OLD CIVILISATIONS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 44, 20 January 1938, Page 15

OLD CIVILISATIONS.

RECALLED IN PAPYRUS SCRAPS

One frequently hears of big fortunes being devoted to acquiring manuscripts of bygone daps. It is chiefly the so-called papyri of Egypt which fetch incredibly high prices, although ■ sometimes they are found only in fragments which are tattered to such an extent that even experts have to spend hours solving their secrets. Before these papyri can he read, they have to he entirely reconstructed, as they only consist of little scraps from which nobody, not even the greatest experts, can read any coherent sentence.

That is why some Egyptologists made a regular business of restoring and reconstructing papyri. One of the most famous among them is Professor Hugo Ibscher of Berlin. He started life as a book-binder’s apprentice having a lot to do with old books and manuscripts. He became extremely fond of them and later on started to educate himself. As a result he has reached the highest Egyptological rank. When ho recently celebrated his sixtieth anniversary, the natural scientific world congratulated himProfessor Ibscher joined the Berlin State Museum in 1891 as a temporary assistant, along with Professor Abel, wlio in those days was the best known expert of papyri in the world. At that time, natural science knew very little of the subject. In most of the great museums of the world the officials were content to stick the little scraps of papyri on sheets of paper, numbering and cataloguing them and then forgetting all about them. As these different papyri of the ancient Egyptian civilisation originated from various epochs, it was extremely difficult to discover the connection between them. Professor Ibscher recognised the importance of finding the connection between the various little scraps. As a result of his efforts, the time came when the first complete translation of some of the papyri was accomplished. Professor Ibscher studied day and night to bo able to solve the secrets of Egyptian literature. One day, Professor Abel, young Ibscher’s superior, was called to Erlangen. During the absence of the professor, Ibscher made his first attempt to reconstruct a complete paj'prus and was highly excited, when lie succeeded in his task. Making this triumph a starting point, he began to make _ a systematic study of all the Egyptian writings and the ancient Egyptian language. In a- few years’ time he was able to solve and translate papyri which the greatest experts had for centuries failed to do. In 1907, Professor Ibscher was invited to London; and, although natural scientists there had tried unsuccessfully to solve the secrets of an important papyrus of the epoch of Karnescs, Professor Ibscher immediately started oil the task. NOVELS AND ESSAYS.

Years have now elapsed, and he still works on the solution. He is understood, however, to be near the end of the work. This particular papyrus of the Rameses epoch, consists of 15 fragments, and Professor Ibscher already knows that there are seven novels, one drama, and several essays in them. The German archaeological excavations in Egypt from 1902 till 1912 brought several papyri to light, lhey all came into the hands of Professor Ibscher, although he did not take any personal part in the actual work of excavation. To speak of results, a large coffin dug out of an ancient Egyptian cemetery was found to be made of compressed papyri. It was sent to Professor Ibscher, wlio discovered that the papyri comprised various literary works. Many experiments. were made, and finally a new chemical solution was devised , by means of which the papyri were separated without injury to the writing. More than 100 manuscripts emerged. These papyri, it is explained, were used in those days as waste, and coffins were constructed from them. It is easy to imagine what an immense task it was to undo the compressed papyri so carefully that not a single letter was obliterated. In Copenhagen, Professor Ibscher was commissioned to reconstruct the one and only manuscript of ZendAvesta, which is the sacred book cf the Persian fire-worshippers. Some years ago the manuscript was badly reconstructed, and in consequence was quite illegible. Professor Ibscher’s work was a complete success. Then he was commissioned to reconstruct some papal documents of Spain of the Middle Ages. When the documents were first discovered, they were merely stuck to a linen sheet. Moths had eaten a considerable part and the manuscript was on the verge of destruction when it came into Professor Ibscher’s hands. First of all_ he removed the original from the linen. As a result, the manuscript collapsed into tiny fragments. After many months Professor Ibscher showed the‘document, completely reconstructed. In 1930 he went to Turin, to reconstruct papyrus which had also been wrongly put together a

century before. The next year, he w'ent to Istanbul, to reconstruct what is said to be the first map of the world which had been found there in an abandoned cellar. He was also commissioned a short while ago with the reconstruction of the manuscripts of the Persian Mani, who lived in the third century, B.C. He is still at work on this job and hopes to finish it in six years’ time. It is expected to resuit in ancient Persian civilisation being regarded in a new light.