situation of which he was well acquainted for many years before it
became known to the Egyptian Service of Antiquities. When Mr. Rhind
came to England, the results of his excavations were examined by Dr.
Birch, who, recognising the great value of the papyrus, arranged to
publish it in a companion volume to Facsimiles of Two Papyri, but the
death of Mr. Rhind in 1865 caused the project to fall through. Mr.
Rhind's collection passed into the hands of Mr. David Bremner, and the
papyrus, together with many other antiquities, was purchased by the
Trustees of the British Museum. In 1880 Dr. Birch suggested the
publication of the papyrus to Dr. Pleyte, the Director of the Egyptian
Museum at Leyden. This savant transcribed and translated some passages
from the Festival Songs of Isis and Nephthys, which is the first text
in it, and these he published in Recueil de Travaux, Paris, tom. iii.,
pp. 57-64. In 1886 by Dr. Birch's kindness I was allowed to work at
the papyrus, and I published transcripts of some important passages and
the account of the Creation in the Proceedings of the Society of
Biblical Archaeology, 1886-7, pp. 11-26. The Legend of the Creation
was considered by Dr. H. Brugsch to be of considerable value for the
study of the Egyptian Religion, and encouraged by him[FN#1] I made a
full transcript of the papyrus, which was published in Archaeologia,
(vol. lii., London, 1891), with transliterations and translations. In
1910 I edited for the Trustees of the British Museum the complete
hieratic text with a revised translation.[FN#2]



[FN#1] Ein in moglichst wortgetreuer Uebersetzung vorglegter Papyrus-
text soll den Schlussstein meines Werkes bilden. Er wird den Beweis
fur die Richtigkeit meiner eigenen Untersuchungen vollenden, indem er
das wichtigste Zeugniss altagyptischen Ursprungs den zahlreichen, von