138 EDOUARD 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 ruims of brick walls, which mark the site ot 
Bubastis. he mounds, even now, cover a considerable surtace, 
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 Kgyptologists 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 
