Vol. I - The Coptic Orthodox Church

Introduction.
This system seems to represent an attempt to show that the
ancient Egyptians adopted the Hebrew alphabet. By some
curious oversight Levi failed to find an equivalent for the Hebrew
letter y.
HAGEMANS " LEXIQUE FRANqAis-HiEROGLYPHiQUE."
The list of published Egyptian Dictionaries ends with the
Lexique Franfais-Hieroglyphique that was compiled by M. G. Hagemans
Hagemans and was published at Brussels in 1896.
volume of 923 lithographed, double-columned
e
It is an octavo ^ "p tjan
pages, which Lexicon,
contain a French-Egyptian Dictionary and Supplement,
glyphic, hieratic-demotic alphabet,
xlv
a hiero-
and a list of determinatives.
THE PRESENT EGYPTIAN DICTIONARY.
It will probably be admitted by all that the compiler of an
should know at first hand
Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary
every collection of Egyptian monuments and papyri in the world,
that he should have visited every great Museum on the Continent
and in Egypt, England and America, and copied, or collated with
printed editions, every hieroglyphic,
hieratic and demotic text
of importance, that he should know well the histories of Egypt Qualifications
written by classical writers, and the works of the Arab geographers, Writing an
and Coptic in all its dialects, and that he should have had at his Egyptian
disposal unlimited time, in short that he should have been able
to devote his whole life to the making of his Egyptian Dictionary.
That he should also have one or more assistants to help him in
his laborious task also goes without saying. I am conscious that,
unfortunately, I possess none of the qualifications necessary for
such a great work except in a very limited degree. Neverthe-
less I have written this Dictionary and how I came to do so the
following paragraphs will show.
Between the years 1880 and 1883 the Natural History
Collections were removed from the British Museum, Bloomsbury,
to the new buildings which were specially constructed to receive
them at South Kensington. Thereupon several of the rooms of
the First and Second Northern Galleries, and the long room that-
ran parallel to the fourth room of the First Northern Gallery
and had contained the studies and workrooms of the Natural Rearrange-
History Staff, were allotted to the Department of Oriental Egyptian
Antiquities. When Dr. Birch, Keeper of the Department, had Collections in
removed the Collections of Egyptian and Semitic Antiquities Museum,
into them, and rearranged the Egyptian Collections, he took
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