letters; B appears once as a capital, resting on a horizontal line, which extends beyond its base, but elsewhere always in in the form of u, which was not employed in manuscripts until the ninth century; ▲ irregularly formed, and bent, its right-hand stroke extending above the line towards the left; H approaching to the form of our h, with the second limb. shorter than the first; A like A, with its right-hand stroke much elevated towards the left; M having the uncial form at the beginning of words, and a very cursive form in the middle; N sometimes regularly uncial, and sometimes formed of two upright lines united by a straight bar at the top, all formed by a single stroke of the pen; P scarcely more than a perpendicular stroke extending far below the line, and its loop disappearing in a mere dot at the top; the vertical stroke of the also greatly elongated; scarcely more than a cross slenderly traced; has entirely the form of , which does not occur in manuscripts until the ninth century; and always the form of w.

In other respects, this cursive Greek writing is square and broad, with the words semi-distinct, and the letters slightly conjoined; approaching in its general appearance to that of the preceding documents, but belonging by the cursive form of its letters to the class of writing so named.

The first year of the reign of the Emperor Antoninus, and the 18th of the month Tybi, according to the Egyptians, the date indicated in the papyrus, corresponds with the commencement of December, A.D. 137.

PLATE LIX.

CURSIVE GREEK WRITING.

IIND AND IIIRD CENTURIES.

LETTER MISSIVE, ACCOMPANYING A MUMMY; AND A FRAGMENT OF A GREEK PAPYRUS, WITH EGYPTIAN EMBLEMS.

THE fac-simile No. 2 of the accompanying Plate, (on which are brought together two specimens of Greek cursive writing, from two papyri found in Egypt,) exhibits this writing arrived at such a degree of degradation, that the imperial diploma of Heraclius, (given in a subsequent Plate,) although three centuries more modern, is scarcely less deformed. It may be at once perceived how much the letters are conjoined, out of proportion, and rapidly formed; it is, in fact, the ordinary writing used among the people, and so constructed, as to be entirely unlike the writing in books. The text of this papyrus, No. 2, is one of the most interesting, in respect to Egyptian archæology, which has hitherto been discovered. It is a letter sent by Senpamonthes to his brother, with the mummy of his mother, as follows:

Σενπαμώνθης Παμώνθῃ τῷ ἀδελφῷ χαίρειν. Επεμψά σοι τὸ σῶμα Σενύριος τῆς μητρός μου κεκήδευμένος, ἔχων (sic) τάβλαν κατὰ τοῦ τραχήλου, διὰ Γαλητεσ, πατρὸς Ἱερακος, ἐν πλοίῳ ἰδίῳ, τοῦ ναύλου δοθέντοσ ὑπ ̓ ἐμοῦ πλήρησ. Ἔστιν δε σημεῖον τῆς ταφῆσ· σινδών ἐστιν ἐκτὸσ ἔχων (sic) χρῆμα ρόδινον· ἐπιγεγραμμένον ἐπὶ τῆσ κοιλίας τὸ ὄνομα αὐτῆσ. Εῤῥῶσθαι σε, ἀδελφὲ, εὔχομαι.

Γ θωθιά.

and on the dors of the document we read, ПАмWNEHI MWI CENПAMWNеHC. A translation of this curious

letter is annexed.

66

Senpamonthes to his brother Pamonthes, greeting. I have sent thee the buried body (the mummy) of Senyris, my mother, having a tablet round the neck, by Gales, whose father is Hierax, by a private boat; the entire freight having been paid by me. There is a mark for recognition on the coffin; it is a veil, having on the outside something of roses. Her name is written on the belly (the upper part of the coffin). I pray, my brother, for thy health. The year 3, the 11th of Thoth."

This simple leaf of papyrus was folded up lengthwise into a flat roll of a finger's breadth, and fastened with a thread, sealed with a seal of sigillary clay, and bearing this address: "To Pamonthes (my brother?), Senpamonthes." The first name written exists still in large uncial Greek letters.

