65 
But one solitary monument of the former greatness of 
Memphis remains. About forty years ago Signor Caviglia, 
observing some indications of buried sculpture between the 
modern villages of Metrahennv and Bedresbin, made an ex- 
cavation about five feet deep, and uncovered the whole length 
of a colossal statue. On this statue there are hieroglyphics, 
by means of which Mr. Bonomi determined that it represented 
Rameses II., the Sesostris of the Greeks. Mr. Horner quotes 
Herodotus, as saying 
“ That Sesostris erected two statues, each 30 cubits high, before the temple 
of Vulcan in Memphis, representing himself and his queen, and four statues 
of his sons, each 20 cubits high.” 
The uncovered statue Mr. Horner believes to be the statue 
of Sesostris spoken of by Herodotus. He wrote to Dr. 
Lepsius to assign a date to it, and received this reply : — 
“If we may assume that the Memphis statue represents Rameses while a 
young man, of which the absence of the beard would not be, of itself, a de- 
cided proof, we should then be justified in assigning it to the beginning of the 
14th century before Christ. According to my estimate, Rameses Mianun 
reigned from about 1394 to 1328 b.c.” 
Having thus obtained a monument of assumed known age, 
Mr. Horner, through the influence of the Hon. Charles 
Murray, then Consul-General in Egypt, induced the Egyptian 
Government to cause a number of pits to be sunk, partly by 
excavation and partly by boring, in the immediate vicinity of 
the fallen statue. Mr. Horner was not present, but all the 
operations were carried out by Hekekyan Bey, an Armenian 
officer of engineers, who had received a scientific education in 
England. 
The depth of mud accumulated above the base of the 
pedestal of the statue, assuming that mud to have commenced 
to accumulate from the time that the statue was erected, was 
taken as affording a just estimate of the secular rate of increase 
of the Nile mud at this spot. 
“ In the excavation at this statue in the area of Memphis in 1852, the level 
of the upper surface of the platform on which the statue had stood was 
ascertained to be 5 feet 8 inches below the surface of the ground ; but as 
there were eight inches of a sandy earth, there remained five feet of true 
Nile sediment. The upper blocks of the platform are 31 \ inches thick, and 
the lower 35^ inches ; together 5 feet 6f inches. If we allow the lower part 
of the platform to have been 14f inches below the surface of the ground at 
the time it was laid, we have a depth of sediment from the present surface of 
VOL. III. F 
