118 Study of the Nexo York Obelisk as a Decayed Boulder. 



sand up to the height of 12 feet, and to its action the obliteration 

 of the characters has been attributed by some, the upptr limit 

 having been denominated the "sand-line." But envelopment in 

 sand has served usually, in Egypt, as the best protection. Thus it 

 is stated of two of the most ancient obelisks discovered, those of 

 King Entef of the Xlth dynasty, over 2400 B. C, "the hiero- 

 glyphics in these obelisks were very well preserved, owing to the 

 friendly protection of the sand beneath which they were buried.'" 

 The same protection of hieroglyphs, on the under side of the fallen 

 obelisk at Alexandria, was noticed at the time of its exhumation in 

 1801. The same fact may be even more strongly shown in the 

 remarkable preservation of the Greek and Latin inscriptions upon 

 the bronze-crabs, during nineteen centuries, among whose charac- 

 ters, only partly filled with metallic oxides, the keen eye of our 

 American archaeologist fortunately detected the important lost 

 numeral.* 



The upper line which bounds most of the obliteration seems to 

 me therefore, perhaps, to mark the highest limit of the most intense 

 flames of the fires at An, and more surely the limit of protection of 

 this smoother fire-flaked surface, from much subsequent erosion and 

 pitting by the weather and drifting sands, during its envelopment 

 to that depth. 



(4). The belts of obliteration which stretch up the S.S.W. and 

 W.N.W. sides of the shaft, uniting in the cracked W.S.W. corner. 

 This efi'acement of hieroglyphs has been attributed to several causes. 



(a). The damp climate and aea-breezes^ of Alexandria This 

 will be discussed beyond, where it is show^n that the side which 

 then faced the Mediterranean is the present E.S.E. side, on which 

 the inscriptions remain in excellent state of preservation, 



(b). The long continued action of the sun. This view appears 

 at first the more plausible, since it is probable, for reasons already 

 given, that the badly injured W.N.W. and S.S.W. faces did really 

 stand at An for about 1050 years, as they do now, in full exposure 

 to the afternoon sun. But the present N.N.E. side faced the sun 

 afterwards still longer, at Alexandria, for 1891 years, to the W.S.W., 

 and is the best preserved of all the faces. Nor has such injury 

 been noted on any other of the obelisks, constructed of exactly the 

 same granite, which have stood, in the same climate, at An and at 



1 Stuart, Nile Gleanings, 273. Long, idem, 302. 



2 Merriam, loc. cit. . ^ Clark, op. cit., 31. 



