Project Gutenberg's The Bride of the Nile, Complete, by Georg Ebers

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Title: The Bride of the Nile, Complete

Author: Georg Ebers

Last Updated: March 9, 2009
Release Date: October 17, 2006 [EBook #5529]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BRIDE OF THE NILE, COMPLETE ***

Produced by David Widger

THE BRIDE OF THE NILE

By Georg Ebers

Translated from the German by Clara Bell

PREFACE.

The "Bride of the Nile" needs no preface. For the professional student I
may observe that I have relied on the authority of de Goeje in adhering
to my own original opinion that the word Mukaukas is not to be regarded
as a name but as a title, since the Arab writers to which I have made
reference apply it to the responsible representatives of the Byzantine
Emperor in antagonism to the Moslem power. I was unfortunately unable to
make further use of Karabacek's researches as to the Mukaukas.

I shall not be held justified in placing the ancient Horus Apollo
(Horapollo) in the seventh century after Christ by any one who
regards the author of the Hieroglyphica as identical with the Egyptian
philosopher of the same name who, according to Suidas, lived under
Theodosius, and to whom Stephanus of Byzantium refers, writing so
early as at the end of the fifth century. But the lexicographer Suidas
enumerates the works of Horapollo, the philologer and commentator
on Greek poetry, without naming the Hieroglyphica, which is the only
treatise alluded to by Stephanus. Besides, all the other ancient writers
who mention Horapollo at all leave us quite free to suppose that there
may have been two sages of the same name--as does C. Leemans, who is
most intimately versed in the Hieroglyphica--and the second certainly
cannot have lived earlier than the VIIth century, since an accurate
knowledge of hieroglyphic writing must have been lost far more
completely in his time than we can suppose possible in the IVth century.
It must be remembered that we still possess well-executed hieroglyphic
inscriptions dating from the time of Decius, 250 years after Christ.
Thus the Egyptian commentator on Greek poetry could hardly hav