JOURNAL RELATING TO NUBIA. 



415 



In the cornice over the gateway is the winged globe. * In each of 

 the moles in the inside front, are small doorways ornamented in a 

 similar manner, leading by a stone staircase to small chambers, and 

 to the top. A court of about forty feet in depth separates the moles 

 from a pyramidal portico, in which are two columns engaged half 

 their height in a wall elevated in the centre, forming the entrance. 

 The depth of the portico is about eighteen feet ; the ceiling of it is 

 almost perfect, composed of single stones, reaching from the front 

 to the back part. Between the centre columns are winged scarabsei-f- ; 

 on the other part are scriptural paintings. A lateral wall divides the 

 portico from three inner chambers ; the ceiling of these are im- 

 perfect ; the symbolic figures in the third room are larger than in 

 the other parts of the building. The upper part of the side walls of 

 the portico have the remains of some scriptural designs, representing 

 men on horseback approaching towards angels, whose hands seem 

 lifted up in supplication. The whole was surrounded by a wall ex- 

 tending from the two extremes of the moles. Over the gate of the 

 portico are some Greek characters, in the place where the winged globe 

 is usually seen. 



rnEPAS . . . 

 GEO . . . 



A variety of inscriptions found about the gateway of the moles, 

 prove that this temple was erected to Mercury. J From Dukkey, 

 where the rocks and desart begin to leave room for cultivation on the 

 banks of the Nile, we proceeded up the river, and in a short time 

 were hailed from the western shore by a follower of the Cashief of 

 Deir. We were obliged to pay him a visit, and found him sitting 



* The device so common on the temples of Egypt, and symbolical of the anirna mundi. 

 — Shaw, 358. 



f Probably of the form referred to in the Men. Is. Exp. 61. Pandit alienasalas Scara- 

 baeus, Solis imago. 



X See the remarks on Greek inscriptions at the end of the volume. 



