24 EDOUAED NAVILLB. 



been thrown, representing either cats or the god Nefertum, a 

 god with a human form wearing as headdress a lotus-flower, 

 over which are two feathers. The cemetery of cats has been 

 known for many years to the fellaheen, who dug it out en- 

 tirely, and supplied the dealers in Cairo with the bronze cats 

 which fill their shops. I attempted this year an excavation 

 in the cemetery ; I was obliged to go very deep, as all the 

 upper pits have been rifled ; under such circumstances the 

 digging is very ungrateful business, as the water and 

 the salt have nearly destroyed the bronzes. I emptied 

 several pits entirely full of bones, which are quite cal- 

 cined, as they are the residue of bodies burnt in furnaces 

 still visible close to the pits. It is incredible what an 

 immense number of cats must have been burnt, judging 

 from the number and the size of the pits. After many 

 difficulties we succeeded in rescuing a few skulls, which are 

 now in the hands of the illustrious naturalist, Dr. Virchow, 

 of Berlin. It is very likely that the holy cat of Bubastis was 

 not the ordinary domestic cat, but some larger animal of the 

 feline tribe, either the wild cat or a kind of lynx. 



Under Osorkon I. Egypt was not an impoverished country ; 

 we may judge of it from inscriptions which are unfortunately 

 in a very bad state, but which are due to Osorkon I. Hero- 

 dotus says that about three furlongs from the great temple, 

 towards the east, is the temple of Hermes. I found the 

 remains of it, a few scattered blocks in a clover-field, at a 

 short distance out of the tell. I dug there several days ; there 

 is very little left : a large architrave, with a cartouche of 

 Rameses II., and a great many fragments all bearing the name 

 of Osorkon I. There are fragments of a large size, belonging 

 to a long inscription, in which Osorkon I. relates the weights of 

 silver and of asem (silver gilt) which he gave to several temples; 

 and the large quantities which he mentions remind one of the 

 considerable offerings made to the religious establishments in 

 the time of the great prosperity of Egypt. I believe that this 

 second temple was the treasury of the other, and that being, 

 as were all treasuries and libraries, under the protection of 

 Hermes Thoth, it was taken by Herodotus for a temple of 

 Hermes. 



Osorkon I. did not finish the rebuilding of the temple, and 

 it was Osorkon II. who completed it, and who worked chiefly 

 in the second hall. This part of the building seems to have 

 suffered most grievously in the destruction which I presume 

 to have taken place before the accession of the Bubastites to 

 the throne of Egypt. When we began rolling the blocks of 

 the enormous heap which marked the site of the hall, nearly 



