The Decrees of Memphis and Canopus. Volume 1: The Rosetta Stone; Volume 2: The Rosetta Stone [continued]
Book Details + Condition: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd. (London). First Edition thus, 1904. By E.A. Wallis Budge. Very scarce two-volume set. Octavo. Volume 1: 226 pages with numerous illustrations and 16 plates (one folding); Volume II: 203 pages with 3 in-text illustrations and 6 pages of illustrations. Firm binding; rubbed and bumped corners and edges; light wear to boards; fading to spines; a few pages with repaired tears (not uncommon with hand-cut pages); repaired tear to fold-out; interior is clean and free of markings, save small decorative owner stamp to half-title pages.
These are the 17th and 18th books in the series "Books on Egypt and Chaldea", and are uniformly bound as are all books within the series. Each of the volumes was published separately, but are each complete either within themselves, or, as in this case, as a sub-group. These two volumes deal with the Rosetta Stone, an outstanding archaeological discovery that has supplied the basis for Egyptian decipherment. (The final volume of the sub-group explores the "Stele of Canopus", discovered in 1866; it is not included here.) The significance of the Rosetta Stone lies in the three different languages that are inscribed onto it: Koine Greek, Demotic Egyptian, and Hieroglyphic. This has facilitated a vast increase in our understanding of the sacred language of Ancient Egypt, as well as enhancing our understanding of the nature of kingship at a time of tremendous cultural transformation.
E.A. Wallis Budge (1857-1934) was the Curator of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum from 1894 to 1924. He was also a Sometime Scholar of Christ's College, a scholar at the University of Cambridge, Tyrwhitt, and a Hebrew Scholar. He collected a large number of Coptic, Greek, Arabic, Syriac, Ethiopian, and Egyptian Papyri manuscripts. He was involved in numerous archaeology digs in Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Sudan. Budge is known for translating the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which is also known as The Papyrus of Ani. He also analyzed many of the practices of Egyptian religion, language and ritual. His written works consisted of translated texts and hieroglyphs and a complete dictionary of hieroglyphs. Budge's published works covered areas of Egyptian culture ranging from Egyptian religion, Egyptian mythology and magical practices. He was knighted in 1920. E.A. Wallis Budge died on November 23, 1934 in London, England. (Bowker Author Biography)
