ON U3EFJL AND ORNAMENTAL STONES OP ANCIENT EGYPT. 283 



" Dear Sir, — I have no remarks to offer on Sir W. Dawson's 

 valuable Paper except as regards the use of diorite or other snch 

 stone in Cbaldea. There is, as he says, no reason to suppose that 

 such stone was brought westward, but it has been thought that the 

 Chaldeans brought it from Sinai. The reason is found in the 

 inscription from Tell Loh to which Mr. Pinches referred in his 

 paper on Babylonia read before the Institute. This text, dating 

 probably about 2,500 B.C. speaks of the usu or esu stone from 

 Mag an. In another well-known inscription we read of this same 

 country 



^ *m ^ ^r 



KUR Ma- Kan- na, 



which was the ' country of copper.' It is connected with Egypt 

 in an inscription of Assur-bani-pal. (See Lenormant, Trans. Bib. 

 Arch. Society, vol. vi., p. 347-9). It was a stony country on the 

 Egyptian east frontier, and ships and papyrus reeds are mentioned 

 in connection with it. The situation of the Sinaitic peninsula 

 seems best to agree with this description, and some render the 

 name 'Land of the Wall,' connecting it with Shur, the 'wall' 

 east of Egypt. 



" If this identification be correct it would appear that diorite was 

 thence obtained by the Akkadians for the statues now in the 

 Louvre, the stone of which might with advantage be examined by 

 a geologist to determine whether it could have come from Sinai. 



Yours truly, 



C. R. Conder." 



Mr. W. Brindley, F.G.S. — I have much pleasure in stating that 

 an examination of the Louvre statues made two days ago proves 

 them to be of Siniatic diorite. 



I wish the Author had told us more about the rocks of the 

 eastern or Arabian desert ; as these rocks supplied the ancients 

 with some of their most important building and decorative 

 materials, the quarries of which gave employment to thousands 

 of workmen. 



Of the igneous rocks there are three ranges running parallel 

 with the Red Sea coast. The first commences south of Suez and 

 terminates at Zeiti, where are the petroleum wells which supplied 

 bitumen for " embalming." The second is the range now called 

 " Grebel Esh " which ends at Abu Shaar (the ancient Myos Hor- 

 mos), which was the port for the commencement of the caravan 



