Chapter XLIV: Appendix: Note a (3)

[89] From the pods and their contents Dr. Klotzsch recognised the _Moringa arabica Persoon_ (_Hyperanthera peregrina Forskăl_). It seems that this tree was only previously known from Arabia, and is natural there. The single trees near Barkal, which are not mentioned by former travellers, might have been first introduced from Arabia. This is the more probable as the immigration of those tribes of the Shaiqîeh Arabs from the Hegâz is now testified by manuscript authorities. [This tree must therefore be added to the botanical list of Pickering, who, in his Races of Man, has collected all the introduced animals and plants of Egypt, India, America, Polynesia, Southern Arabia, &c., and though the lists want classification, they are well worthy of attention.--K. R. H. M.]

[90] The literal expression is, that he has built the temple “to his image, Ra-neb-ma, living on the earth.” The word _chent_ no longer exists in Koptic, but it is always translated εἰκών on the Rosetta stone. The temple and the place belonging to it was also named after the king, but according to his Horus-name, “Dwelling-place of Sha-em-ma;” this led to the recognition of the original position of the ram of Barkal and the lions in the British Museum.

[91] [For the straw huts down the Nile, and particularly beyond Chartûm, see Werne’s White Nile, chapter i. vol. i. p. 28.--K. R. H. M.]

[92] [See Bunsen’s Egypt’s Place, vol. i. p. 624.--K. R. H. M.]

[93] Monuments, Part II. Plates 245, 246.

[94] Monuments, Part II. plate 1.

[95] Salamât “the greetings” are they called by earlier travellers. The proper pronunciation and meaning was first remarked to me by our intelligent old guide, Ἀuad. The Arabs are for confounding them, as _salâm_, _salus_, is pronounced with the dental _sin_, _s’anam_, _idolum_, with the lingual _sâd_. The plural, which is usually _as’nam_, here takes the feminine form _s’anamât_. That they were male figures had long since been indistinguishable from the battered heads. The stone of which the statues are formed is a peculiarly hard quartz brittle sandstone conglomerate, looking glazed, and with innumerable cracks. The frequent bursting of little particles of stone at sunrise, when the changes of temperature are most sudden, caused, according to my idea, the celebrated Memnon sounds, which were compared with the breaking of a violin string.

[96] [Herodotus II. c.c. 121-122.--K.R.H.M.]

[97] This King Ai was formerly a private individual, and took his sacerdotal title into his royal cartouche at a later period. He appears with his wife in the tombs of Amarna, not unfrequently as a noble and peculiarly honoured officer of King Amenophis IV., that puritanical sun-worshipper, who changed his name into that of Bech-en-aten.

[98] The above dimensions are here taken from Wilkinson’s Modern Egypt and Thebes, vol. ii. p. 220.

[99] [For an excellent description of such retreats, _vide_ Floss, _Quæstiones Criticæ de Macaris_, cap. i. § 1. _Coloniæ, Heberle_, MDCCCL.--K.R.H.M.]

[100] Apuleii Asclepius, dialogue Hermetis Trismegisti, c. 24.

[101] When I wrote the above, I did not think that the crime would be so soon avenged. See Letter XXXV. p. 372.

[102] I have since learnt (_Rev. Arch._, vol. iv. p. 32,) that M. Ampère had been expressly sent to Egypt, by the Paris Academy, to copy the bilingual inscription at Philae, to which I had turned attention in my Letters. See Letter XV. p. 120, and note. Of the impression brought back to Paris, in which, however, the beginnings of the Demotic lines, and the date of the decree are wanting, the very diminished representation of Demotic text is taken, which M. de Saulcy has published in the _Revue Archéologique_.

[103] [In Bunsen’s list of Determinatives, No. 5. I quote his description “Disk diffusing rays of light; light, as _sti_, a sunbeam, (sun’s ray); _ht_, daylight; _ubn_, to illuminate; _mau_, to gleam; _ui_, brilliancy; _hai_, light; _am_, a beam.” Bunsen’s Egypt’s Place, vol. i. p. 537.--Since writing the foregoing note in the first edition, I have read the Rev. Charles Forster’s Monuments of Egypt, and I find that he attempts to identify this royal sign with a grain of millet, “with its stamina and antheræ developed,” assigning for its pronunciation the word “pschent.” I forbear criticism upon this “discovery,” only referring the reader to p. 54 of the second part of the Primæval Language.--K. R. H. M.]

[104] [Dr. Lepsius alludes to Herr Maximilian Weidenbach.--K. R. H. M.]

[105] These places were first accurately and instructively described by Wilkinson, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. ii. pp. 28 sqq.

