Some Particulars of Discoveries in Egypt. 211 
great Temple of Ybsambul [Ibsambul, Ebsambul, or Absimbul], 
which lies buried more than twice its height in the sands near 
the second cataract. On this occasion, however, he was unable to 
effect any thing, and therefore returned to Thebes, where he em- 
ployed himself in new researches at the temple of Karnack. Here, 
several feet under ground, he found surrounded bya wall a range of 
sphynxes, about forty in number, with heads of lions on busts 
of women, of black granite, and for the greater part beautifully 
executed. While absent on his second visit to Ybsambul, Mrs. 
Belzoni succeeded in digging up at the same place a statue of 
Jupiter Ammon holding a ram’s head on his knees. And on his 
second journey to Thebes in 1517, M. Belzoni discovered a co- 
lossal head of Orus, of fine granite, larger than the Memnon, 
measuring ten feet from the neck to the top of the mitre with 
which it is crowned, exquisitely finished and in fine preservation. 
He carried with him to Cairo one of the arms belonging to this 
statue. As he succeeded so well in removing the Memnon, may 
we not hope that he will be encouraged also to attempt the re- 
moval of this head, and that we may ere long see it placed be- 
side its colossal brother in the British Museum ? 
After this, M. Belzoni proceeded again to Nubia, and, in spite 
of many hindrances and much inhospitality which he experienced, 
succeeded in opening the celebrated temple of Ybsambul,-which 
no European had ever before entered. In this temple (the largest 
and most wonderful excavation in Egypt or in Nubia) he found 
fourteen chambers and a great hall, and in the latter, standing, 
eight colossal figures, each thirty feet high. The walls and pi- 
lasters are covered with hieroglyphics beautifully cut, and groups 
- of large figures in fine preservation. At the end of the sanctuary 
found four sitting figures about twelve feet high, cut out of 
the natural rock and well preserved. Belzoni’s labour may be 
conceived, when we state that on commencing his operations 
the bed of loose sand which he had to clear away was upwards of 
fifty feet deep. He carried hence two lions with the heads of 
vultures, and a small statue of Jupiter Ammon. From the superior 
style of sculpture found in this temple to any thing yet met with 
in Egypt, Mr. Salt infers that the arts descended hither from 
Ethiopia. 
M. Belzoni, by a kind of tact which seems to be peculiarly 
his own, discovered, on his return to Thebes, six tombs in the 
valley of Biban El Moluck, or the Tombs (or rather Gates] of the 
Kings, (in a part of the mountainswhere ordinary observers would 
hardly have sought for such excavations, ) all in a perfect state, not 
having been viewed by previous intruders, and giving a wonder- 
ful display of Egyptian magnificence and posthumous splendour. 
From the front entrance to the innermost chamber in one of them, 
02 the 
