REVIEW BY THE SECRETAKY. 



2'^ 



work of art (over 7,000 years), it is in a state of marvellous 

 preservation and seems to have been scarcely injured by weather 

 action. Hap]:)ily the face of the rock is here inaccessible, and 

 records the conquest of Sinai by a King of tlie 1st Dynasty (A' 

 the Egyptian monarchy. Tlie tablet just described is the only 

 one remaininir at Mau'hareh, the others havint? been removed to 

 Cairo — some in a broken and defaced condition due to a 

 lamentable episode which the author records with just indig- 

 nation. It appears that previously to the visit of Professor 

 Petrie's party, a company had l)een formed to develop tlie 

 turquoise mines and had received a concession from the Govern- 

 ment at Cairo. Xo care seems to have been taken by the depart- 

 ment which gave the concession to prevent injury to the monu- 

 ments, and (to use the words of the author) ignorant engineers 

 destroyed what was, in the European market of museums, 

 worth far more than all tlie turquoises which they extracted." 

 He then goes on to detail the damage which was done by these 

 modern Vandals to monuments remaining after thousands of 

 years of freedom from injury: "The Khufu sculptures were 

 smashed up ; the Assa inscriptions were destroyed or buried ; 

 the Pepy inscriptions were annihilated, as were also those of 

 Amenemhat ; the Sneferu scene was brutally defaced with a 

 hammer, and the only portrait of Sneferu has been destroyed. 

 The Sahura scene and the Men-ken-hor tablet have both been 

 pai'tly blasted away, and ])ieces have been knocked off the 

 ta.blet of Pta-n-user." Thus have European workmen of the 

 19th century, A.D., under the protection of the Egyptian Govern- 

 ment, wantonly destroyed works of art which have descended 

 t') us intact through thousands of years ; — the loss of which 

 is irre[)arable ! 



The next important locality, and the richest in historic records, 

 visited during this memorable expedition is the valley of Serabit 

 el Khadem, situated some miles to the north of Maghareh and 

 visited by the members of the Expedition of 1883. As in tlie 

 case of the latter, the mines of turquoise were worked in tlie 

 same sandstone formation, and to a very thorough extent by 

 means of galleries opening out at the face of the cliffs and 

 carried far into the solid mass beyond. Excellent pictures of 

 these galleries are given in Figs. 72 and 73. 



P)efore commencing operations at Seral)it, Professor Petrr.^ 

 made a trigonometrical survey of the valleys with their included 

 terraces by means of the sextant and prismatic compass and 

 plotted the work on the spot. The area surveyed is about o le 

 and a half miles from east to west, and three miles from nort'i 