[106] These are the actual words of my journal as they are understood also by Ritter, p. 578. According to the printed report, p. 8, it might appear as if Robinson had given up the attempt to climb the whole of this mountain district; this is particularised in the _Bibliotheca Sacra_ as an inaccuracy. But I only spoke of the top of the mountain rising in the plain in contradistinction to the higher points lying toward the side, which Robinson has ascended.

[107] This report, sent to His Majesty, was printed, while I was still absent in 1846, under the title “_Reise des Prof. Lepsius von Theben nach der Halbinsel des Sinai vom 4ten März, bis zum 14ten April, 1845_,” Berlin, with two maps, a general map of the whole peninsula, and a special map of Serbâl and Wadi Firân, which were drawn by G. Erbkam after my directions or plans. This pamphlet was not published, but was given to a few; yet its contents have become better known by a translation into English by Charles H. Cottrell, (A Tour from Thebes to the peninsula of Sinai, &c., London, 1846); and into French by T. Pergameni, (“Voyage dans le Presq’île du Sinai, &c., lu à la Société de Géographie, séances du 21 Avril et du 21 Mai. Extrait du Bulletin de la Soc. de Géogr., Juin, 1847, Paris.”)

[108] The Nakb el Haui, “Windsaddle” is an exceedingly wild and narrow mountain pass, which is impassable from its shelving abysses. The road had to be made with great art along the western side, and is in many places hewn out of the rock; on the other side, the loose soil has been paved with great flat stones. It is not to be doubted, that this daring path was made after the building of the convent, in order to have a shorter road to the town of Pharan, which before could only be reached by the wide circuit through the Wadi e’ Shech.

[109] It seems that this convent has not been visited by any recent traveller. Burckhardt, who calls it Siggillye, did not descend, but heard that it was well-built and spacious, and provided with a good well, (Trav. in Syria, p. 610). More accurate information concerning this convent in the Serbâl gorge is very desirable, as it belongs probably to one of the oldest, or, at least, the most considerable of the peninsula, as the artistic and elaborately prepared rock-road thence to the town of Pharan amply shows.

[110] [I may here draw the reader’s attention to an interesting work, (to be more completely alluded to in the sequel,) lately published by the Rev. Charles Forster. The One Primeval Language. Part I. The Voice of Israel from the Rocks of Sinai.--K. R. H. M.]

[111] Monuments, Part II., plates 2, 116, 137, 140, 152, III., 28.

[112] [Bunsen, vol. i. p. 400, and see Lepsius, Ueber den Ersten Aegyptischen Götterkreis, p. 30.--K. R. H. M.]

[113] [From its great length, I have found it necessary to reserve a note on this passage until the Appendix, Note A., where the reader will find it.--K. R. H. M.]

[114] On this point I find all the most important voices unanimous. Robinson, in particular, has the merit of having done away with many old prejudices of this kind. But Burckhardt had already allowed himself to be so little influenced in his judgment by the authority of tradition, that he did not hesitate to find a reason for the erection of the convent of Sinai on Gebel Mûsa on strategical grounds. (Trav. in Syr. p. 609.)

[115] The name Firân, formerly Pharan, is certainly the same as the Biblical Paran; but it is equally sure that this name had shifted its application in the locality. All other comparisons of names are totally unsatisfactory.

[116] One of the two wells seems to go back to the time of the building of the convent; it is the smaller one of the two. The deep, principal well, which gives the most and the best water, seems to have been first sunk in 1760, by order of an English Lord. (_Ritter_, p. 610.)

[117] Burckhardt also expressly observes, that there is no good pasturage in the neighbourhood of the convent, where the rather more numerous little fountains would almost allow us to consider the soil to be moisture. See Bartlett’s impression in a subsequent place.

[118] So the Arabs unanimously assured us, see also Burckhardt, p. 625, and Ritter, p. 769. Lord Lindsay here found “a small wood of tarfa trees, in which blackbirds were singing, and farther on some palm plantations.” It was at the same outlet of the valley “where Seetzen first had the pleasure of gathering much manna off the tarfa bushes and eating it; here he found the ripe fruits of the wild caper bush, which were eatable like fruit.”

[119] [Note B, Appendix.--K. R. H. M.]

[120] Originally, both these hot springs seem not to have been called Hammân Faraûn from Pharaoh, but Farân from Pharan. For Edrisi calls the place Faran Ahrun and Istachri Taran, which should doubtless be Faran (Cf. Ritter, Asien, Bd. VIII. S. 170 ff.). Macrizi also calls the place Birkit Faran (Ritter, _Sinaihalbinsel_, p. 64.) Probably the harbour region of Pharan was called after the city, though it was somewhat distant; and the legend, so very inapposite here, concerning Pharaoh’s ruin, only connected itself with Faraûn by a confusion with Faran. It is curious that the Arab writers, of whom Macrizi was certainly there, speak of Faran as of a coast town!

