phonetic value of a number of Egyptian hieroglyphs. However, other scholars have been highly sceptical about El-Daly's claims on the accuracy of these identifications, which betray a keen interest in (as well as some basic knowledge of) the nature of Egyptian hieroglyphs, but are in fact for the most part incorrect. The book may have been known to the German Jesuit scholar and polymath Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680), and was translated into English by Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall in 1806 as Ancient Alphabets and Hieroglyphic Characters Explained; with an Account of the Egyptian Priests, their Classes, Initiation, and Sacrifices in the Arabic Language by Ahmad Bin Abubekr Bin Wahishih. See also Alchemy Alchemy and chemistry in the medieval Islamic world History of agriculture Ibn Abi Usaybi'a Muslim Agricultural Revolution Science in the medieval Islamic world The Nabataean Agriculture (Ibn Wahshiyya's major work) References Bibliography External links Kitāb Shawq al-mustahām fī maʿrifat rumūz al-aqlām (1791) Alchemists of the medieval Islamic world Arab historians Wahshiyah, Ibn 9th-century Arabs 10th-century Arabs 10th-century Arabic writers 9th-century Arabic writers 10th-century agronomists