ARCHEOLOGY. 



29 



stones in thine hand, and hide them in the 

 mortar of the brick-work which is at the entry 

 of Pharaoh's house in Tahpanhes, in the sight 

 of the men of Judah ; and say unto them, Thus 

 saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: 

 Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar 

 the king of Babylon, my servant, and will set 

 his throne upon these stones that I have hid; 

 and he shall spread his royal pavilion over 

 them. And he shall come, and shall smite the 

 land of Egypt " (verses 8-11). The Revised 

 Version gives as an alternative reading for 

 " brick- work," "the pavement or square," in 

 the light of which Mr. Petrie remarks that the 

 area he discovered would be exactly the place 

 where Nebuchadnezzar would spread his royal 

 pavilion. Search was made for the stones men- 

 tioned, but identification of them was found to 

 be impossible, for the rains have washed away 

 the area and denuded the surface, so that, al- 

 though it is two or three feet thick near the 

 palace, it is reduced in greater part to a few 

 inches, and is altogether gone at the northwest 

 corner. No definite record has been found of 

 Nebuchadnezzar's having fulfilled Jeremiah's 

 prediction, that he would spread his pavilion 

 on that spot. Egyptian inscriptions say that 

 he came, and was defeated by Apries; Baby- 

 lonian inscriptions say that he conquered. 

 Three clay cylinders of Nebuchadnezzar, such 

 as he was accustomed to use for marking the 

 places where he planted his standard and 

 throne, are preserved in the museum at Boo- 

 lak. There is said to be reason to believe that 

 they were found in this place a few years ago, 

 although the Arabs who sold them to the mu- 

 seum said that they came from Tussun, in the 

 isthmus. Within the Kasr were found the 

 kitchen offices, with various articles and con- 

 veniences for kitchen use, including the sink, 

 which, according to Mr. Petrie's description, 

 "is formed of a large jar with the bottom 

 knocked out, and filled with broken potsherds 

 placed on edge. The water ran through this, 

 and thence into more broken pots below, placed 

 one in another, all bottomless, going down to 

 the clean sand some four or five feet below." 

 Several other drain- sinks of similar construc- 

 tion were found. Beyond the camp-wall were 

 the remains of a wide settlement, strewed with 

 fragments of pottery and pieces of jewelry. 

 About 1,600 weights were collected, besides 

 which some 800 weights had previously been 

 found at Naukratis. 



M. Maspero's Report of his Work. M. Maspero, 

 giving a report to the " Academie des Inscrip- 

 tions " of the year's archasological work in 

 Egypt, spoke of the success of the new plan 

 adopted by the authorities of the Boolak Mu- 

 seum of allowing to the finders the benefit of 

 half of all that they discover. The effect of 

 the measure is to interest the people in the 

 search for antiquities and to secure reports of 

 everything of interest that is found. A rock 

 has been discovered near Akmim which con- 

 tains some ten or twelve thousand inscriptions, 



of hunters of all races Egyptian, Phoenician- 

 Greek, Roman, and Arab, who were accustom- 

 ed to resort to that region from the sixth dy- 

 nasty down to the present time. The excava- 

 tions at Luxor have been continued, in the face 

 of difficulties in effecting the expropriation of 

 the building that encumbers the site of the 

 temple. The removal of the sand around the 

 sphinx has been undertaken. Although noth- 

 ing was to be seen of this structure except the 

 head and neck, the figures of it on the old 

 Egyptian monuments show the entire body 

 down to the paws, and a large square plinth 

 beneath, covered with ornaments. It has been 

 generally supposed that the sphinx was hewn 

 out of a large isolated rock which overlooked the 

 plain ; but M. Maspero has found it to be of a 

 yet more stupendous character. It has been 

 shown to occupy the center of an amphithea- 

 tre, forming a kind of rocky basin, the upper 

 rim of which is about on a level with the head 

 of the figure. The walls of this amphitheatre 

 wherever visible are cut by the hand of man. 

 It seems probable, therefore, that in the begin- 

 ning there was a uniform surface of rock in 

 which an artificial valley has been excavated, 

 so as to leave in the middle a block out of 

 which the sphinx was finally hewn. During 

 the winter's work of 1885-'86, the sand around 

 the sphinx was lowered by about thirty metres. 

 The Mummies of Barneses II and III, Sekenen-ra 

 and Seti I. On the 1st day of June, M. Mas- 

 pero, Director-General of the Excavations and 

 Antiquities of Egypt, by order and in the pres- 

 ence of the Khedive, assisted by a number of 

 Egyptian and European officers, unbandaged 

 the mummy of Rameses II, which had been 

 found in 1884, together with mummies of other 

 kings, princes, and princesses of ancient Egypt, 

 at Dayr-el-Bahari, near Thebes. The identity 

 of the mummy was attested by the official 

 entries bearing dates of the reigns of the high- 

 priests under whom they were made, written 

 in black ink upon the lid of the wooden mum- 

 my-case, and by a further entry written upon 

 the outer winding-sheet of the mummy over 

 the region of the breast. After removing two 

 or three layers of bandages there was found a 

 piece of fine linen reaching from the head to 

 the feet, on which was drawn a figure repre- 

 senting the goddess Nut, one metre in length, 

 in red and white, as prescribed in the ritual. 

 " The profile of the goddess," -says the official 

 report of the process, " is unmistakably de- 

 signed after the pure and delicate profile of 

 Seti I, as he is known to us in the bas-relief 

 sculptures of Thebes and Abydos. Under this 

 amulet there was found another bandage ; then 

 a layer of pieces of linen folded in squares and 

 spotted with the bituminous matter used by 

 the embalrners. This last covering removed, 

 Rameses II appeared. The head is long, and 

 small in proportion to the body. The top of 

 the skull is quite bare. On the temples there 

 are a few sparse hairs, but at the poll the 

 hair is quite thick, forming smooth, straight 



