Richard Lepsius

A BIOGRAPHY BY G E O R G E B E R S TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY ZOE DANA UNDERHILL WITH FRONTISPIECE —AUTHORIZED EDITION— NEW YORK WILLIAM S. GOTTSBERGER, PUBLISHER 11 MURRAY STREET 1887 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887 by William S. Gottsberger in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington

{i}

TO DR.

My dear Johannes!

To you shall this biography be dedicated. As the eldest pupil of our master you have in a certain sense a right to it. From many conversations with you, and from your letters since his death, I have seen with what cheerful alacrity you were always prepared to recognize the great qualities of our Lepsius; and how often, behind your back, has the departed spoken warmly to me of your enthusiastic and self-sacrificing devotion to our science.

Accept this offering, then, as a slight countervailing gift for the many donations which you have bestowed upon me and every Egyptologist. Imitating the master’s example you have followed him to Egypt, and there, like him, undertaken the task of disclosing to your colleagues at home the wealth of unexplored inscriptions in which the temples and tombs of the Nile valley are still so rich. From hundreds of walls you have copied the pictorial and hieroglyphic decorations, and made them accessible for investigation by collecting them in convenient volumes. A stately row of{ii} folios,—yonder they stand and each contains cordial words which assure me of your faithful remembrance,—bears witness to your industry, the acuteness of your eye and intellect, and the precision of your hand. But few know what great sacrifices of comfort, sleep, health, and your own property, lie hidden within these volumes, for without assistance worth mentioning, either from the government or its chiefs, you, relying upon yourself alone, have achieved great

results. You were aided by no firmans to afford you protection, no powerful patron to assume the cost of publication, no helpful fellow-traveller, as for years you made your way up the Nile far into the Sudān. Month after month have you been a self-invited guest of the god to whom the sanctuary of your choice was dedicated, you have passed the nights on a hard couch in a chamber of the temple which you desired to examine, and shared their scanty meal with the Arabs. To me it will ever be incomprehensible whence you derived the endurance to copy, through weeks of labor, the inscriptions on the walls of the tomb of Petuamenapt, the so-called bat sepulchre, while those misshapen creatures which dread the day extinguished your lights, flapped about you in swarms, and entangled themselves in that magnificent beard which procured for you among the Arabs the name of Abu Dakn (Father of the Beard).

But your endurance has borne admirable fruits. Through you and your works the inscriptions of the time of Ptolemy, formerly neglected, have for the first time received due honor. The keys to many mysteries{iii} lie concealed within them, and with what sagacity have you established the value of the enigmatical signs with which the priests during the Lagid period knew how to withdraw from the understanding of the multitude the mysteries to which they gave freer expression than their predecessors of earlier epochs. Golden Hathor of the beautiful countenance, under whose protection you spent such long months of privation, has endowed you with her dearest sanctuary, that of Dendera, entirely for your own, and Tehuti has aided you to apprehend correctly the fractional reckoning of the Egyptians, to determine many of their measures, and to make clear the division of the Egyptian land in ancient time.

It is a delight to offer a gift to such a giver, and if mine, my dear Johannes, pleases you, I shall be happy.

I have allowed neither diligence nor care to be lacking in its preparation, but nevertheless I should not have attained the goal which from the first I have had in view, if the family of the deceased had not committed to my use, with such great kindness and noble confidence, all the materials at their disposal. Of the greatest service have been the diaries of Mrs. Lepsius, her husband’s letters to her, to his parents, to Bunsen and many others, and the master’s own memoranda in the form of note-books and diaries, or on scraps of paper and in little books of poetry, in which are also included the poems of Abeken, the family friend.

The heads of the school, especially the principal,{iv} Professor Volkmann, as well as Professor Buchbinder, willingly furnished me with such information as I desired; memoirs and collections of letters already published helped me to make good many deficiencies, and where I wished to consult the records of public authorities I have everywhere met with a courtesy which merits thanks. I owe special acknowledgment for the many communications, both by letter and word of mouth, which I have received from the eldest son of the deceased, Professor R. Lepsius of Darmstadt.

As is natural, the principle materials have been drawn from the works of the master, and my own vivid memories of his character.

The index to his writings will, I think, be welcome to you and to many colleagues. To bring it to the perfection which he had desired was a task attended with many difficulties.

You must yourself judge whether the old adage “a pupil’s praise is lame,” is applicable to this biography. I am conscious of having handled my brush with love indeed, but also with all fidelity. On account of the great abundance of material there was far less need of original research than of sifting and selecting, and this had to be done with special pains and prudence in regard to the twenty-seven volumes of Mrs. Lepsius’ interesting diary.

I hope that you, the master’s eldest pupil, will miss, in this likeness painted by the hand of friendship, no essential trait of the dead who was dear to us both, and that you will find that the artist has introduced{v} into it no more of his own personality than may be permitted to an historian. He tenders you this book with affection, and knows that you will receive it in the same spirit from

Your very faithful,

Georg Ebers.

Leipsic, Easter, 1885.{vii}{vi}

CONTENTS.

