A “MOSES” INSCRIPTION

Evening Star, Issue 19127, 19 December 1925, Page 19

A “MOSES” INSCRIPTION

ARCH/EOLOGISAL COMEDY WEATHER CRACKS READ AS SIGHS . It 170111(1 seem tlmt scholars can still make mistakes in the, interpretation oi : ancicut inscriptions which recall the story of 1 Bill Stomps, His Mark,’ in the ‘ Pickwick Papers.' An- inscription which was discovered in Sinai by Sir Flinders Petrie in 1904 furnishes an apparent instance. The record differed entirely from other inscriptions found there., and it was not even certain what was the language in which it was written, though, as it was known that there were a number of Semitic tribes in the peninsula at the period to which tho inscription belonged, it was conjectured that it was Semitic.

Dr Cirimmo, professor of Semitic languages at the University of Munich, who has been working at tho inscription for some time on tho assumption that the language is Semitic, by comparing tho old Phoenician characters, claims to have deciphered it and to have arrived at its moaning, which, he says, is that Moses, here called Manasso'h, Captain over the Stone Workers and tho Chief of tho Temple, thanks Hatshepsnb, tho daughter of Pharaoh, for having pulled him out of the. Nile. That, indeed, would bo a 'sensational discovery if it could bo substantiated. Sir Flinders Petrie lias no doubt, however, that Dr Grimmo has arrived at his conclusion by the ingenuous process of mistaking certain weather cracks and similar marks shown in photographs of the inscription for characters in the unknown script, and then interpreting them. In a letter to tho ‘Observer’ ha writes; “ More, than twenty years ago 1 found in Sinai, at the Egyptian temple of tho goddess Hathor, some rough inscriptions which differed widely trom tho many records left there by the Egyptians. These inscriptions seemed, and still seem, to mo to he tho product of tho local tribes employed there, using the general body of signs which were common around tho Mediterranean ior writing, and which arc the basis of all the modern alphabets, Naturally, some Egyptian signs wore also brought into use.

“ Several attempts have been made to road these brief inscriptions, and some of the words may have been understood, such as the* name of the Semitic goddess Tanil. Unfortunately, Dr Grinunc, not content with the published copies, Ims been transcribing the flaking and weathering of the stones, seen in photographs, ns being additional signs. Thus he has produced inscriptions which ho lias interpreted in a most sensational way. All his results wore sot out in a book which he published two years ago, and which was known in England, though a page strictly prohibited its being sold to anyone out of Germany! “The transcriptions and translation have not been accepted by any scholar, so far as is known; notv that this stale production is being exploited it is time to repeat a published comparison of the facts and the theory. “To take the most important key, the assorted name of an Egyptian queen, in Fig. 1, is all that_ was observed in copying the stone; in I ig. 2 is all that could he credited from Dr Grimmo’s photograph,, a few additional strokes; in Fig. 3 is what Dr Grimmo has added from naturally weathered cracks and breaks, more than doubling the number of thcjknowu signs; in I'ig. 4 are the signs really important for the asserted name. Yet in Fig. o are. tho forms of the same signs claimed by Dr Grinune elsewhere, very different in one sign. In Fig. 6 are, the Hebrew equivalents claimed for those signs. Only three signs out of tho seven are really to he credited, and the values of those are really not proved. “ These are. the various loose links m this chain, which will not carry its own weight, to say nothing of the heavy historical theories which are supposed to depend from it.” Dr Alan H. Gardiner, who first studied the inscriptions found by Sir Flinders Petrie in Syria, writes:

“And now ccrnos Professor Grimms rnd rends whole sentences out ot these sadly-battered inscriptions. Not only tins', but he has been unable to resist the lure of such well-known liiblieal and historical names as Moses and llatshepsut. In order to arrive at these ho is obliged to correct the hand-copies made by Sir Flinders Petrie’s expedition, and uses the very precarious help of enlarged photographs for the purpose. Ido not hesitate to stale that he sees in the photographs a great deal that is not there; and, reluctant as I. am to speak disparagingly of work that has evidently cost • its author much labor, I do not hesitate to qualify his results as both fantastic and imposgijbfew”- '