its analogy in the decadent caraytides of late Roman times.

Owing to Mariette’s friendship with the viceroy he was able to guard his right to excavate with strict exclusiveness.  He was accustomed to allow other scholars the right to examine localities where he had been the first one to make the researches, but he would not even allow the famous Egyptologist, also his great friend, Heinrich Brugsch, to make excavations in new places.  After his death, conditions were somewhat altered, although the general directorship of the excavations was still given exclusively to Frenchmen.  The successors of Mariette Bey were Gaston Maspero, E. Grebault, J. de Morgan, and Victor Laret.  But as time went on, savants of other nationalities were allowed to explore, with certain reservations.  Maspero founded an archaeological mission in Cairo in 1880, and placed at its head, in successive order, MM.  Lebebure, Grebault, and Bouriant.  The first of all to translate complete Egyptian books and entire inscriptions was Emanuel de Rouge, who exerted a great influence upon an illustrious galaxy of French savants, who followed more or less closely the example set by him.  Among these translators we may enumerate Mariette, Charles Deveria, Pierret, Maspero himself, and Revillout, who has proved himself to be the greatest demotic scholar of France.

England is also represented by scholars of note, among whom may be mentioned Dr. Samuel Birch (1813—­85).  He was a scholar of recognised profundity and also of remarkable versatility.  One of the most important editorial tasks of Doctor Birch was a series known as “The Records of the Past,” which consisted of translations from Egyptian and Assyrio-Babylonian records.  Doctor Birch himself contributed several volumes to this series.  He had also the added distinction of being the first translator of the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

Another English authority was Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, who wrote several important works on the manners and customs of the ancient Egyptians.  Wilkinson was born in 1797 and died in 1875.  Whoever would know the Egyptian as he was, in manner and custom, should peruse the pages of his Egyptian works.  His “Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians” has been the chief source of information on the subject.

German scholars have done especially valuable work in the translation of texts from the Egyptian temples, and in pointing out the relation between these texts and historical events.  Foremost among practical German archaeologists is Karl Richard Lepsius, who was born in 1810 at Naumburg, Prussia, and died in 1884 at Berlin.  In his maturer years he had a professorship in Berlin.  He made excursions to Egypt in an official capacity, and familiarised himself at first hand with the monuments and records that were his life-study.  The letters of Lepsius from Egypt and Nubia were more popular than his other writings, and were translated into English and widely read.