{1}{viii}

RICHARD LEPSIUS,

the head master of Egyptology, closed his eyes during the past summer, and his departure has been deeply lamented, not only in our own country, but among scholars of all lands. The task of portraying his life has fallen to me, and this task I have willingly assumed, for I am—with the exception of my dear and excellent friend and colleague, Dümichen of Strasburg—the oldest of his pupils. Till his latter end an intimate untroubled friendship united me to the beloved master, the benevolent promoter of my studies, the colleague, the man who followed with sympathy my poetical as well as my scientific productions. His family have assisted me in the kindest manner by placing at my disposal everything left by the deceased which could possibly aid my purpose. Diaries, memorandum books, letters of great interest, were submitted to my inspection, and these abundant materials confirmed my conviction that the personality of a German scholar has seldom presented so rounded and happily balanced a whole as that of the man whose life it has devolved

upon me to describe. In him are united all things which can be required of a scholar in the highest sense of the word, and hence his biographer, while depicting the development, the individuality, and the vast activity{2} of the man, can at the same time present to his nation such a model, such a beautiful type, of the German master of science, as is worthy of imitation.

In that great community which we call “the cultivated world,” and which has its home in every civilized land, the name of Richard Lepsius stands among those which are well known. Everyone within this circle knows, too, that he was a great Egyptologist. As one holds the diamonds in a king’s crown for genuine, even if he sees them only from afar, so one believes in the value and importance of the works of the celebrated scholar, although one may not even so much as know their titles, and although it is scarcely granted to one amongst ten thousand to comprehend them, or even to study them deeply.

The brief obituaries and biographical sketches published in the papers and periodicals shortly after the death of the great master, could give but a general idea of his labors, and yet these extended over many important domains of science, and his strong and firm hand laid the foundations upon which a long and varied series of future researches can and must be based.

It will be ours to show, in a way accessible and intelligible to every educated person, of what nature were the scientific achievements to which Lepsius owed his high and well-deserved honor and renown, and what a man the nation lost in him.

Georg Ebers. {3}

BOYHOOD AND APPRENTICESHIP.

Richard Charles Lepsius was born on the 23d of December, 1810, at Naumburg on the Saal, a pretty town which rises pleasantly from the grape-grown foothills of the Thuringian forest. Here he passed his childhood among circumstances than which none more favorable could have been imagined for the future scholar and antiquarian.

His father, afterwards President of the provincial court of justice and Privy Counsellor, was at that time Saxon Finance Procurator for the whole Thuringian district, and as such one of the leading men of the place and region. Naumburg is rich in fine buildings of the middle ages, and Charles Peter Lepsius, the father of young Richard, applied such leisure as his exacting occupations afforded him to searching out the history of these venerable monuments. It was he who founded the Thuringian-Saxon Archæological Society, the seat of which was subsequently removed to Halle, and the three volumes of his short papers testify to his zeal and ability as an investigator. He is represented as a strict and methodical official, of distinguished bearing, as well as an indefatigable worker; and precisely these qualities fell as a paternal inheritance to his son, and afterwards constituted the conditions of his greatness.{4}

Among those remarkable men who have compassed high aims by means of marked qualities of temperament or of the imaginative faculty, the maternal influence has usually predominated, while in those cases where strength and acuteness of intellect have made a man great, the paternal character has commonly had most weight. A poet like Goethe, a man of faith like Augustine, a Napoleon Bonaparte, whose imagination transgressed all limits, owed what was best in them to their mothers; the mind of a Lepsius, severe, never seeking after uncertainties, but always inclined to profound research, must be an inheritance from the father.

Throughout Thuringia and Saxony all who were interested in antiquities were connected with the archæologists and founders of the society at Naumburg, the air of the house in which the boy grew up was permeated with historical and antiquarian interests, and its master early permitted his son to take part in those occupations which he himself could only pursue as an amateur, and yet to which his tastes so entirely inclined. Thus it is easy to understand how the Minister of Finance, as soon as he recognized the scientific bent of his son, did everything to further it and to make of his child what he himself, under more favorable circumstances, might have become: a great investigator to whom science should be all and everything, the end and aim of existence, in short, the vocation of life.{5}

THE SCHOOL.

Circumstances facilitated the attainment of this purpose, for in the immediate vicinity of Naumburg was situated an excellent educational institution which, at the time when young Lepsius was received among its pupils, had already long attained that flourishing condition in which it still rejoices.

Private teachers had given him his first instruction under the direction of his father, and at Easter, 1823, he was already, as a boy of twelve, qualified for admission to the school, which begins with the third class of the Prussian gymnasiums. At that time Ilgen was principal of the school, but Professor Lange, his tutor, seems to have exerted a stronger influence than he over the pupils. The latter became principal after the departure of Lepsius in 1831, but unfortunately died a few months after assuming office. He is the only one of all his teachers whom Lepsius especially mentions in the biography attached to his “dissertation” and it is true that this man exercised a marked influence over his gifted pupil by his moral fervor, his great learning and spirited interpretations of the old classic writers.