[121] The part of the sandy coast, considered by Robinson to be the desert of Sin, has no tarfa bush, much less manna. Concerning the regions where manna is found, Cf. Ritter, p. 665 sqq. That Eusebius also considers the wilderness of Sin to extend to Sinai, is already mentioned. [Σίν, έρημος ἡ μετάξυ παρατείνουσα τῆς Ἐρυθρᾶς Θαλάσσης καὶ τῆς ἐρήμον Σίυα]

[122] Robinson, vol. i. p. 173, 196. To Wilson’s particular argument of the extensive prospect from Gebel Mûsa is to be objected, that, from a point very inconsiderably higher than the plain, many places can be seen, from which the elevation itself would not appear very considerable.

[123] See Robinson, vol. i. pp. 118, 196.

[124] Ewald, History of the People of Israel, vol. ii. p. 86, also considers that Sinai “was already looked upon as an oracular place and divine seat before Moses.” Ritter considers it insupportable.

[125] This is confirmed at the present day by Rüppell, who considers Gebel Katharine to be Sinai. He relates in his voyage to Abyssinia, vol. i. p. 127, the following about his ascent of Mount Serbâl in 1831:--“At the top of Serbâl, the Bedouins have placed little circles of stones in a circle, and other stones are laid from it down the steep declivity like steps, to render the ascent more easy; when we came to that circle _my guide took off his sandals, and approached it with religious reverence, he then said a prayer inside_, and afterward told me that he had already sacrificed two sheep here as _thank-offerings_, the one at the birth of a son, the other on regaining his health. The mountain of _Serbâl has been held for such superstitions in the highest respect by the Arabs of the vicinity, from time immemorial_; and it must once have been somewhat holy to the Christians, as in the valley to the south-west there lie the ruins of a great convent and many little hermits’ cells. In any case, the wild, craggy rocks of Serbâl, and the _isolated position of this mountain is much more remarkable and grand than any other group of mountains in Arabia Petræa, and it was peculiarly adapted for the goal of religious pilgrimages_. The highest point of the mount, or the second rock from the west, and on which the Arabs usually sacrifice, is, according to my barometrical observation, 6,342 French feet above the level of the sea.”

[126] See the excellent treatise of Tuch (Einundzwanzig Sinaitische Inschriften, Leipzig, 1849.) This scholar endeavours to prove, by the deciphered names of the pilgrims, that the authors of the inscriptions were native pagan Arabs, and went to Serbâl for religious festivals; according to him, these pilgrimages ended, at latest, in the course of the third century. Here it may also be mentioned, that the name itself of Serbâl, which Rödiger, (in Wellsted’s Travels in Arabia, vol. ii. page the last), doubtlessly correctly derived from _serb_, _palmarum copia_, and Baal, “palm grove (φοινίκων) of Baal,” points to a heathen origin. [However much M. Tuch may reproduce the notion of Beer, he cannot set aside its confutation in Forster’s Primeval Language, Part I. pp. 8-38.--K. R. H. M.]

[127] Vol. i. p. 198.

[128] I thought to be able to conclude this indirectly from his narrative, (Antiq. III. 2.) It now appears to me that nothing can be elicited, as to his opinion, from it, for which reason the name should be omitted above. In itself it is still probable that he held the same opinion as Eusebius and Jerome.

[129] Eusebius, περὶ τῶν τοκικῶν ὀνομ., etc s.v. Ῥαφιδίμ, τόπος τῆς ἐρήμον παρὰ τὸ Χωρὴβ ὄρος, ἐν ᾧ ἐυ τῆς πέτρας ἐρρύησε τὰ ὔδατα καὶ ἐκλήθη ὀ τόπος πειρασμός ἔνθα καὶ πολεμεῖ Ἰησοῦς τὺν Ἁμαλὴκ <g>ἐγγὺς Φαράν</g>. Hieron. de situ et nomin., etc. s.v. Raphidim, locus in deserto juxta montem Choreb, in quo de petra fluxere aquæ, cognominatusque est tentatio, ubi et Jesus adversus Amalec dimicat _prope Pharan_. [Here again the authorities resolve themselves into one, as the reader knows that, after all, Jerome was only the translator of Eusebius, and would therefore, of course, agree with him. The Doctor does not appear to have thought of this.--K. R. H. M.]

