ARCHEOLOGY. (EGYPT.) 



29 



statues of an officer named Amenophis. in- 

 scribed with rhe cartouches of Amenophis III, 

 and the torso of a woman of the same epoch ; 

 - of Amenophis IV (or Khu-en-Aten)in the 

 shape of the name of that king's patron deity. 

 The results of the investigations brought up 

 the number of the names of the kings who 

 had left traces of their work here to twenty- 

 two, beginning with Pepi Merira, of the sixth 

 dynasty, including Usertesen III. of the twelfth 

 dynasty, and ending with Xeetanebo. 



Evidences associating the site with the rale 

 of the Hyksos kings were found in the shape of 

 an architrave sculptured with the cartoucb of 

 Apepi, and the remains of three statues of this 

 period. One of these was headless, but was seat- 

 ed upon a throne, with cartouches and stand- 

 ard, giving the family name, the throne name, 

 and the " banner " name of the king in a perfect 

 state of preservation. This is the first instance 

 in which a Hyksos statue has been found with 

 a legible inscription. The inscriptions read as 

 follows: u The divine Horus who embraces 

 the lands, the good god Userenra, the son of 

 Ea, Raian. loving his KIT, everliving." This 

 name, Raian, is new to the Egyptian monu- 

 ments, although it suggests a curious coinci- 

 dence with an Arab tradition of the going of 

 Joseph to Egypt, which, as given by Mas'udi. 

 relates that "the Hamites who peopled Egypt 

 had been for some time ruled over by women, 

 in consequence of which kings from all quar- 

 ters were lusting after their land. An Amele- 

 kite king named al-Walid invaded it from 

 Syria and established his rule there. After 

 him came his son, Rayyan ibn al-Walid, in 

 whose time Joseph was brought to Egypt.'' 



Mr. Petrie has adduced reasons, from the 

 readings on two cylinders bearing the titles of 

 this king, for supposing that the name should 

 be read Khian rather than Raian, and that 

 this makes his connection with the Rayan of 

 Arab tradition almost impossible. The Rev. 

 Henry George Tomkins, however, has sug- 

 gested that "if we must read Khian, the name 

 may still be intended by the IANNA2 of Mane- 

 tho, with rough breathing." and adds "that in 

 this case we may find for the first time traces 

 of a Hyksos proper name in northern Syria : 

 for Assur-nazirpal received tribute from Khaian 

 or Khindaui ' on the further bank of the Eu- 

 phrates.' that is, on the western side, south of 

 the junction of the Khabur. And Shalmaneser 

 took tribute of Khaian, the son of Gabas, in 

 northern Syria toward the west. There are 

 local traces of such a name, especially the 

 ancient ruins and great tanks of Khurbet 

 Haiyan. east of Bethel, which have been 

 thonght to mark the site of the important Ca- 

 naanite city Ai or Hai." 



Mr. F. Llewellen Griffith has compared the 

 prenomen of the king as given on this statue 

 Ra-suser-n with the name inscribed in im- 

 perfect characters in the cartouch of a black 

 granite lion from Bagdad, in the British Muse- 

 um, which presents some resemblance to it. 



This lion is one of a class of sphinxes in black 

 granite that have been found at several sites 

 in Lower Egypt, and are assigned to a period 

 previous to the eighteenth dynasty. 



Portraits of the Greco-Roman Period. Mr. Pe- 

 trie placed on exhibition in London the ob- 

 jects that he recovered in the exploration of 

 a vast cemetery, which he found near the pyra- 

 mid containing the tomb of Amenemhat III. 

 The cemetery proved to be one of the Ptole- 

 maic and Roman epochs, and furnished many 

 new facts respecting the dress, mode of burial, 

 etc., of the Hellenized and Romanized Egyp- 

 tians of the three or four centuries before and 

 after the Christian era. The mummies of two 

 or three earlier centuries had gilt sculptured 

 head-pieces, and those dating from about A.D. 

 150 had portraits inserted in the place of the 

 head. These portraits, of which there were 

 more than thirty, were painted, apparently in 

 colored wax, upon very thin wooden panels, 

 and are preserved in all their freshness. Many 

 of them are said to be wonderfully expressive; 

 one, representing the face of a man of mature 

 acre. " is modeled with singular force and skill," 

 and four are "excellent portraits" of ladies. 

 These heads were slipped into the mummy- 

 case, and it appears to have been the custom 

 to keep the mummy, thus adorned, for several 

 years in the house of the family. An impor- 

 tant fragment of papyrus, containing a tran- 

 script of a part of the second hook of the 

 Iliad, beautifully written, is included in the 

 collection, and with it is the skull of the owner, 

 a lady, with shreds of her hair twisted over it. 



The Pyramid and Statues of Lake Moeris. The 

 researches of Mr. TV. M. Elinders Petrie in the 

 Fayoum have brought to light what are sup- 

 posed to he the remains of the structures de- 

 scribed by Herodotus as two pyramids crowned 

 with colossal statues standing in the midst of 

 Lake Moeris. At Beyahmu. a village about 

 four miles north of Medinet-el-Fayoum, ruins 

 destitute cf inscriptions and called Eursi 

 Fafvn. or Pharaoh's chair, had been already 

 remarked and described by Ebers as resem- 

 bling dilapidated altars rising above other frag- 

 ments of solid masonry. Ebers had also sug- 

 gested a connection between these objects and 

 the pyramids of Herodotus. Mr. Petrie found 

 that they were, in fact, two piles of masonry 

 standing on two stone platforms, at the corner 

 of one of which was an angular block of some 

 sloping structure, like the corner of a pyramid. 

 The piles of rubbish in which the ruins were 

 half imbedded, were found to contain a vast 

 number of fragments of limestone', red granite, 

 and a hard and highly polished yellow quartz- 

 ite sandstone. A search among these frag- 

 ments soon brought out scraps of hieroglyphic 

 inscription, a morsel of bass-relief paneling, 

 and a royal oval containing the name of Ame- 

 nemhat III the Mo?ris of Herodotus. As the 

 search was continued, numerous chips were 

 found containing bits of detail, or wrought in 

 the likeness of the undulating surface of the 



