MONdMENT OF JOSHUA's CONQUEST OP CANAAN.'^ 249 



before, as also that the Archseological Society of Constantino 

 (of which I now for the first time heard) had made some 

 search for Procopius's pillars in 1880, but had had to 

 abandon the search for want of funds. They had, however, 

 as they expressly said, been encouraged to look further ; for, 

 after digging at a certain point three trenches 1 metre 

 40 cm. wide and about 100 metres in total length and 

 meeting as a triangle, they had come upon a group of pillars 

 of many different heights and diameters, Avhich had evidently 

 been brought together from divers parts of the city ; and 

 they judged it likely that the inscribed pillars of Procopius 

 had been brought to the same point along with them. The 

 report of the same society tells that the Arab historian Bekri, 

 Avho wrote in the eleventh century, speaks of this Tigisi as a 

 flourishing city in his time : and it is likely that some Berber 

 chieftain of those days gathered pillars from divers quarters 

 to adorn the forecourt of his palace ; and, if so, he probably, 

 for curiosity's if not for beauty's sake, carried the fountain 

 pillars bearing that strange inscription in a forgotten 

 alphabet along Avith them. 



Again, the desire to preserve what still was regarded as a 

 tribal heirloom from the risks attending the numerous 

 sieges of those days may equally have led to its being 

 carried from its exposed position by the well to the heart of 

 the city, where the group of pillars was found. 



The professor's advice to me was to get English 

 antiquarians and students of Bible history to help the 

 Constantine society to complete their task rather than 

 attempt to carry it out myself alone or with English friends ; 

 since the Arabs would charge Englishmen for every foot of 

 earth they stirred, whereas the French society has a legal 

 right to dig where it Avill. And, indeed, a society that 

 directly the site was identified surveyed it and began 

 excavating upon it ought rightly to be treated as captains 

 in any further digging into this mine of history. 



At the end of last September, after further perusing the 

 reports of the Constantine Arcliaiological Society at the 

 British Museum, I wrote to the Society's President, 

 Mons. Gustavo Mercier, telling him of my visit to the three 

 possible sites of the Numidian Tigisis, and how I had 

 confirmed Mons. Luciani's identification of it with Ain el 

 Bordj, expressing my gratitude to them as pioneers of the 

 important search, and giving weighty reasons why they 

 should renew it ; and two months later I got a most cordial 



