Vol. I - The Coptic Orthodox Church

Introduction. xli
extracts from Egyptian texts followed by translations and wordy
comments. In some respects his work resembles an Encyclopaedia
of Egyptology rather than a Dictionary, and contains a
great deal of information which, it seems to me, should have
been given elsewhere. As no publisher could afford to defray the
cost of printing the Dictionary, even on the Continent, where great
scholarly works are often subsidized by the Government, it was
decided to reproduce Brugsch's manuscript by lithography, which
in those days was a tolerably inexpensive method of publication ;
Brugsch's
and Brugsch undertook to write the transfers for the lithographer knowledge of
with his own hand. Thus he was given practically a free hand Egyptology,
by his publisher, and a Dictionary containing 3,125 pages is the
result. The amount of Egyptological knowledge which he dis-
plays in this truly great work is marvellous, and his familiarity
with the contents of the most difficult texts, whether hieroglyphic,
hieratic or demotic, is phenomenal. He was the greatest Egyptologist
that Germany had produced, and his energy and zeal and
devotion and power of work must ever command our warmest
admiration. Brugsch, like Birch, arranged
the words in his
Hieroglyphic Dictionary alphabetically, and it is an interesting
fact that both scholars, apparently independently, came to the
conclusion that Champollion's " natural and rational "
system of He rejects
arrangement must be rejected. Birch, as we know from his Champolhons
Preface to the fifth volume of "
Egypt's Place," had no high rational-"
opinion of Champollion's Dictionnaire Egyptien as a Dictionary, arran gement -
for he says that it " contained only a few of the principal words."
Brugsch dedicated his Dictionary to the Manes of Champollion,
and in his Introduction says that Champollion's Dictionary, which
was published five and twenty years ago, after its author's death,
under the name of Dictionnaire Egyptien, could and can lay claim
to-day at the very least to this name. He goes on to say that
it was published without the will and intention of the immortal Brugsch's
French scholar, and that it consists of little more than an epitome Pinion
(
. Champollion s
of the words and groups in his Grammaire Egyptienne, and that Egyptian
it contains mistakes of which the master, had he been alive, would Dlctionar y-
never have allowed himself to be guilty. 1
1 " Das unter dem Namen eines Dictionnaire Egyptien vor fiinf und zwanzig
Jahren nach dem Tode Champollion's veroffentliche Worterbuch konnte, und
kann am allerwenigsten heut zu Tage, Anspruch auf diesen Namen machen.
Ohne Absicht und Willen des unsterblichen franzosischen Gelehrten publicir ,
entha.lt es beinahe nur einen Auszug der Worter und Gruppen der Grammaire
Egyptienne, dazu mit Irrthumern, deren sich niemals der lebende Mcister schuldig
gemacht haben wiirde." Einleitung, p. III.