ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. (EGYPT.) 



19 



p 

 J 



graved on the rocks on opposite sides of the 

 path up the Wady Brissa. Each of the in- 

 scriptions is accompanied by a fiasso-rilievo. 

 The inscriptions relate to an account of the 

 buildings the king was constructing in Baby- 

 lon. An inscription of Nebuchadnezzar, de- 

 posited in the New York Museum of Art, was 

 rovisionally translated in November, 1884, by 

 . F. X. O'Conor, S. J. It refers to the rebuild- 

 ing and restoration by Nebuchadnezzar of the 

 Temple of the Sun, at Sippara, and relates 

 that "the God Merodach, the great Lord, in 

 mighty power raised me up for the restoration 

 of the city and the rebuilding of the temples. 

 A lofty name he proclaimed. The Temple of 

 Parra, the Temple of the Sun, at Sippara, which 

 long before me was in decay and needed repair 

 ... I rebuilt." Then, after relating that the 

 work was not done by any special command of 

 the god, but under the impulse of " the fear of 

 his divinity" and with his encouragement, the 

 king offers a prayer : " Samas, great Lord, 

 upon the joyful entering into the Temple of 

 Parra, thy glorious temple, into the works of 

 my hands, truly be favorable, and may thy as- 

 sistance complete my glory. In thy word of 

 justice, grant me (?) a fullness of glory, a life 

 unto a remote clay, and the establishment of 

 my throne for eternity." 



The Wolfe Expedition. Steps were taken in 

 the autumn of 1883 for organizing an Ameri- 

 can expedition to visit and explore some of 

 the Assyrian and Babylonian ruins. Funds 

 were contributed toward the purpose by Mrs. 

 C. L. Wolfe, of New York, and the enterprise 

 was given the name of the " Wolfe Expedi- 

 tion." The work of exploration is to be car- 

 ried on by the Rev. W. Hayes Ward, D. D., of 

 New York, one of the few American gentle- 

 men who have paid special attention to the 

 study of cuneiform literature, and Messrs. 

 Haynes, of Robert College, and J. R. S. Ster- 

 rett, of the American School of Classical Stud- 

 ies at Athens. Dr. Ward started on his journey 

 in September, 1884, and was joined by his com- 

 panions in Constantinople, where he was fur- 

 nished by the Turkish Government with all 

 the papers necessary to secure the end he has 

 in view. At the latest accounts the party were 

 at Marash, examining the Hittite relics there. 

 They expected to spend the winter in investi- 

 gations of the ruins in Mesopotamia. 



Operations of the Egypt Exploration Fnnd at Pi- 

 thorn and Zoan. The society called the Egypt Ex- 

 ploration Fund was formed in England in 1882 

 for the purpose of promoting the examination 

 of the ancient ruins in the Delta of the Nile, 

 with especial reference to the identification of 

 the places mentioned in the Bible in connec- 

 tion with the sojourn of the Israelites. Its 

 first work was performed during the season of 

 1882-'83, under the immediate direction of M. 

 Edouard Naville, at the mound known as the 

 Tel-el-Maschuta, in the Wadi-et-Tumilat, on 

 the line of the sweet- water canal, near the rail- 

 road station Ramses, and resulted in the iden- 



tification of that place with Pithom, one of the 

 treasure cities which the children of Israel built 

 for Pharaoh, as well as with the city known 

 under the Roman dominion as Heroopolis. M. 

 Naville also learned that Succoth, the place of 

 the first encampment of the Hebrews on the 

 journey of the Exodus, was here, and found an 

 inscription pointing to Pikeheret, which is sup- 

 posed to be the Pihahiroth of the Exodus, as 

 being in the vicinity. A possible corrobora- 

 tion of this identification has since been found 

 in a manuscript relating to the journey of a 

 Frank woman in Egypt, in the fourth century 

 of our era, in which the author mentions that 

 she was shown a place called Pithona, as the 

 city that the Hebrews built for Pharaoh, and 

 speaks of the village of Hero as occupying the 

 same site. Thence the lady relates that she 

 went to Ramses, twenty miles distant. 



The excavations of the Fund were carried 

 on during the season of 1883-'84, under the 

 direction of W. Flinders Petrie, at San, the 

 Zoan of the Bible, where was the capital of the 

 fifteenth and sixteenth dynasties of shepherd 

 kings, and of the twenty-first and twenty- 

 third (or Tanite) dynasties. According to a 

 passage in Numbers xiii, 22, Zoan was built 

 seven years after Hebron. The mounds that 

 mark its former site were prominent objects 

 among the marshes of the Delta, and many 

 interesting relics had been found among the 

 fragments lying loose on the surface of the 

 ground. A few preliminary excavations had 

 already been made by M. Mariette, who, be- 

 ing unable to complete the work, had again 

 covered up the objects he had found, to pre- 

 serve them. According to M. Naville, there 

 was no place in Egypt where destruction had 

 been as complete and as unmerciful as there. 

 Mr. Petrie began his work with the excavation 

 of the temple, an imposing ruin of red granite 

 from Syene, which occupied one of the numer- 

 ous mounds marking the site of the ancient 

 city. This building was surrounded by two 

 inclosure-walls, one of them of sun-dried brick 

 and of very remote antiquity. The other one 

 was erected in the reign of King Pisebkhanu, 

 of the twenty-second dynasty, and is described 

 as being of "incredible strength. It extended 

 round three sides of the building, and is yet 

 standing to the height of about twenty feet. 

 It is eighty feet thick, and built of colossal 

 bricks about eight times the size and weight of 

 our modern bricks." Against and upon this 

 wall dwelling-houses had been built, at dif- 

 ferent periods, as determined by the coins and 

 potsherds found in them. The relics appertain- 

 ing to the temple range in age from the period 

 of the sixth to that of the twenty-sixth dynas- 

 ty. Among them are stones bearing the car- 

 touch of Pepe, possibly of him of the sixth 

 dynasty ; statues in red granite of Amenemhe 

 I, and in black granite of Osortasen I and 

 Amenemhe II ; a torso in yellow sandstone of 

 Osortasen II, and an inscription of Osortasen 

 III, all of the twelfth dynasty ; a few relics of 



