20 
FOREIGN ARCHAEOLOGICAL NOTES. 
Nature and Art, June 1, 18G6. 
some highly interesting results. M. Brugst, the 
Prussian Consul, is said to have in his possession a 
papyrus roll containing curious particulars relative 
to the construction of the City of Rameses, and 
the manufacture of bricks or tiles by Jews em- 
ployed there. In the valley of Hamath, inscrip- 
tions on the walls of the ancient quarries attest the 
presence there of eight hundred Jewish hewers of 
stone. The figures which accompany the inscriptions 
perfectly represent the Israelitish features, with long- 
beards, which were not worn by the Egyptians. 
Dr. Dekier is said to have made some interesting- 
discoveries in ancient Stamboul, relative to the 
Christian era, and reaching down to the sixteenth 
century. 
M. Florian Pharaon, formerly interpreter to the 
French army in Africa, has just published an ac- 
count of Louis Napoleon’s voyage in Algeria, form- 
ing a splendid volume, illustrated by M. Darjon. 
In this work M. Pharaon treats, amongst other 
matters, of the mathematical science of the Arabs, 
and he attributes a curious origin to their numerals. 
He believes them to have been derived from the 
lines inscribed on the signet ring of King Solomon. 
The following cut, copied from the work in 
question, will explain the supposed origin of the 
figures. 
z 
z 
A 
A A 
z 
X 
V 
□ 
The figure at the head represents the device on 
the ring, and those beneath are all derived from it. 
By rounding off all the angles, with the exception 
of that at the foot of the second, those of the fourth, 
one of the fifth, and that of the seventh, we obtain 
the ten figures of the Arabic numeration. The 
only addition required is the small horizontal stroke 
at the head of the figure five. The French attri- 
bute the introduction of the Arabic numerals into 
Europe to Gerbert d’Aurillac, the first French Pope, 
who filled the chair of St. Peter in the tenth century. 
Two archaeologists — M. Adrien Berbrugger, 
keeper of the library and museum of Alger, and 
M. 0. MacCarthy — are now engaged, by order of 
the Emperor Napoleon III., in trying to unravel 
the mystery of the Kebour er lioumia, which 
signifies the tomb of the Christian woman in Algeria. 
This monument stands on the summit of the rising 
ground between the plain of the Mitidja and the 
Mediterranean ; it is little more than an hour’s ride 
from Algiers, and about half that distance from a 
little town called Ivoleah, deliciously buried in 
a forest of orange-trees. The tomb has been cleared 
of the accummulations of ages, and is found to 
consist of a polygonal body resting on a square 
basement, and formerly surmounted by a cone, or 
pyramid, in steps. The polygon has lost some of 
its upper portion, but it is still more than a hundred 
feet in height, and is supposed, with the pyramid 
complete, to have been at least one third higher. 
The diameter of the polygon is nearly two hundred 
feet, and its surface is divided into panels by sixty 
Ionic columns, the capitals of which are decorated 
alternately with palm leaves and wreaths. Four 
sides of the polygon facing the cardinal points of 
the compass have false doors, surmounted by en- 
tablatures. Borings have been made in nine dif- 
ferent places to discover the entrance, or, if no 
mode of entry were left, the arrangement of the 
interior of this curious monument. For this 
purpose advantage has been taken of a breach, said 
to have been made in the year 1552, by Salah 
Rais, and re-opened in 1766, by Baba Mohamed 
Pacha, while other soundings have been made with 
steel bars at the north-eastern angle of the base. 
A cavity is said to have been discovered within the 
monument, and a horizontal gallery is being opened 
in the direction indicated. We must wait for the 
unravelling of the mystery. In the meantime the 
excavations themselves have not been fruitless : a 
number of objects of interest having been dis- 
covered. These include a golden medal of the 
Emperor Zeno, a bronze coin of the time of the 
Numidian kings, and several pieces of money of 
the lower empire, including one of Gratian, in 
excellent preservation ; eight amphora;, and a 
bronze bracelet and ear-ring. 
One of the oldest monuments in Paris — the 
oldest of all, indeed, with the exception of the 
remains of the palace built by Augustus Caesar, 
the Palais des Thermes, adjoining the hotel and 
museum of Cliiny — is the abbey of Saint Pierre, on 
the hill of Montmartre, and the arclueologists were 
in a state of alarm the other day that the ancient 
remains were about to be swept away by the 
demolishers. It is said, however, that although 
the church is in a sadly decayed condition the 
authorities will do all in their power to preserve so 
interesting a memorial of past times. The present 
building is of the twelfth century, but it was raised 
upon the remains of a pagan temple ; the columns 
of the apsis are Roman, and are said to have formed 
a portion of that temple. 
Another monument, not of nearly the same anti- 
quity, but highly interesting in itself, is likely to be 
brought into public view by improvements about 
to be made in another quarter of Paris — this is the 
Donjon de Jean sans Peur, the last remnant of the 
old hotel of the dukes of Burgundy. The building 
is quadrangular ; but it has been so completely 
built in and over, although it is more than sixty 
feet high, that it is not easy to distinguish it from 
the wretched modern tenements which enclose it. 
It is situated in a street which bears the complicated 
name of the Rue du Petit Lion, Saint Sauveur, not 
far from the Halles, or central market of Paris. 
The great hall or chamber of the Donjon, as well 
aS other apartments, has been converted into a 
private residence, by means of partition walls and 
false floors, but the stonework of the original build- 
ing, which was extremely solid, the vaulting of the 
roof, the turrets, parapets, and even the machi- 
colated embattlements, although at present masked, 
are nearly entire. The grand staircase remains 
