October 23, 1885.] 



SCIENCE, 



371 



the most familiar, of these half-dozen Theban 

 temples, is the great Temple of Luxor, which has 

 just been excavated by Professor Maspero. Yet, 

 tiU now, Luxor has not in itself been nearly so 

 rich ia objects of interest as any of the neighbor- 

 ing sites. Not only was the great temple three- 

 fourths buried under the accumulated rubbish of 

 ages, but its courts and colonnades formed the 

 actual nucleus of the Ai-ab half of the modern 

 village. The Moslem population has settled, ap- 

 parently from mediaeval times, in and around the 

 temple, at the southward end of the mound. 

 Here, building always with mud bricks crudely 

 dried ia the sun, each generation erecting its 

 congeries of hovels on 

 the ruins of the hovels 

 made by its predeces- 

 sors, the Arabs of 

 Luxor have gone on 

 from century to cen- 

 tury accumulating 

 rubbish upon rubbish 

 and mud upon mud, 

 till they have thrown 

 up an artificial hill 

 some forty-eight or 

 fifty feet iu height. 

 As the hill rose, the 

 temple necessarily be- 

 came swallowed up. 



To sweep away aU 

 these barracks, stores, 

 houses, huts, pigeon- 

 towers, stables and 

 refuse-heaps, has been 

 the earnest desne of 

 Professor Maspero, 

 ever since his accept- 

 ance of the important 

 post left vacant, in 



1881, by the death of Mariette Pasha. He 

 obtained from the Egyptian minister of pubhc 

 works the necessary authorization for treating 

 with the feUaheen, the basis of the negotiation 

 being that each squatter should receive a cash 

 indemnity for his house and a piece of land equiv- 

 alent in extent to the area covered by the said 

 house and its dependencies. It was further ar- 

 ranged that the Egyptian government should find 

 the money for the liquidation of the indemnities. 

 Some of the temple-folk would seU, and some 

 stoutly refused to be bought out, except upon 

 such terms as made negotiation well-nigh impos- 

 sible. Meanwhile, there was another financial 

 question to be settled, — namely, the expenses of 

 excavation. The Egyptian government had paid 

 the indemnities, and could do no more ; yet, to get 



rid of the squatters was of little avail so long as 

 there remained fifty feet of soil to be cleared and 

 carted away. A subscription, simultaneouly started 

 in the Journal des debuts and the London Times, 

 met, however, with so liberal a response (especially 

 in Paris), that this question of ways and means 

 was settled in two or three days, and in the month 

 of July, 1884, the order was given to commence 

 operations. 



Our illustiation shows the courtyard of Amen- 

 hotep HI. with the excavations ui progress. We 

 here find ourselves admitted into the i^recincts of 

 the courtyard, immediately behind the govern- 

 ment store-house, of which one corner and a small 



EXCAVATIONS GOING ON IN THE COURT YARD OF THE TEMPLE OF LUXOR. 



window are seen between the pillars to the right. 

 The spectator stands with his back to the Arabian 

 chain and his face to the Libyan range, one long 

 spur of the great western mountain and a glimpse 

 of the Nile being visible behind the highest group 

 of Arabs to the left of the picture. Tlie mud huts, 

 the mud walls buUt up between the columns, the 

 asses, and goats^ and village folk, are still in part 

 occupation of the place. To the left, however, a 

 hovel or two have been demohshed ; and, on the 

 rubbish heap thus created, we see a group com- 

 posed of two Europeans and some five or six 

 better-class natives. 



— The Athenceum states that "somewhat late 

 in the day the inhabitants of Syracuse have 

 erected a monument to Ai-chimedes." 



