30 



ARCHAEOLOGY. (EGYPT) 



human body, scraps of ornamentation such as 

 are carved on the thrones of the colossi of the 

 period of the twelfth dynasty, and, finally, a 

 polished sandstone nose measuring eleven and a 

 halt' inches in width. From this feature, Mr. 

 Petrie estimates that the statue, when perfect, 

 must have been about thirty-five feet high. 

 The masses of fragments about the other altar 

 give hope that similar remains of a second 

 statue may be found there. The pedestals are 

 twenty -two feet high. Supposing the statues 

 to have been set upon a base three feet high, the 

 total elevation of the figures above the ground 

 is estimated to have been sixty feet. Each 

 pedestal appears to have been surrounded by 

 an open court, walled around to about the 

 height of the base of the statue. As these 

 walls inclined inward, like the sides of pyloons 

 and pyramids, the effect when viewed from a 

 distance would be precisely that of a truncated 

 pyramid surmounted by a seated statue. The 

 exaggerations by Herodotus of the heights of 

 the monuments which he gave as "fifty fath- 

 oms above the surface of the water, and ex- 

 tending as far beneath " as well as of the size 

 of Lake Moeris, are ascribed to his having vis- 

 ited the country during the inundation, and to 

 his having been misled by his guides, who were 

 probably no more trustworthy than the drago- 

 mans of the present day. 



Mr. Cope Whitehouse, on the other hand, 

 who has made a survey of the depression called 

 the Raian basin, to the south and west of the 

 Fayoum, believes that he has found there the 

 site of an ancient lake that was ample and deep 

 enough to answer the description given by 

 Herodotus as of Lake Moeris. It is described 

 as being forty miles long, twenty miles wide, 

 and more than two hundred and fifty feet 

 deep, and connected with two other depres- 

 sions, one of which is represented by the Bir- 

 ket-al-Keroun, and the other is the Gharaq 

 basin. The Birket is fed by the canal called 

 the Bahr Jusuf, which runs almost parallel 

 with the river from Osioot, till it finds a pass 

 through the hills and enters the Fayoum. 

 After emerging from the pass it divides into 

 four branches, running in different directions 

 toward the Birket or different parts of the de- 

 pression. A fifth channel may also be traced. 

 Within the depression, near the northwestern 

 edge, is a hill called Grande Butte, or Haram 

 by the Egyptians, which may be the island 

 described by Herodotus. 



Documents in the Babylonian Language. A large 

 number of clay tablets and fragments of tablets 

 inscribed with cuneiform characters have been 

 discovered among the ruins of Tel-el- Amarna, 

 iu Upper Egypt, the site of the capital built by 

 Amenophis IV, or Khu-en-Aten. They were 

 discovered in the tomb of a royal scribe, and 

 consist largely of letters and dispatches sent 

 by the kings and governors of Palestine, Syria, 

 Mesopotamia, and Babylonia, to Amenophis III 

 and IV ; and a note in hieratic on one of them 

 says that a large portion of them had been 



transferred from Thebes to the new capital of 

 Khu-en-Aten, along with the rest of the royal 

 archives. Palestine was held at the time by 

 Egyptian garrisons, and the representatives ot' 

 the Egyptian Government appear to have been 

 active in sending home news about all that 

 was going on. Among the cities of Palestine 

 from which letters were dispatched were By- 

 bias, Smyrna, Akko or Acre, Megiddo, and 

 Ashkelon; and reference is made in one of the 

 letters to a coalition, at the head of which was 

 the king of Gath. 



About three fourths of the whole number of 

 the tablets have been deposited in the Royal 

 Museum of Berlin and the British Museum. 

 Among those in the Berlin collection are letters 

 and dispatches from Tushratta, King of Mit- 

 anni ; Burraburriyash, King of Karaduiyash; 

 and other kings of parts of Mesopotamia. The 

 fact is established in them that Tushratta was 

 the father-in-law of Amenophis III, thus con- 

 firming the representations on the scarabei of 

 that king, that he married a Mesopotamian 

 woman. Among the eighty-five tablets acquired 

 by the British Museum are several of consider- 

 able importance for the study of the relations 

 which existed between the kings of Mesopota- 

 mia and Egypt. A dispatch from Tushratta to 

 Amenophis III refers to a treaty which existed 

 between the father of the former and Ame- 

 nophis, and conveys proposals for a marriage 

 between his great-nephew and the daughter of 

 the Egyptian king. A dispatch from Burra- 

 burriyash to Amenophis IV, besides allusions to 

 a treaty, mentions exchanges of gifts. Letters 

 from the king of a country called Alashiya also 

 mention gifts and negotiations, and ask for the 

 return of the property of a subject of Alashiya 

 who had died in Egypt leaving his family in 

 the former country. Other dispatches are 

 from Tushratta to the wife of Amenophis III, 

 the greatly beloved Ti of the Egyptian monu- 

 ments, who appears to have been the daughter 

 of Tushratta, in which the proposed alliance of 

 his great-nephew with Amenophis's daughter 

 is again mentioned. Mr. A. H. Sayce has 

 found in one of the inscriptions a mention of a 

 targumanam or dragoman having been sent 

 with a letter, giving the first example of the 

 use of this word. 



Memphis olossi of Rameses II. Major Arthur 

 Bagnold described before the Society of Bibli- 

 cal Archaeology, at its February meeting, the 

 raising of the pair of colossal statues of Rame- 

 ses II, at Memphis, which are mentioned by 

 Herodotus and Diodorus as having stood in 

 front of the temple of Ptah. One of them had 

 been partly brought to light by Sloane and 

 Caviglia, and Hekekian Bey once began to dig 

 around it; and a cast of its face was in the 

 British Museum. The colossus was raised by 

 the aid of hydraulic apparatus, propped up, 

 photographed, and then laid upon its back, in 

 the position which it had before occupied. It 

 is thought to have been about thirty-five feet 

 high, but was broken off at the knees, and the 



