Vol. I - The Coptic Orthodox Church

Introduction. xxxiii
BIRCH'S DICTIONARY OF HIEROGLYPHICS.
Birch's decision to adopt a purely alphabetic arrangement in
his Egyptian Dictionary was induced largely by the results of the
careful study of the alphabetic hieroglyphs which Edward Hincks
carried out after the appearance of Champollion's Dictionnaire
Egyptien. Whilst making this study he was in frequent com- Hincks's
munication with Birch, who was greatly impressed with his clear-
ness of thought and the ease with which he recognised the
difficulties of the problem, and found their true solution. Birch
was at that time engaged in preparing a list of 1
Egyptian characters
for the first volume of Bunsen's "Aegyptens Stelle," and the
and, judging from Bunsen's
Birch's official duties left him very little leisure for the
2
matter for the last three Sections in it,
remark, 3
compilation of his Dictionary. Hincks published the results of
researcnes -
his investigation in 1847,' and in that year Birch, as he himself Birch begins
told me, began to write the slips for his Egyptian Dictionary, Dictionary of
and to arrange them alphabetically in boxes. The work of Hieroglyphics,
publishing and reading new texts occupied him for several years,
but at length the large mass of material which he had collected
justified him in considering the publication of his work. There-
the Dictionary to be
upon arose the two difficult questions : Was
printed or lithographed ? Who would undertake the expense of
publication ? To print it was impossible,
for there was no fount
of Egyptian type in existence. It might, of course, be litho-
graphed, but that pre-supposed the writing out of the whole
Dictionary on transfer paper by Birch himself, a work that would
require a vast amount of time and labour. As no immediate Typographical
solution of the difficulty seemed possible, Birch continued to c
write slips and revise his manuscript.
Meanwhile Bunsen had published further additions to his
voluminous "Historical Investigation into Egypt's
Place in
1 This list contained about 830 characters, and was printed on eight plates
in the first volume of Bunsen's work (Hamburg
and Gotha, 1845. 8vo).
2 Bunsen thanks his friends for their help (Vorrede, p. xxvi, Vol. I)
" und
Samuel Birch am Britischen Museum (in welchem ein grosser Theil der drei
letzten Abschnitte des ersten Buches geschrieben ist), sagen wir Dank mit
freudigen Wiinschen."
3 Ein vollstandiges Worterbuch des Hieroglyphenschatzes, mit alien Mannigfaltigkeiten
der Darstellung und mit Anfiihrung des Textes der entscheidenden
Stellen, darf die gelehrte Welt von Herr Birch erwarten, sobald seine amtlichen
Beschaftigungen ihm die Mussc dazu gewahren (Vol. I, p. 646).
4 See his paper, An attempt to ascertain the number, names and powers of the
letters of the Hieroglyphic ancient Egyptian Alphabet, grounded on the establishment
of a new principle in the use of phonetic characters in the Transactions of the Royal
Irish Academy. Dublin, 1847. 4to.
C