18 



ARCHAEOLOGY. (EGYPTIAN.) 



about 450 to 300 B. c.). The list in lineal de- 

 scent is as follows : 



Baalmelek, B. o. circa 45N-420 

 Azbaal " " 42(MOO 



Baalram " " 400-380 

 Melikiathon " " 8SH-350 

 Pamiathon " " 860-800 



The inscription is dated in the third year of 

 the reign of Azbaal, and records the dedica- 

 tion of the monument, with an invocation. 

 It is mutilated in both ends of the line, and 

 shows traces of a short second line, the resti- 

 tution of which is hopeless. 



Egypt. The Sphinx and Neighboring Tombs. 

 The work of clearing away the sand from 

 around the Great Sphinx, which was begun 

 under M. Maspero, has been going on intermit- 

 tently under his successor. M. Grebaut, for 

 several months. At the beginning of 1887, 

 the entire fore-part of the figure had been laid 

 bare, exposing the chest, the paws, the space 

 between the paws, the altar in front of them, 

 and the plateau on which they stand. A space 

 had been cleared between the Sphinx and the 

 edge of the Pyramid plateau, by which the 

 flight of steps forty feet in width, described by 

 Pliny and uncovered by Caviglia in 1817, lead- 

 ing down to the Sphinx, was again exposed to 

 view. A second flight of steps and two Roman 

 buildings, also discovered by Caviglia, are yet 

 to be brought out. A further excavation in 

 the direction of the granite temple to the south, 

 which was in progress, is expected to solve 

 the question whether the Sphinx stood in the 

 midst of a huge amphitheatre hewn out of 

 the solid rock. The whole height of the 

 figure may now be measured from the level of 

 the area below the flight of steps as it rises 

 one hundred feet above. The space between 

 the paws is thirty-five feet long and ten feet 

 wide. It was anciently converted into a small 

 sanctuary lined with votive tablets. One of 

 these the stela of Thothmes IV still remains 

 in situ. It records a dream of the king, in 

 which the even then venerable image exhort- 

 ed him to clear away the sand in which it was 

 nearly buried. A part of the fourteenth line 

 of this inscription, containing the name of 

 Khafra, or Cephren, has scaled off since the 

 last copy was made. The stone on which it 

 is written appears to have been appropriated 

 by Thothmes from the neighboring Temple of 

 Khafra. The paws of the Sphinx, as they now 

 appear, are a restoration of Roman date, and 

 the facing of the breast, also apparently Roman, 

 has been repaired again. The paws are covered 

 with the Greek graffiti of early travelers, which 

 M. Maspero has undertaken to translate. M. 

 Grebaut has worked his excavations to the face 

 of the Libyan cliff bounding the Pyramid pla- 

 teau on the west, and has discovered several 

 interesting tombs in the neighborhood of the 

 Great Pyramid. In two of the rock-cut tombs 

 in the face of the cliff, the walled-up recess- 

 es, m'serdabs, constructed for the safe-keeping 

 of funerary portrait-statues, were still intact, 

 with their contents. One contained a mono- 



lithic group of four figures representing the 

 deceased, his wife, his brother, and a child. 

 An alabaster altar, sculptured in bas-relief, with 

 the likeness of one Ra-ur, was found in anoth- 

 er ; and on the walls of another t5mb occurred 

 the name of Aseska-f, the successor of Menkara 

 (Menkeres or Mycerinus), of the fourth dynasty. 

 Another tomb proved to be the sepulchre of a 

 sutense, or royal son, named Kuhfu-Kha f (the 

 glory of Kuhfu), who was probably the son of 

 the builder of the Great Pyramid. The door- 

 way of the inner chamber of this tomb is deco- 

 rated with the earliest representation of a col- 

 umn yet discovered, with base, shaft, torus, 

 and capital complete, the whole showing tha r , 

 as an architectual feature, the column with all 

 its members was already fully developed at the 

 time of the fourth dynasty. 



The Cemeteries of Tell el Yehoodieh. The exca- 

 vation of the mound Tell el Yehoodieh (mound 

 of the Jew ), twenty-two miles northeast of 

 Cairo, on the Suez- Railway, has raised some 

 interesting questions. The mound, on account 

 of its name and of the correspondence of its 

 distance from Memphis with that given by 

 Josephus, was identified by Sir Gardner Wilkin- 

 son forty years ago, as probably marking the 

 site of the city of Onia, which, according to 

 Josephu?, was founded in the latter half of 

 the second century B. o., by Onias, a Jewish 

 fugitive from the persecutions of Antiochus 

 Epiphanes, King of Syria, and in founding it 

 assumed to be fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah 

 ( xix ), that there should be " an altar to the 

 Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt.' 1 A 

 magnificent building, richly decorated, had 

 been discovered here in 1870, in which were 

 found a statue of Rameses II, a statue of Me- 

 neptah, his successor, two black basalt statues of 

 the cat headed goddess Bast, and ovals of Ra- 

 meses III. The statues of Bast are in harmony 

 with Josephus's identification of an ancient 

 building at this place with the name of Bast, 

 or Diana, and with the mention in the letter 

 of authorization issued by Ptolemy and Cleo- 

 patra to Onias, of " that temple which has 

 fallen down," and which he was permitted to 

 purge, as " named from the country Bubastis." 

 The Tell consisted of two artificial hills, in ap- 

 pearance like the two towers of a pylon, from 

 the top of which could be distinctly traced the 

 plan of what looked like a Roman military set- 

 tlement, bounded on one side by the desert, and 

 on the other by the cultivated land, very regu- 

 larly laid out in two large parallel streets. The 

 excavations were conducted by M. Naville and 

 Mr. F. Llewellen Griffith, who first endeavored 

 to find in the mound some record of the ancient 

 name of the city and temple before the occupa- 

 tion by Onias. Failing in this, they turned 

 their attention to the necropolis, where they 

 found the tombs cut in the rock very close to 

 one another, and all designed on nearly the 

 sime plan. Two or three steps led to a small 

 door, which opened on a square chamber, on 

 all sides of which were horizontal niches of the 



