Vol. I - The Coptic Orthodox Church

Introduction.
PIERRET'S " VOCABULAIRE HIEROGLYPHIQUE."
xliii
The difficulty of obtaining copies of Birch's Dictionary of Hieroglyphics,
and the expense of both that work and Brugsch's Wor-
terbuch practically left the students of the ancient Egyptian
language without a dictionary. The first scholar who made any
serious attempt to help the beginner and the advanced student
out of their difficulty was Paul Pierret, Conservateur adjoint
des Antiquites Egyptiennes au Musee du Louvre, and he set to
work to compile the handy and comparatively inexpensive
1
Vocabulaire Hieroglyphique, which so many students have found Pierrot's
to be a useful book of reference. It consists of 759 lithographed
pages in which the words are arranged alphabetically, and an
index to all the French words by which the hieroglyphic words
are translated in the volume, which fills forty-eight double-
columned pages.
It contains, in a condensed form, the substance
of the Dictionaries of Birch and Brugsch, and most of the 987
royal names which Lepsius published in his Konigsbuch
der alien
Aegypter, Berlin, 1858, fol., and most of the 2,000 geographical
names given by Brugsch in his Dictionnaire Geographique, Leipzig,
1877, fol. 2 In his Preface Pierret calls attention to the fact that
Brugsch's Dictionary cost 600 francs, and this was without the Inclusion of
Siipplement, which cost about 500 francs more when it was
completed in 1882. He justifies his inclusion of geographical names,
names in his Vocabulaire by pointing out what every one has
found who has tried to use the Dictionnaire Geographique, how
difficult it is to find a given name in that " merveille d'erudition."
He claims no special merit for his Vocabulaire, and says,
"
Mon
but est de fournir aux commensants un moyen d'aborder directement
les textes, et a tous un manuel commode et pratique."
There is no doubt that he succeeded in his aim.
SlMEONE LEVl'S " VOCABOLARIO GEROGLIFICO COPTO-EBRAICO."
For a few years after the appearance of the last volume of
Brugsch's Worterbuch in 1882 no attempt was made to publish
in a collected form the lexicographical material that could be
collected from the editions of hitherto unpublished texts, which
were appearing frequently in England, France, Germany, Russia
and Italy. But meanwhile this material was being diligently
1
Vocabulaire Hieroglyphique comprenant les mots de la Langue, les Noms
geographiques, divins, royaux et historiques, classes alphabetiquement. Paris, 1875.
8vo.
* His Supplement to this work, containing 1,420 pages, appeared in 1879-80.