RESULTS OF EXCAVATIONS AT BUBASTIS. 139 
now a field of ruins, which is still most impressive, although 
not so much so as last year, since a great many interesting 
-monuments have been carried away. <A. space of the length of 
600 feet is covered with enormous granite blocks, capitals of 
columns, fragments of Hathor heads and broken statues of 
colossal size. The general form of the temple is still dis- 
cernible. It consisted of four halls, the dates of which differ. 
The first, from the east, which is perhaps the most ancient, 
had at the entrance two enormous columns with palm capitals ; 
outside the door were the two great Hyksos statues, one of 
which is now in the British Museum. Beyond was a second 
hall, also very old. After the time of Osorkon II. it was called 
the “ festive hall,” in memory of a great religious ceremony 
which took place in the twenty-second year of his reign. Fur- 
ther west still was the most luxurious part of the temple : a hall 
supported by columns with lotus or palm-leaf capitals, and by 
pillars ending in a beautifully-sculptured Hathor head, the 
best specimen of which is now in the Boston Museum. The 
termination of the temple was a room of a very extensive area, 
probably the largest of the four ; it was never finished, and at 
the end was the shrine of the goddess Bast, an exquisite piece 
of sculpture, fragments of which are to be seen in the British 
Museum. 
Except Tanis, a city which in many respects has a great 
resemblance to Bubastis, there is ng city in the Delta which has 
yielded so many monuments, of such very different epochs, 
varying from the Fourth dynasty to the Ptolemies. I must 
say I do’not believe one could easily find excavations more 
interesting, and at times more exciting, than these. A cir- 
cumstance which added to the surprises and to the unforeseen, 
is, that there is no temple which has gone through such frequent 
and complete transformations, and where the usurpation is so 
easily discernible and has been practised on such a large scale. 
You have heard of the mania of Rameses II. for writing his 
name everywhere, no matter who was the author of the 
monument on which he desired to record his memory. ‘The 
occasions in which the name of Rameses II. is met with in the 
temple of Bubastis are nearly innumerable. I have examined 
with the greatest care the colossal architraves on which his 
name is written in hieroglyphics more than two feet high, and 
I have not found one of them which was not a usurpation ; 
everywhere an old inscription had been erased ; what Rameses 
IT. really added to the temple is probably not considerable, 
though at first sight one would think that hardly anything 
had existed before his reign. 
One of the results of the excavations is to show that 
