THE TREASURES OF EGYPT.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume xxix, Issue 7541, 17 July 1908, Page 1

THE TREASURES OF EGYPT.

'•'Greek scholars of the present generI atioii have enjoyed, and are still,enjoying, a unique experience," writes Mr F. G. Kenyon in an extremely able and informed article in the Quarterly''Review. "The uniqueness of their^experience lies in the fact that to them alone, I has it been vouchsafed to recover from the sands of Egypt a rapid succession of Greek works which no human eye had seen for perhaps a millennium and a-half. The year 1891 may be indeed be said, without the exaggeration which usually attends the phrase, to have been epoch-making, for it marked the beginning of a new period, the importance of which in the history of Greek literature cannot be denied. In that year Professor 'Mahaffy published the ; first part of .the Petrie Papyri (so-called after their discoverer, Professor Flinders Petrie),' which included portions of the 'P4l&O' '■ of Plato and the lost 'Antiope' of Euripides, together, with smaller fragments of Homer and other authors,'written upon papyrus in the early part of the. third century 8.C., *600 years earlier than the earliest Biblical MSS. then- known, and 1300 years earlier than the generality of Greek classical MSS. At the beginning of 1904 it was calculated that the number of, published literary papyri, large and 6mall, was.approximately 350, without reckoning theological texts, which might have been estimated at another 60. Of these, about 160 contained texts not previously known; about 110 conl tamed portions of Homer, and the remaining 80 were divided among other already extant works, the leading places being taken by Demosthenes and Plato. Since then very considerable additions have been made to these figures, so that the total'of published literary papyri now falls little short of 600. And so far from being exhausted is the supply that the year 1907, in its concluding month, established its claim to rank with. 1897,'; with 1891, and with 1847, as one of. the anni mirabiles in the fortunes of Greek literature. So much for the past. What of the future? The answer is simple. The experience of the last few months has shown us that the treasures of Egypt are not exhausted.. If a casual'scratching'in a paltry village can give us back Menander, and a search for an ancient Egyptian' interment can, as a by-prodtictj reveal a Greek soldier buried with a roll of Timotheus, why should not similar chances give U6 Sappho, Simohides, Stesichoruß, Archilochus, Cratinus, Agsthon, and others for whom out mouths water, or, like Herodas, almost' unknown writers of unsuspected interest? We know that the works of most or all of these were in existence during the period covered by tho papyri; and for the rest we depend upon fortune. There are still many rubbish-heaps left in Egypt, and it is from them—the mounds which surround the sites of ancient towns and villages—that most of the .papyri (though not the most perfect) have come. There must still be cemeteries containing mummy-eae.-s made out of masses of papyrus compacted together and covered wiih clny, biro that of Gurob and Hibeb. There may still be mummified crocodiles to bo found, stuffed and wrapped round with papyrus rolls like those of Tebtuim. There may still, occasionally, bo found po^fi containing manuscripts, like those which" produced the Mcuander or the papyri from the- Serapeum of Thebes; or burials in which a manuscript has boon laid with the dead man. like the Timotboiis at Abusir. or the Hyperrides MS. obtained by Bankes nnd Arden near Thebes. But these things lie upon the knees of tho gods. It is for scholars at Home to support and facilitate the work of those who go out to search, and to prepare themselves and their posterity to deal with, .tlie accessions which they bring to that immortal Greek literature.upon which our civilisation i&'ba&ed."