28 



ARCHAEOLOGY. 



turn inscribed and erased. Tombs of the 

 twentieth dynasty have yielded great numbers 

 of small articles. Two sets of foundation de- 

 posits were found in the corners of an unim- 

 portant building in the cemetery, which, in 

 connection with the foundation deposits found 

 in the previous year at the Ptolemaic building 

 in Naukratis, prove the prevalence of the cus- 

 tom of making such deposits. 



The Royal Palace at Tahpanhes. Mr. Petrie 

 spent the last two months of the season of 

 work on the hitherto unexamined site of Tell 

 Defenneh, the Tahpanhes of the Bible (Taphne 

 in the Septuagint) and the Pelusiac Daphne of 

 the Greeks. The site has considerable intrin- 

 sic importance as being that of the earliest 

 Greek town in Egypt, and as being a site of the 

 twenty-sixth dynasty, wholly free from later 

 remains. The " Pelusiac Daphne " of Herod- 

 otus was one of the important parts in the dis- 

 trict of Stratopeda, in which Psammeticus I 

 settled the Carian and Ionian mercenaries, by 



PLAN OF THE PALACE OP TAHPANHES. 



whose aid he had gained his throne, and was 

 one of the three great fortresses which he es- 

 tablished as a defense against the Arabians and 

 Syrians. The city also played an important 

 part in one of the transactions mentioned by 

 the prophet Jeremiah (chs. xxxvii-xlvii). The 

 mounds consist of three groups, situated from 

 a quarter of a mile to a mile apart, while the 

 intermediate ground is covered with potsherds, 

 stone chips, and the remains of brick founda- 

 tions. The largest of the mounds is composed 

 of the blackened ruins of a huge nile of brick 

 buildings, visible from a great distance across 

 the plain, and which the Arabs told Mr. Pe- 

 trie was called "El Kasr el Bin el Yahndi," 

 or " The Castle of the Jew's Daughter." This 

 building, which formed the chief object of at- 

 tention, was identified as a fort by its construc- 



tion, by a large stela recording the garrison 

 stationed there, and by the arms and armor 

 found in the camp around it. It was proved 

 to have been constructed by Psammeticus by 

 the foundation-deposits, consisting of a variety 

 of articles, with plaques of metal, stone, and 

 porcelain under each corner, bearing the name 

 of that king. Other discoveries indicated that 

 it was also used as a small palace or hunting- 

 box. The whole is inclosed within an im- 

 mense walled area, 3,000 feet long by 1,000 



SECTION OP RUINS OP PALACE OF TAHPANHES. 



feet broad, having a north gate opening upon 

 the Pelusiac Canal, and a south gate toward 

 the ancient military route between Egypt and 

 Syria. The great boundary-wall was 50 feet 

 thick. Among the objects found within the 

 building were " much fine pottery of the twen- 

 ty-sixth dynasty ; bronze and iron work ; deli- 

 cately made scale armor of iron, six laps thick, 

 and yet not over-heavy ; invaluable plaster 

 jar-sealings, with royal names which date the 

 finds; and, perhaps most important, baskets, 

 sacksful of the finest painted Greek vases, all 

 thrown away, broken up, in two or three rub- 

 bish-rooms, and all duted, more nearly per- 

 haps than any other find of vases, by jar-lids 

 of Amasis, who removed the Greeks and 

 stopped their trade early in his reign. We 

 know for certain that this great layer must be- 

 long to within a few years after 570 B. o., but 

 all the most striking pieces are of a style and 

 coloring as yet wholly unknown in the British 

 Museum collection, and, stranger still, quite 

 different from the characteristic Naukratian 

 pottery. Only two bits of the commonest 

 types of Naukratis were found in the whole 

 work. Naukratis and Defenneh did not bring 

 their pottery from a common source, nor from 

 any sources as yet known to us. The inference 

 is that each style is that of the place in which 

 we find it, and is not imported at all." 



Outside of the buildings of the Kasr, Mr. Pe- 

 trie found an area of continuous brick-work 

 resting on sand, about 100 feet by 60 feet in 

 dimensions, facing the entrance to the later 

 buildings at the east corner. It has no traces 

 of chambers, and seems to have been an open- 

 air place for out-door purposes, and "such as 

 even poor villagers make before their houses, 

 leveling a smooth, hard bed of mud, which they 

 keep clean swept." The existence of this pave- 

 ment and its exact location threw a remarkably 

 clear light upon a passage in Jeremiah xliii, 

 where the prophet, having described the re- 

 moval of Johanan and the captains of the 

 forces, "men, and women, and children, and 

 the king's daughters," etc., to Tahpanhes, 

 relates, as it is translated in the Revised Ver- 

 sion : " Then came the word of the Lord to 

 Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying, Take great 



