We see generally from the Ptolemaic inscriptions that
nobody could read them but a few priests, who often made mistakes. One
of the most serious was the identification of Keftiu with Phoenicia in
the Stele of Canopus. This misled modern archaeologists down to the
time of Dr. Evans's discoveries at Knossos, though how these utterly
un-Semitic looking Keftiu could have been Phoenicians was a puzzle to
everybody. We now know, of course, that they were Mycenaean or
Minoan Cretans, and that the Ptolemaic antiquaries made a mistake in
identifying the land of Keftiu with Phoenicia.
We must not, however, say too much in dispraise of the Ptolemaic
Egyptians and their works. We have to be grateful to them indeed for the
building of the temples of Edfu and Dendera, which, owing to their later
date, are still in good preservation, while the best preserved of the
old Pharaonic fanes, such as Medinet Habu, have suffered considerably
from the ravages of time. Eor these temples show us to-day what an
old Egyptian temple, when perfect, really looked like. They are, so to
speak, perfect mummies of temples, while of the old buildings we have
nothing but the disjointed and damaged skeletons.
A good deal of repairing has been done to these buildings, especially
to that at Edfu, of late years. But the main archaeological interest of
Ptolemaic and Roman times has been found in the field of epigraphy and
the study of papyri, with which the names of Messrs.
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