Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 07:36:12 -0500 (EST)
From: Geoffrey Graham <geoffrey.graham@yale.edu>
To: Ancient Egyptian Language List <AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: AEL Budge's dictionaries

Dear Mr. Bey,

You wrote:
> ++++++++It seems there are many problems with Budge's work.  Does his work
> have any value, or is it completely unreliable?  Where would he be most
> reliable, of value?

A friend of mine once threw out all her Budge books in a single day
because our instructor had told us that Budge was not a reliable source. 
I told her that I thought that was silly, since, while Budge might not be
a reliable source, he does have much of use in his work as well, and he
is pretty thorough about bringing up subjects which are left untouched by
various other scholars.  So, I continue to use Budge but in a very
cautious fashion.

Here is how: As you have noticed, he had a knack for sythesizing large
quantities of information in single places.  This is very useful
sometimes.  Most scholars do not undertake this kind of project, 1) 
because they want to be very careful so that they don't make any mistakes
(something which Budge makes an inordinate amount of) and 2) because they
often do not know as much background about such different parts of the
field to be able to do it without collaborating with several other people
(obviously, this is one source of Budge's problems.  Were he to have
consulted other people more, he might have eliminated some of his
mistakes.) 

So what I do, when I can't find something in a standard Egyptological
reference, is look for it in Budge's copious works. Often I find it there,
and then I have to check to see if I can figure out where he got his
information and go back-track to see if the source actually backs him up
or not.  The frusrating thing is that Budge more often than not does not
tell you where his information is coming from, so one has to use all kinds
of inferences and tricks to get to the bottom of things.

The difficulty with this approach is that, if you are an amateur, you will
not know which parts of Budge you should ignore and which parts may be of
some use.  One has to already know Egyptology fairly well to be able to
use Budge successfully without making embarrassing errors because of it.

So, what I would recommend to amatuer Egyptologists is that you not throw
away all your Budge books, but that you put them away in a closet for a
few years while you learn as much as you can about where Egyptology
has come in the last century.  Learn to read Egyptian, learn about
Egyptian culture and religion.  

Then, maybe you can look at Budge's books again, and most of the nonsense
will become quite apparent, and the usefulness will also show up in more
vivid color too.  What I mean is that education clears up the vision, and
you will be able to see Budge more clearly after you have educated
yourselves with other more reliable sources. 

Budge was NOT an idiot.  He was actually an enthusiastic, brilliant man,
who was adept at presenting information in an appealing fashion,... but he
was really not a careful scholar either, and he tended to publish too
quickly, before he had understood what he was looking at, and having
jumped to conclusions prematurely.  I have learned to be leary of his
work, but still I can admire his enthusiasm and a certain kind of
ingeniousness which does come through despite his many foibles.

Sincerely, Geoff Graham

            ````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
	    `   Geoffrey Graham, Yale Egyptology		   `
	    `   http://pantheon.yale.edu/~sokar/index.html	   `
	    `							   `
	    `   Egyptologists' Electronic Forum (EEF)		   `
	    `   http://www.netins.net/showcase/ankh/eefmain.html   `
	    `							   `
	    ````````````````````````````````````````````````````````