Professor Koberstein had come to the school three years before Lepsius, and had introduced new life into the teaching of German. He understood how to interest the pupils in ancient and mediæval high German, and after the fashion of Tieck he read German{6} and Shakespearian dramas at his own house in the evenings to a select circle. How greatly Lepsius was affected by the instruction of this able pedagogue and scholar may be seen from the so-called valedictory theme which he was obliged to compose and hand in before his departure, according to the custom in the school at that time. This painstaking essay, unusually mature for a lad of eighteen, handles the following subject, selected by himself: “On the Influence which must be Exerted on the Tendency of Philology in General, and Especially of Classic Philology, by the Most Recent Methods of Treating German Grammar, and the Universal Comparison of Languages Arising from this and the Wider Knowledge of Sanscrit.” It appears from the little sketch of his life appended to this essay that Koberstein had

also given Lepsius special instruction in ancient German and Italian. “The time which I spent with you will ever appear to me the bright spot of my life here,” writes the pupil, on his departure from the excellent institution which he long remembered with affection and gratitude.

And he had reason to be grateful to Koberstein, for in the valedictory theme mentioned above and composed under his auspices we see indicated, as it were, the path which, after much groping and many essays, the studies of Lepsius were finally to follow.

With him, as with so many others, a vigorous individuality had, even in his school-days, exerted a decisive influence upon his subsequent intellectual tendencies. The elder Lepsius, the antiquarian, and{7} Koberstein the accomplished linguist, indicated to their son and pupil from afar the goal for which he afterwards strove, it was reserved for others to be the guides who should determine and direct him thither.

At Easter, 1829, Lepsius, then seventeen years old, passed the final examination with the general certificate I., and left the school with a body invigorated by the merry games of boyhood on the gymnastic-ground and skating-pond and in the swimming-school, with a mind well prepared for every study, and a thorough mastery of the old classical languages.

How dear the school had been to him is shown by the following verses, taken from the farewell poem which he dedicated to it:

His father who, as president of the provincial court and commissioner for the examinations previous to matriculation, was a person of influence with the directors of the school, had desired that in the final scrutiny the performances of his son should be no more indulgently judged than those of every other alumnus. After Richard had been honored with the I., Ilgen wrote to his father in the following reassuring manner, having first announced the results of the examination: “You must on no account imagine that you are under obligations to any one. I assure you for my part that I would have done as I have, even if you were my worst enemy, and that I have only acted according to my conscience, as you may hear from Neue and Jacobi.”

It need not be said that young Lepsius was among the most prominent pupils of the institution. On the king’s birthday, on the third of August, 1826, the task of composing and delivering a poem in honor of the festival was imposed upon him. He chose for his subject “Albert of Babenberge,” and handled it, skilfully enough, in the Nibelungen stanza.

He derived great pleasure, in after days, from poetical composition, and although he ardently devoted himself to science from the very first, yet among the poems lying before us many a gay song bears witness to the vivacity of his youthful spirit.{9}

LEIPSIC.

The elder Lepsius kept most of the letters which his son wrote him from Leipsic, where he began his studies. They show how earnestly he took hold of the matter from the start, and how attentively the president of the court at Naumburg watched not only the practical daily life, but also the scientific activity of his son. The methodical official wished to be informed as to the expenditure of every groschen which he allowed his son, and the accounts accompanying the student’s letters show us how cheaply it was possible to live in Leipsic some fifty years ago. A good dinner, with soup, roast, and salad or compote, cost three groschen, Richard thought the morning coffee too dear at a groschen, the beer at dinner for fourteen days came to seven groschen, a room at the inn for one night was three groschen, a pat (half-pound) of butter was two groschen, three pfennigs. However, the hard-working student seems to have been absolved from this exact rendering of accounts in the third term, but it had been of great advantage to him, for it would have been

impossible for him to bring the greatest of his subsequent works to such a successful issue, or indeed to produce them at all, without the strict sense of order which he had acquired both by inheritance and training. For example, after his return from Egypt he was able without the slightest error to join and fit into{10} their proper places the thousands of sheets of paper with which he had taken impressions of the inscriptions. This shows a painstaking exactness in the marking and numbering of each leaf such as had been practised by no previous traveller, not even by Champollion and Rosellini, in whose works errors are by no means rare.

From the first, it was clear to him that he wished to study philology, but he hesitated for some time as to what course he should pursue afterwards. He had presented himself at the proper time, but in those days the professors took things easily. Godfrey Hermann, of whom he had the highest expectations, only began to lecture after Whitsuntide, “most of the others, such as Beck, Rost, Nobbe, Weiske, only at the beginning of June.” The first course of lectures which he attended was Wachsmuth’s “Universal History.” “I was much pleased,” he writes to his father, “with his introduction, in which he expressed his views on the exposition of the general conception, on the division and proper treatment of history. He has besides an agreeable fluent delivery, and a very pleasant voice. Yet his public lectures on Roman History, which followed immediately, were almost more interesting to me. Here his discourse is perfectly unfettered, because he has already laid his foundations in the preceding lectures on Universal History. Roman

History is a department to which he has given special attention, and in the treatment of which he repeatedly differs from those views of Niebuhr’s which have introduced a new epoch. On this account it is very inter{11}esting to hear him criticise Niebuhr, of whom, however, he speaks with the greatest respect.”