The Morristown gazette. [volume] (Morristown, Tenn.) 1867-1920, 1881-01-12
TuR DAre oF THR oBELlsK.
ED PHARAOH WHO DIED IN THE
RED SEA?
New York World.

II ..
New York World.
In room No. 36 of the Coope
D Union last evening DIR. David T
= Holton, the Corresponding Secretar,
4 Of the American Pathological Socie
ty, read before that body pape
prepared by Gustavus Seyfarth OF
{ The Alexandrian Obelisk in New
, York; its Age and Inscriptions.
Professor Seyffarth says {" this mon
olith at present, 3,745 years old, ii
! one of the oldest monuments of an
cient art, literature, history and
theology. 1t is closely connected
with the records of the Old Festa-
ment. 1t is one Of twenty-nine obe-
lisks saved from the barbarian hands
of the Persians $500 BaC) and the
Arabians (622 A C.). 1t was the
sixth left in Egypt by the Europeans.
/ 1t belongs to the eight greatest obe-
lisks erected by the Egyptian kings,
| The pyramidion contains four in
scriptions. On the right side of the
shaft three long perpendicular lines
are to be seen, each of the latter con-
tanning about fifty words The
whole of the obelisk must have con-
tanned two hundred groups more or
less, and nearly sixty have been eff
faced. What have these hierogly-
phic lines to tell us? Who is able
to translate them into English gram
matically and logically? What is
the real key to Egyptian literature
so long sought after? Professor
Seyfarth then gave an extended re-
view of the attempt of different
EgyptoIogists to decipher hero
glyphs and his reasons for believing
that the real key to Egyptian litera-
ture was unknown to Champollion
and his successors: He then contin-
ued: --
"The Egyptian literature does not
consist half of idealogic (symbolic)
and half of alphabetic signs, but has
$50 figures of naturrl objects-men,
limbs, animals, trees, plants, imple-
ments, &c, for syllabically express
ing two or three consonants contain
ed in the respective names of the
figures. No hieroglyph signifies
symbolically aword or idea. 1t is
erroneous to conclude that the Alex
andrian obelisk concerned the sun
god. The temple on the entrance
of which both the American and
London obelisks once stood was ded-
icated to the Lord the Creator of
the World The language of the
ancient Egyptians (the so-called sa-
cred dialect) was the ancient Coptic
related with the primitive language,
the Hebrew. On the pyramidion Of
this obefsk we notice this inscrip-
ton: The King offering mansion
to the Almighty Cbeing on one side
called the iliustrious Lord and on
the other the Creator.O This God
gives in remuneration to the King
his own government and power" !"
In order to get at the correct age
of the obelisk Professor Seyffarth
gave an extended history of Egypt
from the earliest recorded ages and
then said: "In conclusion we pro-
ceed to the question of what, years
the Kings Rameses II. and Thoth-
mes III, mentioned on our obelisk,
reigned and died. Since the first |
king, Menos, settled In Egypt 278O !
B. B., 666 years after the deluge,
and since the tablet of Mydos speci-
fies thirty eight kings from Menos |
down to the death of Rameses II, |
and since the same thirty-eight |
kings reigned l JOG years, it is obvi-
GUS that Rameses II must have died |
about the year 1874 B. O. Ny COM
putation has been examined and |
confirmed by the late director of the
Dudley Observatory at Albany, |
Professor Mitchell The age of |
Thothmes LII. is fixed by the same
historical and astronomical certain
ties. He was the thirty-frst king |
after Menosa a(278OB. O., and since
at that time each king reigned on
an average twenty nine and half |
years 1hothmes LII, must have been
crowned 885 years after Menos (2980 |
B. O., that is, about 1895 B, O., and |
must have died in 1866 B. G. This |
= q /, 7
result is much more Important than |
the ChampoIlionists from 1923 to
1880 have imagined, for the evil |
dences that our Thothmes III. was
the same Pharaoh who persisted in
the Red Sea while pursuing the Is |
raelites is placed beyond the reach
of all controversy by Manetho himr |
self, to wit, in the tablet of Abydos |
referring to the eighteenth Egyptian |
dynasty four kings called Thothmes,
namely, Nos. AZ, 43, Al and 46, Man |
etho calls them also Thothmes, ex-
eept the third, to. whom he gives the
strange name of Mispragmuthos. No
such name appearing on Egyptian
monumentsIi 1t is evident that it must
involve the description of Thothmes
III Indeed Mi-suph-rag- -muth-oth
represent five well known Egyptian
words, Mi-supt (Mesuph) is the
notorious name of the Red Sea, 30
often called in the Old Testament
the sea of Reed gam 7suph. Rag
signifies both in Coptic, and Hebrew
bay or inlet. sMuth in both langua-
ges is the word died Asash, the
Hebrew sish' gives man, and in short
Mispragmuthos signifies the man
who died in the bay of the Red Sea.
Is it not remarkable act of ,Provi-
dence that after 3,746l years, in
which 125 generations walked over.
the surface of our globe, the name
and figure of that Pharaoh hasAgain
come to light before whose face
Moses and Aaron stood so often, who
was the hero of a tragedy unparall7
eled in human history /; who gave
rise to the immortal hymn, l will
sing unto the Lord, for He has tri-
umphed gloriously} Is itInot a hap.
py dispensation that cur city and
our country is at present in posses