2 EDOUAED NAVILLE. 



the prophet. They are clearly the most important, and those 

 which were best known to his countrymen. I shall not insist 

 here on several of these names, which differ according to the 

 translations, but I should like to direct your attention to 

 this sentence : " The young men of Aven and Pi-beseth 

 shall fall by the sword." Aven (Heliopolis) is well known ; 

 but what is Pi-beseth (Bubastis) ? It is one of the 

 localities which are most frequented by travellers, or at 

 least near which hundreds and thousands constantly pass. 

 Whoever goes from Cairo to Suez is obliged to stop at Zagazig, 

 a junction of several lines. Before reaching the station 

 and after leaving it, the railway skirts large mounds 

 covered with ruins of brick walls, which mark the site of 

 Bubastis. The mounds, even now, cover a considerable surface, 

 though they are much reduced from what they were. Of the 

 4,000 acres which they occupied at the beginning of this 

 century, the greater part has been levelled, and is now culti- 

 vated; there are now only 800 acres left, and they are 

 diminishing every day. 



Several Egyptologists have visited the place. The opinion 

 generally prevailing being that the temple had entirely disap- 

 peared, leaving no other traces than a few blocks scattered here 

 and there in a great depression, which was the site of the 

 building. Mariette had attempted excavations, which had 

 proved fruitless; and one might reasonably think that the 

 temple of Bubastis, which, according to the description of 

 Herodotus must have been of considerable size, had suffered 

 the same misfortune as many others ; that it had been quarried 

 out entirely, and the stones all carried away for building 

 or for agricultural purposes. I shall not recall here the 

 reasons which induced me to settle at Bubastis with Mr. 

 Griffith in the spring of 1887, and to begin excavations. Our 

 first attempts soon showed that the temple had not disappeared; 

 on the contrary, the earth concealed heaps of granite blocks 

 and gigantic columns, which reminded one of what is seen in 

 the ruins of San. Our task, therefore, was to lay bare all this 

 field of ruins, the extent of which we could judge to be con- 

 siderable, and we applied ourselves to this work during the 

 winters of 1888 and 1889. Not only did we remove all the 

 earth which covered the stones, but in order to be quite certain 

 that nothing was left hidden we pulled down the heaps of stones 

 which had been piled up by the fall of the walls of the. two 

 first halls. We rolled and turned every block, and this 

 long and costly, but sometimes most exciting, proceeding has 

 given us inscriptions and monuments of the greatest value. 



Standing at the entrance on the eastern side, one overlooks 



