Vol. I - The Coptic Orthodox Church

Birch
contemplates
a second
edition of his
Dictionary of
Hieroglyphics.
Maspero's
edition oi
the Pyramid
Texts.
Birch dies and
leaves his
manuscript
for the second
edition
unfinished.
xlii Introduction.
Whilst Birch was preparing the manuscript of his Dictionary
for the printer, and seeing the sheets through the press, other
Egyptologists, e.g., Goodwin, E. de Rouge, Chabas, Deveria,
Diimichen, Lepsius and Pleyte were actively engaged in publishing
and translating hieroglyphic, hieratic and demotic texts. And
long before he had finished printing his Dictionary, Birch had come
to the conclusion that he must prepare a second edition in which
he could give all the new words and forms that appeared in the
newly published texts. As he read these texts he noted every
word and form that ought to be in the new edition, and he con-
tinued to write slips for many years. Those who have visited
him in his room in the British Museum may remember the glass
box containing slips for this new edition ; this always stood in
front of his inkstand and was added to daily. More than one
publisher was ready to publish the new edition of his Dictionary,
but his multitudinous duties and advancing years prevented him
from reading all the texts that were published. And he did not
see that if ever he was to publish the new edition he must at some
time or other cease from the writing of slips and adding
to his
manuscript, and so he rejected the advice both of his publisher
and his friends, and continued to write ever more and more slips.
In 1882 Maspero began to publish the hieroglyphic inscriptions
from the Pyramids of Sakkarah in the Recueil de Travaux, and
in them Birch found whole paragraphs of Egyptian text similar
to passages in the funerary texts on the coffin of Amamu, which
he was preparing for publication by the Trustees. Naturally
he was anxious to include in his new edition as many as possible
of the words and forms from these very ancient texts, and he set
to work to read them and to extract from them additional matter
for his Dictionary. He found his task more difficult than he
imagined it would be, for though he doubted the accuracy of
many of the readings of Maspero's text, he had no means in the
shape of photographs or paper "
squeezes "
whereby to control
them. Moreover, he was seventy years of age and his health
was failing. But he struggled on gallantly and continued to write
slips for the new edition of his Dictionary (which he was certain
he would live to see) until death overtook him on December 26th,
1885. When his books and literary effects were being sold
several boxes containing many thousands of slips were put up
to be bid for as a separate lot, and a bidder bought them
for ten shillings. Thus the labour of twenty years was
wasted.