xxxiv. New Zealand Institute. 



the strength of this conjecture, M. Naville, in February last, corn- 

 mencccl excavations at Tel-El-Maskutah ; and before lie bad been 

 many weeks at work he had laid bare a vast enclosure, about 200 

 metres square, divided into square chambers built of large bricks, 

 principally made without straw ; all the chambers were without doors, 

 and were evidently intended not for dwelling-rooms, but for store- 

 houses or granaries. This was in fact the Temple of Turn, and the 

 monuments found in the enclosures point clearly to its having been 

 founded by Rameses II., although added to in the 22nd dynasty. 



The Egyptian city " Thuku " had already been identified with the 

 Succoth of the Bible; bat now the missing link in the chain of 

 identification was to be supplied. Certain inscriptions on statues 

 referred to " Pe Turn in the city of Thuku," that is, " Pithom in 

 the city of Succoth ; " in other words, Pithom was the name of the 

 temple from which the city, which was also called Succoth, took its 

 name. Thus, in the words of Mr. Stanley Lane Poole, "Not only 

 do we see the actual storehouses which the children of Israel are 

 related to have built, but we now know " the first station on their 

 journey from Egypt to Palestine," when, as we read in the twelfth 

 chapter of Exodus, they " journeyed from Rameses to Succoth." In 

 this way, by the explorations of a party which had only been at work 

 for a few weeks, the identification of Pharaoh the oppressor with 

 Rameses II. has been almost established, and the authenticity of the 

 biblical narrative strongly confirmed ; and every student of archaeology 

 will watch with the deepest interest the further investigations of those 

 who have begun with so remarkable a success. 



AT TEOY. 



With regard to the excavations in the Troad, however, the result 

 of the latest investigations has been rather to lead us to modify con- 

 clusions formerly arrived at than to add to the list of archaeological 

 discoveries. Until a few years ago, the site of Homer's Troy was 

 disputed — some placing it on the spot now known by the name of 

 Hissarlik, others at the modern Village of Bunarbashi, about six miles 

 to the south, others again maintaining that Troy never had any 

 existence except in the poet's imagination. Dr. Schliemann, nearly 

 ten years ago, astonished the literary world by announcing that, 

 having carefully examined both places, he had proved that there were 

 no relics of antiquity worth mentioning at Bunarbashi, but that at 

 Hissarlik he had unearthed the ruins not only of the Homeric City, 

 including the Palace of King Priam, the Sceean Gate, the great 

 surrounding wall, and the great Tower of Ilium, but even the still 

 earlier town which had been destroyed by Hercules ! 



