648 
wa’arn, with a Latin Inscription from 
MEROE. 
(From Brand’s Quarterly Journal of the Royal 
Institution. ] 
Soughton-hall, Northop, N. W. 
Nov. 26, 1824. 
My pear Sir.—I have to commu- 
nicate to youa piece of intelligence, 
which, I am sure, will give you pleasure. 
My great traveller, Monsieur Linant, 
is at length with me, and has brought 
with him, in safety, the harvest of his 
journey to Napata and Meroe, and into: 
the country beyond Senna’ar. There 
are maps and plans of every thing con- 
nected with his route, together with a 
very detailed journal, and about a 
hundred and fifty most beautiful draw- 
ings, all extremely detailed and minute, 
and some of them upon a very large 
scale. I find the ruins at Merde mag- 
nificent beyond all expectation; but 
what interests me the most in their ap- 
pearance is the striking admixture, 
which is very visible in them, of the 
Persian with the Egyptian style, and 
this not in the sculptured subjects only, 
but in the architecture also ; no such 
resemblance being at all discoverable in 
any other ruins of that country, nor any 
where lower. down: upon the Nile. 
Surely this seems to be a wonderful 
confirmation of the tradition mentioned 
by Strabo, that Cambyses was the 
founder, and called the city Merée, after 
the name of a wife or a sister, it was 
doubtful which : it seems to me proba- 
ble that she was both; and if there be 
really any truth in the tradition cited, 
the circumstance recorded in the same 
passage, that the king carried Egyptians 
with him, will very sufficiently account 
for the edifice not being pureiy Persian, 
but rather of a mixed and grafted style. 
The bas-reliefs, however, seem to par- 
take more of Persian than of Egyp- 
tian details. Strabo says of Cambyses : 
“He, together with some Egyptians, ad- 
vanced as far as Merde; by which name, 
it is said, he designated the island and 
city, in remembrance of his sister 
Merée—some say his wife—who died 
there: and therefore, in honour of her, 
he conferred upon them a human 
name*]’. And Herodotus states, in his 
Thalia, that Cambyses was married to 
two of his sisters, though it is plain also, 
_ from the same passage, that it was con- 
trary to the Persian usage. Josephus, 
* Some of ourreaders, of that sex at least 
which is not expected to be very familiar 
wtih. Greek, will, perhaps, not be displeased 
at our having substituted a literal transla- 
tion,in the place of the original text.—En. 
Eztracts from Philosophical and Scientific Journals. 
in that strangechapter of his Antigq. Jud. 
where he gives the account of the expe- 
dition of Moses: into Aithiopia, speaks 
distinctly and positively of the founding 
(or re-founding rather, and new namirig) 
of Merée, by Cambyses, it having before 
had the name of Saba. There isa large 
extent of ruin (but without any thing 
grand or architectural) at Soba, con- 
siderably south of Meroarat, near the 
junction of the Bahr el Abiad with the 
Abyssinian Nile. These last remains, 
however, [ am well persuaded, are not 
upon the site of Meroe, and that Me- 
roarat is its true situation; the position: 
of this agreeing well with the distance 
given by the ancient » geographers 
to that city from the junetion of the 
Astaboras CAtbara) with the’ Nile. 
The next observation that I have to 
make upon the drawings is in confirma- 
tion of the report given by the spies sent 
up by Nero, which is preserved in Pliny. 
They spoke of the principal temple at 
MerGe being dedicated to Ammon 
(which is evidently proved by the sculp- 
tures on it), and that there were many 
lesser temples in the country round 
about, which is also true; that the city 
was in those days become a small one,’ 
which is confirmed also by the very 
little traces that remain of inferior 
buildings, or heaps of rubbish about thé 
temple. I had always cherished a faint’ 
hope that some vestiges might be found 
ofthese Roman military spies, the cus-° 
tom being very general, of recording’ 
upon the public edifices all along the’ 
Nile, even the most ordinary visits. 
I was very anxious for any token of 
inscription from Merée : there'are some 
scraps of Coptic, which are, perhaps, 
Christian, and seem to promise nothing” 
of interest, of which I have copies; but 
there is one also, which, I regret to say,’ 
seems to have been-very ill copied, 
which has a much more inviting appear- 
ance: it is certainly in Latin; and, 
therefore, I take it for granted, not of, 
Christian times. All Egypt furnishes 
no more than two or three scanty in=, 
stances of inscriptions in Latin; and to. 
find this language at Merée is, there- 
fore, so unexpected, that I cannot help» 
suspecting it to be the work of the trix: 
bune, or. of some of his companions,: 
sent up by Nero to Merée as spies s/I- 
can, however, make very little of ity for” 
Linant, seeming to have taken it for’ 
granted that (because it was cut ima) 
slovenly manner) it was of no interesty 
has made but a careless copy, instead 
of conforming to my injunctions in’ 
making 
