If we intended to announce that there exists contemporarily a work of the ancient Egyptians, one of their books which escaped the flames which devoured their superb libraries and which contained their purest doctrine on interesting subjects, everyone will be, no doubt, compelled to know such a precious and extraordinary book. If we added that this book was widely spread in a large part of Europe, that for several centuries it has been in the hands of everyone, the surprise would certainly be heightened. Would the surprise [shock] be compounded if we assured it was never suspected to be Egyptian, that we possessed it unknowingly, that no one had ever sought to decipher a sheet; that the fruit of exquisite wisdom is looked upon as an insignificant pile of extravagant trumps?
Would you not be inclined to believe we were toying with your credulity?

Such an Egyptian book exists.

It is unbelievably true; this Egyptian book, the last remains of their superb libraries, exists in our time; it is even so commonplace that no scholar has bothered to notice it; no one before us has ever suspected its prominent origin.

-- Antoine Court de Gébelin