Mais, d'après notre texte, il faut évidemment restituer [[u n]a-ṣu-ra-[ta](1). Dans cette formule abrégée, les régimes sont omis. Ils peuvent être restitués d'après Am. no 125, l. 7 et suiv., où on lit: «Lorsque le roi mon seigneur dit: ú-sur-me ra-ma-an-ka ù ú-șur âl šarri(-ri) šá it-ti-ka [c'est-à-dire garde-toi toi-même et garde la : « ville du roi qui est près de toi »], (je réponds :) contre qui dois-je me garder moi-même et (garder) la ville [du roi]?». Voir encore Am. no 130, l. 14 et suiv.: «Lorsque le roi m'écrit garde-toi toi-même et garde la ville « du roi qui est près de toi», (je réponds): qui me gardera? Comparer Am. nos 112, 1. 7 et suiv.; 119, 1. 8 et suiv.; 121, 1. 7 et suiv.; 122, 1. 9 et suiv.; 123, 1. 29 et suiv., 126, 1. 30 et suiv.; 231, l. 11 et suiv.; 292, 1. 17 et suiv.; 294, 1. 6 et suiv.; 337, 1. 94 et suiv.

: "

Il est à noter que notre texte a uş-şur, au lieu de ú-șur (de même plus bas, 1. 14). C'est là sans doute une simple variante graphique : uş-şur est apparemment pour uşur (impératif de naşáru, mot à mot garde!", c'est-à-dire sois sur tes gardes », « fais attention »).

L'une des tablettes d'El-Amarna conservées au musée de Berlin (VAT. 1870) est une lettre adressée au roi par un personnage dont le nom a été lu par Winckler (n° 272) En-ba(?)-ú-ta et par Knudtzon (no 223) En-g[u?]ú-ta. D'après la copie de Schröder (El-Amarna Tafeln, n° 129) il ne subsiste du second signe qu'un clou oblique qui en formait la partie inférieure. Il faut certainement fire En-ar-ú-ta; ce serait le même personnage que notre In-tar-ú-da. La tablette de Berlin est l'accusé de réception d'un message royal qui devait ressembler fort à la lettre que nous publions. En voici le texte :

(1) Dans le passage parallèle Am. n° 112, l. 9, on trouve, au lieu de la forme transitive na-sa-ra-ta, la forme intransitive na-şir-ta. Knudtzon traduit par le passif, ce qui est grammaticalement correct, mais s'accorde difficilement avec le contexte où les passages parallèles.

THE EDWIN SMITH PAPYRUS.

SOME PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS,

BY

JAMES HENRY BREASTED.

For the benefit of the members and friends of the New York Historical Society the writer recently published a preliminary notice of this remarkable papyrus. This account (1) was necessarily of a purely popular nature and contained statements for which it was impossible to adduce the supporting evidence. As it will be some time before the writer is able to publish the papyrus in extenso, it has seemed desirable to present some of this evidence here, together with a fuller introduction to the document than was possible in the popular essay just mentioned.

Mr. Edwin Smith, after whom the papyrus is named, went to Egypt about the year 1858. He was at that time thirty-six years of age and had studied Egyptian in both London and Paris before proceding to Egypt. Although as far as I know he never published anything, it is quite evident from his papers in my possession that he had become very fully grounded in the new science, which was then only a generation old. His knowledge of hieratic is praised by the sagacious Goodwin, who says, with reference to the date of the calendar on the verso of the Ebers Papyrus: «The numeral attached to the name of the king is neither 3 nor 30 --both of which numbers have been suggested but 9. It is due to Mr. Smith,

(1) New York Historical Society Quarterly Bulletin, April 1922, p. 4-31.

RECUEIL CHAMPOLLION.

25

whose acquaintance with hieratic texts is very extensive [italics mine], to mention that he pointed this out to me as long ago as 1864, when he communicated to me a copy of the endorsement upon his papyrus (1). » It is evident from these remarks of Goodwin that Edwin Smith was the first scholar to read correctly the date in this famous calendar.

Among Mr. Smith's meager papers handed to me by the New-York Historical Society I find a manuscript containing a remarkable attempt by Mr. Smith at a complete translation of the papyrus which now bears his name. When we recall how scanty was the knowledge of hieratic in the sixties of the last century, when this effort at a translation was written out, not to mention also the very limited knowledge of the Egyptian language itself available at so early a stage of Egyptian studies, it is extraordinary how much of the document Mr. Smith has understood. It should be mentioned here also that of the eight fragments of the papyrus which, as we shall see, Mr. Smith rescued, he was able to place three with exactness and two more at least in their approximate connection. Even as early as 1854 he was able to read correctly a name hitherto undeciphered on a wooden stamp in (2) the Abbot Collection. In spite of the fact that he published nothing it is evident that he was one of the pioneers of Egyptian science. By a curious coincidence the year of his birth 1822 — was likewise the memorable year in which Champollion deciphered and read Egyptian hieroglyphic. It is very fitting, therefore, that some mention of this little-known scholar and of the papyrus which bears his name should find a place in a volume which is intended to commemorate the centenary of Champollion's great achievement.

During his residence in Luxor, from 1858 to 1876,

(Zeitschrift für Aegyptische Sprache, Sept.-Oct. 1873, p. 107 ff. (2) Dr. Caroline Ransom WILLIAMS, The Place of The New York Historical Society in the Growth of American Interest in Egyptology, in The New York Historical Society Quarterly Bulletin, April 1920, p. 16.

Mr. Smith met a number of the leading Egyptologists of the time and likewise many of the distinguished English travelers who so frequently visited the Nile in those days. Dr. Caroline R. Williams has noticed in a letter written by Lady Duff Gordon in October 1864 a reference to him as an American Egyptologist at Luxor, a friend of mine», for whom Lady Gordon was securing books to be sent out by her husband). Birch refers to him as having descended with the British Vice-Consul into a tomb shaft ninety feet deep to bring up thirty mummies and their coffins for the entertainment of the Prince of Wales during his visit to Egypt in 1868 (2). In the documents still surviving Mr. Smith's habitual intercourse with eminent sholars and distinguished visitors in Egypt, as well as his scientific knowledge, are quite evident. The reasons for mention of these matters will also be evident as we proceed.

In January 1862, during his stay at Thebes, Mr. Smith purchased the document which is the subject of this article. The fragments of page one, which he put together, are accompanied by a memorandum in his handwriting which reads as follows: «These fragments were recovered from a factitious papyrus made up of the fragments from 3 others March 17, 1862, nearly 2 months after the original purchase, Jan. 20, both from Mustapha Aga, and the fragments A. C. were saturated with glue which was removed by maceration and carefully scraping the glue away which had been used to seal the factitious papyrus composed of these fragments." After his death in 1906 Mr. Smith's daughter, Miss Leonora Smith, presented the document to the New York Historical Society, to whose courtesy I owe the permission to publish these preliminary data.

The problem of the provenience of the Edwin Smith Papyrus unfortunately involves us in some reference to

(1) Ibid., p. 16.

(2) Ibid., p. 16-17.