Vol. I - The Coptic Orthodox Church

xxii Introduction.
Lettre d M. Dacier 1 relative a I' Alphabet des Hieroglyphes Phonetiques
employes par les Egyptiens pour
inscrire sur leurs Monuments les
litres, les noms et les surnoms des souverains Grecs et Romains, he
had made one list containing all the hieroglyphic characters he
had found, and another list containing all the characters the
meaning of which appeared to be manifest. He wrote each
character on a separate card, and afterwards tabulated them
systematically. Already in 1818-19 he had made a manuscript
Champollion's jist o f hieroglyphic words entitled, Premier essai d'un Dictionnaire
classification _,
of des Hieroglyphes Egyptiens, adding the legend, Davus sum, non
hieroglyphic
characters.
(Edipus. When later he learned to distinguish three classes of
characters, figurative, symbolic and phonetic, and was able to
prove that they were employed simultaneously in the texts of
all periods, he began to compile an Egyptian Dictionary. He
first wrote each word on a separate slip of paper, or card, and
then copied each on to a separate sheet of small folio paper,
ruled in five columns. Col. i gave the character in outline and
its hieratic form, Col. 2 its name, Col. 3 its graphic character
(symbolic, figurative or phonetic), Col. 4 its actual meaning or
value, and Col. 5 a reference to the text in which it had that
value. Thus the Dictionary existed in duplicate, in slips and
Rosellini's *n sheets, and it had assumed very large proportions before
copy of
Champollion's
Egyptian
Dictionary.
Champollion went to Egypt in 1838. At this time Rosellini,
.
, ~, . . ,
wno was a great friend of Champollion long before he became
hjs fellow traveller, was allowed to make a copy of the Dictionary,
presumably for his own use. It must be this copy
which he
bequeathed to the Biblioteca dell' Imperiale e Reale Universita of
Pisa, and which is thus described in the Inventory of the bequest
Dei :*
by Dr. Giuseppe
" No. 4 casette, divise in caselle contenenti
il non ultimato ma molto avanzato Dizionario dei Geroglifici,
eseguito in parecchie migliaia di cartelle fatte per ordine alfabetico
pei caratteri fonetici, e metodico per i figurativi e ideografici
simbolici."
When Champollion went to Egypt
he took with him both
copies of his Dictionary, and while in that country he added to
both very considerably ; MM. Salvador Cherubini and Lenormant
wrote many slips for him, and their contributions formed part of
the original manuscript. On his return from Egypt he con-
tinued his labours on the Dictionary and added largely to it.
1
Born 1742, died 1833. He was the Permanent Secretary to the Academic
des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, and was well known as a classic and historian.
Biographia del Cav. Prof. Ippolito Rosellini. Florence, 1843, p. 15.