[130] Of the older authors there is yet Cosmas Indicopleustes (A.D. 535) to be particularly mentioned, (Topogr. Christ, Lib V. in the _Coll. Nov. Patr. ed. Montfaucon_, tom. II. fol. 195,) Ἔιτα πάλιν παρενέ βαλον εἰς Ῥαφιδὶν εἰς τὴν νῦν λεγομένην Φαράν also Antoninus Placentinus, who is placed about 600, while the learned Papebroch, who has edited his _Itinerarium_ in the _Acta S.S._, May, vol. ii. p. 10-18, places him in the eleventh or twelfth century, came, as he says, _in civitatem_ (which can only be Pharan) _in qua pugnavit Moyses cum Amalech: ubi est altare positum super lapides illos quos posuerunt Moyse orante_.” The city is surrounded with a brick wall, and “_valde, sterilis_” for which Tuch (Sinait. Incr. p. 38) proposes to read “_fertilis_.” When Pharan is called an Amalekite city by Macrizi, (History of the Kopts, translated by Wüstenfeld, p. 116), this can only point to the same conclusion that Moses was attacked near Pharan by the Amalekites, to whom the territory belonged. Ritter is particularly to be mentioned among the new school.

[131] See the passage of Cosmas, in a former note.

[132] The name Raphidîm itself, “the resting-places,” indicates that the place was intended for a longer rest.

[133] Exodus, xix. 1-3.

[134] See Note C, in the Appendix.

[135] Therefore Robinson and others, who admit no hiatus in the resting stations, place Raphidîm beyond Firân, and do not admit that the latter is named at all, or place Alus there. What is contrary to this, and has already been made use of by Ritter, is already mentioned above. On the contrary, Ritter, to get over the difficulty, considers our present text to be imperfect (p. 742).

[136] To this conclusion, which appears to me the most doubtful, of any, Ritter feels himself driven. The tradition of the present day is different, that Horeb and Sinai are two mountains in close juxtaposition, but also distinctly divided.

[137] To this conclusion, which appears to me the most doubtful, of any, Ritter feels himself driven. The tradition of the present day is different, that Horeb and Sinai are two mountains in close juxtaposition, but also distinctly divided.

[138] The three possibilities of getting quit of this difficulty have been tried by Robinson, Ritter, and Josephus. The first places Raphidîm in the neighbourhood of Gebel Mûsa; the second sees an omission between Raphidîm and Sinai, and accepts two divine mountains; the third transposes the passage, and does not mention Horeb at all, but only Sinai.

[139] Cf. the comparison and discussion of both opinions in Robinson, vol. i. pp. 197, sqq. All those places where exactly the same is said of Horeb as of Sinai, and no idea of a larger extent of region is admissible, speak against the view of the latter that Horeb is the denomination of the mountain-range or country, and Sinai the name of the particular mount. A Desert of Horeb is never spoken of, as are the deserts of Sur, Sin, Paran, and others. For a contrary view one could cite Acts, vii. 30, compared with Exodus, iii. 1. [The former passage is “And when forty years were expired, then appeared unto him _in the wilderness of Mount Sinai_, an angel,” &c.; the other runs thus, “He led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came _to the mountain of God, even to Horeb_.”--K. R. H. M.]

[140] This view is already to be found in the _Itinerarium_ of Antoninus, who finds the convent _between_ Sinai and Horeb. The present monkish tradition that the rock on the plain of Râha is Horeb is already known. The arbitrariness of such views are self-evident. Yet the latter opinion is taken up by Gesenius, (Thesaur. p. 517), Wiener, and others.

[141] St. Jerome already says expressly the same thing, in adding to the words of Eusebius, _s.v._ Choreb:--“Mihi autem videtur, quod _duplici nomine idem mons nunc_ SINA, _nunc_ CHOREB _vocetur_.” Josephus already evidently took both mountains to be one, as he everywhere substitutes _Sinai_ where _Choreb_ occurs in the Bible; so also does the author of Acts (vii. 80); and likewise Syncellus (_Chron._ p. 190), who says of Elias:--ἐπορεύετο ἐν Χωρὴβ τῷ ὄρει ἤτοι Σιναίῳ. [The adjective termination of Σιναίῳ shows that Syncellus meant that Choreb was part of the Sinaitic range. Otherwise, he would have employed the Hebraic termination:--K. R. H. M.] Of late scholars, Ewald presents the same opinion concerning the identity of the two mounts. He says, (Gesch. des V. Isr., vol. ii. p. 84):--“The two names Sinai and Horeb do not change, because they denoted two peaks of the same mountain, lying close together, but the name Sinai is plainly older, which is also used by Deborah, (Judges v. 5), while the name Horeb is not to be found previous to the time of Numbers (cf. Exod. iii. 1, xvii. 6, xxxiii. 6), but then becomes very frequent, as is proved by Deuteronomy, and the passages, 1 Kings viii. 9, xix. 8, Mal. xii. 22, Psalm cvi. 19, while it does not mean anything to the contrary, when quite recent writers, for the sake of showing their acquaintance with ancient literature, re-introduce the original name of Sinai!”