The custom of embalming the dead was retained in Egypt even after the establishment of Christianity; and it was preached against by St. Antony in the fourth century. Thus the usage maintained its ground against the opposition of the early Christians, who were ignorant, that the public health of Egypt depended upon this ancient usage, which, by preventing the corruption of the corpses, prevented also the corruption of the air with its attendant maladies; for it was not until after the fourth century, when the practice of embalming had been discontinued, that the plague re-appeared. It is, therefore, not surprising to meet with the embalmment of Greeks in Egypt, nor to read a Greek letter relating to a mummy; there are indeed Greek mummies preserved in some of the European Museums. We read in the martyrdom of the Abbot Epimus, that after his death, his body was embalmed by his servants, and placed in a boat, which conveyed it to the port of Shmun, the ancient Hermopolis Magna*.

The names of Senpamonthes, Pamonthes, and Senyris or

Passage in a Coptic manuscript, cited by the younger Champollion, in his work, intitled L'Egypte sous les Pharaons, tom. i., p. 294

Senuris, are Egyptian with Greek terminations, but their origin is derived from the names of the Egyptian Gods Ammon and Horus, and they are found on other monuments. It was customary to transport the mummies from various parts of Egypt by the boats of the Nile, to the public burial places; which accounts for the immense number of coffins found in certain catacombs, without reference to the population of the adjoining towns. The mummy of Senyris had attached at the neck a tablet (rábλa); this was a small oblong plate, sometimes cut square, on which was written or engraved the name of the deceased. Some of these tablets, entirely Greek, have come down to us, and their employment had reference to an order of public administration. We know, in fact, by the comparison of original documents, that the mummies were deposited in public hypogæa or catacombs dug in the rock, and carefully closed; and that each mummy was subject to an annual payment made by the family of the deceased, who possessed a place in the vault in perpetuity. These annual payments were farmed out by the government, and again re-let to other individuals, and a list of the names of the persons buried in each vault was carefully preserved.

During the period of Greek dominion in Egypt, the ancient rites and customs of sepulture were still retained, and thus even Greek mummies bore Egyptian emblems, with hieroglyphics on their coffins; but as the farmers of these hypogaa were not always instructed in the Egyptian writing, the Greek tablet enabled them to ascertain the names both of the dead and of the families charged with the annual payment. The Bibliothèque Royale at Paris possesses one of these contracts for farming out a vault, and a list of the names of the individuals deposited therein is annexed.

The middle-age of Christian Egypt furnishes us also with some notices of this usage maintained in that country from the period of the Pharaohs. We read in a Coptic manuscript

I

containing the panegyric of Picendi, bishop of Keft, by Moses, bishop of the same town, (a portion of which has been published by G. Zoega*,) that John, one of the disciples of the holy father of the desert, having entered into a pagan catacomb of Egypt with his master, found it filled with mummies; and having piled up the coffins, for the purpose of lodging there, they observed that the first mummy was covered with a royal silk garment, and that the fingers and toes were separately embalmed. The disciple adds, "I cast my eyes on one of the columns, and found a book in the form of a roll: gave it to my father, who read it, and found written in it the names of all those who were buried in the vault." These facts explain the existence of the tablet attached near the neck of the coffin of each mummy; they contained the name of the person liable for the dead-rent, and the Greek word tábλα, in this sense, ought to be added to the Glossary of Du Cange, as well as the word rap, written on the coffins, and signifying mummy-case. The date at the end of the letter indicates the third year of the reigning sovereign, who cannot be pointed out with certainty, and the 11th of Thoth corresponds in the Egyptian calendar with the 8th or 9th of September, according as the corresponding Julian year was bissextile or not. The style of writing, however, and purely Egyptian nature of the text of this document, authorise us to fix its age in the third century of the Christian era.

The fac-simile, No. 1, exhibits both Greek and Egyptian writing on the same leaf of papyrus. It first served for the transcription of an account in Greek, written in several columns; and in the first line are evident traces of the words

*Catalogus codicum Copticorum Musei Borgiani, Roma, 1810,pp. 41. Manuscript note, of Champollion le Jeune. See also his work, intitled L'Egypte sous les Pharaons, tom. i., pp. 199, 224. The same passage has been quoted by M. Quatremère in his Recherches sur la Langue et la Littérature de l'Egypt, Paris, 1808, pp. 268.