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Richard Lepsius



A BIOGRAPHY



BY

GEORG EBERS



TRANSLA TED FROM THE GERMAN

BY

ZOE DANA UNDERHILL



WITH FRONTISPIECE

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NEW YORK

WILLIAM S. GOTTSBERGER, PUBLISHER

II MURRAY STREET

1887






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887

by William S. Gottsberger

in the Office' of the Librarian ot Congress, at Washington



• •••••• •

• • • % • • •



• • • •• •••

'• ••«•••

• • •• • .• •



TO DR. JOHANNES DUMICHEN,

REGULAR PROFESSOR OF THE EGYPTIAN LANGUAGE AND
ARCHAEOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF STRASBURG.



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 mas-
ter'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 in-
scriptions 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 collect-
ing them in convenient volumes. A stately row of



226499



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 Sudan. 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 inscrip-
tions 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



in



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 multi-
tude the mysteries to which they gave freer expression
than their predecessors of earlier epochs. Golden
Hathor of the beautiful countenance, under whose pro-
tection you spent such long months of privation, has
endowed you with her dearest sanctuary, that of Den-
dera, 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 com-
mitted 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 de-
sired ; memoirs and collections of letters already pub-
lished helped me to make good many deficiencies, and
where I wished to consult the records of public author-
ities 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 re-
gard to the twenty-seven volumes of Mrs. Lepsius' in-
teresting 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



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.



CONTENTS,



PAGE.

Preface, - i

Boyhood and Apprenticeship, - 3

The School, - - - - 5

Leipsic, 9

GOTTINGEN, l8

Berlln, ^o

The Journeyman, Paris, - __._ ^
Egyptological Studies, as Lepsius found them in

1834, 69

Lepsius in Paris as an Egyptologist, - , 79

lTAI - Y > 93

Holland, England, and the Season of Waiting, in

Germany, 123

The Prussian Expedition to Egypt, under the di-
rection of Lepsius, - - - '140

The Master Workman, 167

The Home of Lepsius, -.._.. 2 i8

Richard Lepsius as a Man, 282

Appendix: I. The Gottingen Insurrection, - - 301
44 II. Lepsius' Report to the Berlin Royal
Academy of Sciences on the com-
mencement of his Egyptological

Studies, 308

44 III. Extract from the Report addressed
to the Ministry, on the Acquisi-
tions and Results of the Expedi-
tion to Egypt under R. Lepsius, 314
Index to the works of R. Lepsius, - - - 325



RICHARD LEPSIUS,

the head master of Egyptology, closed his eyes dur-
ing 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 excel-
lent friend and colleague, Diimichen 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 inspec-
tion, and these abundant materials confirmed my con-
viction 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 RKFARI) LKPSIUS.

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 culti-
vated 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 pub-
lished 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 impor-
tant 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.

Georc. Ebers.



BOYHOOD AND APPRENTICESHIP.

Richard Charles Lepsius was born on the 23d of
December, 18 10, at Naumburg on the Saal, a pretty
town which rises pleasantly from the grape-grown foot-
hills 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 Archaeological 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 bear-
ing, 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 great-
ness.



4 RICHARD LEPSIUS.

Among those remarkable men who have compassed
high aims by means of marked qualities of tempera-
ment or of the imaginative faculty, the maternal influ-
ence 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 pro-
found research, must be an inheritance from the
father.

Throughout Thuringia and Saxony all who were
interested in antiquities were connected with the archae-
ologists and founders of the society at Naumburg, the
air of the house in which the boy grew up was per-
meated with historical and antiquarian interests, and its
master early permitted his son to take part in those oc-
cupations 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 circum-
stances; 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.



THE SCHOOL.

Circumstances facilitated the attainment of this pur-
pose, 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 con-
dition 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 admis-
sion 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 mediaeval high Ger-
man, and after the fashion of Tieck he read German



6 RICHARD LEPSIUS.

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 sub-
ject, 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 in-
struction 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 de-
parture 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 com-
posed 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 indi-
viduality had, even in his school-days, exerted a de-
cisive .influence upon his subsequent intellectual ten-
dencies. The elder Lepsius, the antiquarian, and



THE SCHOOL. 7

Koberstein the accomplished linguist, indicated to their
son and pupil from afar the goal for which he after-
wards 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 :

" A thousand times I've wandered
High on the mount above,
And gazed with quiet rapture
On the valley that I love.

" Beyond, the silver river!
And above, the shining skies !
While, beneath the mountain's shadow,
What a happy dwelling lies !

" The gray walls seem to beckon,
They summon me to go,
And join the throng that gathers
In the garden there below.

" There many a youthful figure
Weaves the merry game, I wis,
But whence, ah whence, arises
In my heart, this pensive bliss ?"



8 RICHARD LEPS1US.

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 :
u 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 sub-
ject " Albert of Babenberge," and handled it, skilfully
enough, in the Nibelungen stanza.

He derived great pleasure, in after days, from poeti-
cal composition, and although he ardently devoted him-
self 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



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 ex-
penditure 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 din-
ner, 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 in-
deed 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



IO RICHARD LEPSIUS.

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 at-
tended 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 fol-
lowed immediately, were almost more interesting to
me. Here his discourse is perfectly unfettered, be-
cause he has already laid his foundations in the pre-
ceding lectures on Universal History. Roman History
is a department to which he has given special atten-
tion, and in the treatment of which he repeatedly
differs from those views of Niebuhr's which have intro-
duced a new epoch. On this account it is very inter-



LEIPSIC. II

esting to hear him criticise Niebuhr, of whom, however,
he speaks with the greatest respect."

The philosopher Krug he had imagined as quite a
different person and much younger. He writes to his
father of him : " He has the face of an old philosopher,
and it is so beset with solemn wrinkles that at first I
could not reconcile it with the biting satirical wit
which one finds in his writings. His eyes, however,
are very brilliant, and they wander perpetually over
the ceiling as if he were unaware of the presence of
auditors, during the quiet almost monotonous, but
pointed discourse, in which he never blunders or hesi-
tates for a syllable."

From what might be called the more fortuitous
selection of the other courses of lectures which he
attended, it is apparent with how little consciousness
of his ultimate goal he began his studies, and he makes
his father the confidant of his indecision. , The inter-
esting letter of the seventh of August, 1829, which we
give herewith, shows the young aspirant for the right
path in the best light, and proves that he had just dis-
cerned in the great philologist, Godfrey Hermann, the
man in Leipsic from whom he had most to gain.

Before the end of his first term he writes to his
father in this letter :

" It will naturally be far more difficult for me to
give you a satisfactory explanation of my position re-
garding science, than regarding practical affairs, since
I will not even boast of having come to fixed views on



12 RICHARD LEPSIUS.

the subject myself. Indeed I consider it a main point
during the first part of my stay at the University, and
one by no means easily or quickly settled, to come to
an understanding with myself about this, and to take a
steady survey of my whole course in life, but particu-
larly of my studies. For I feel more and more this
important distinction between the school and the uni-
versity, that here one is suddenly deprived of all guid-
ance and special instruction as to the direction which
one should pursue. The many beginnings made at
school, without any definite aim in view, must be either
continued or abandoned, either pursued more zealously
or regarded as a side issue, according to one's own
choice and judgment. On this account, too, I do not
reproach myself that as yet I have no unalterable plan
nor perfect system in my studies, since scarcely anyone
could have made such a decision so quickly, or, were
such a hastily formed scheme adopted, it might lead
to a one-sided development which should be most