[142] If we omit the two verses xix. 12, the narrative in xix. 3 continues quite naturally that of xviii. 27; “and Moses let his father-in-law depart; so he went his way into his own land. And Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the mountain,” &c.

[143] [See Note C. Appendix.]

[144] [See Note A. Appendix.]

[145] [Note D, Appendix.]

[146] [Note E, Appendix.]

[147] [Note F, Appendix.]

[148] Ritter (p. 31), where he mentions that Sinai appears almost simultaneously, as Serbâl, with the Egyptian Cosmas, and as Gebel Mûsa with the Byzantine Procopius, broaches another conjecture, which I shall here quote:--“Was there, perhaps,” says he, “a different tradition or party opinion prevailing in Constantinople and Alexandria on this point among the convents and the monks, which might have arisen from a jealousy to vindicate the more sacred character of one or other of the places? It is curious that at the same time such different views of the question should exist among the most learned theologians of their time.”

[149] This letter, which is here printed word for word, was addressed to the General-Director der K. Preuss. Museen, Herr Geh. Legations-Rath von Olfers. Perhaps its publication may serve at the same time to spread abroad a just respect for the principles on which the Egyptian Museum, that part of one of the most grand and newest creations of Berlin first accessible to the public, has been erected and decorated.

[150] [This might, not without some reason, be considered to assimilate with the style of painting which has lately made its appearance in England as a school--I refer to the pre-Raphaelite, which, whatever its own intrinsic merits may be,--and those, I suspect, are very few,--will at least have one good effect, that of calling the attention of English painters to the individualities in their paintings, and obviating the slurring sketchy style so prevalent at the present time, the upholders of which, after all, are the persons who condemn the pre-Raphaelites. The remarks of Dr. Lepsius will therefore apply to this new school of painting.--K. R. H. M.]

[151] [The Cheta are generally considered to be the Hittites.--K. R. H. M.]

[152] [Exodus, i. 11.--K. R. H. M.]

[153] It must be from some error that Burckhardt (Travels in Syria, p. 5) only allows the grave of Noah a length of ten feet, although the same number recurs in Schubert (_Reise in das Morgenland_, Bd. III., p. 340). It is well known how continually the number forty is used by the Hebrews as an indefinite number. The same seems to have been peculiar to _all Semitic_ nations, at least, it may be pointed out frequently, and at all times with the Phænicians and Arabs; the numeral word for four and forty itself points, in these languages, to the general idea of multitude. Cf. my Treatise on Philological Comparison (“_Sprachvergleichende Abhandlungen_,”) Berlin, 1836, pp. 104, 139, and the “Chronology of the Egyptians,” vol. i. p. 15.

[154] See V. Hammer, History of the Osmanli Empire, part II. p. 482.

[155] Cf. Krafft, the Topography of Jerusalem, Bonn, 1846, and Plate II. No. 33.

[156] The king represented here is explained by Rawlinson (a Commentary on the Cuneiform Inscriptions of Babylonia and Assyria, London, 1850, p. 70,) to be the son of the builder of Khorsabad, Bel-Adonim-Sha. The same king is found on the buildings of Kuyunjik, Nebbi Yûnas, and Mossul, according to Layard, (Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 142, 144,) who, (p. 400), conjectures that the monument from Cyprus, now in the Berlin Museum, also belongs to him. (Cf. Bonomi, Nineveh and its Palaces, London, 1852, p. 127.)

[157] [Hesych. οὐραγίαν, τὴν ὄπισθεν ἀκολουθοῦσαν στρατίαν--K.R.H.M.]

[158] [See Bunsen, Egypt’s Place, vol. 1. p. 209--K.R.H.M.]

[159] [It may be as well to remark that the calculations of longitude here and on the map are made from the island of Feroe, on the west coast of Africa, and not from Greenwich.--K.R.H.M.]

[160] [To the Rev. Charles Forster it would appear we are indebted for the detection of the record of the visit of Cosmas, which, according to his reading, runs thus:--“μνησ τηθ? Κοσμάν του’ ν Τεβδ ... ναυτιου.” “Remember Cosmas, the voyager to Tibet.” See that gentleman’s work on the Primeval Language, Part I. p. 4. The Greek, as the author observes, is _very_ corrupt.--K.R.H.M.]