CHAP. II.—SAH UNDEE THE EMPIRE. 
21 
copied and photographed, is still unpublished, 
and will appear in the continuation of the chrono¬ 
logical series of inscriptions in the next memoir. 
To Tahraka may most probably be attributed the 
building, of which the pavement remains, in the 
north-east corner of the temple area (between p 
and g). Prom the presence of parts of cartouches 
of a Sheshonk upon the stones, we know that this 
work must have been constructed when the works 
of the twenty-second dynasty (800 b.o.) had 
already fallen into desuetude, and were being 
destroyed for building material. At the same 
time, from the pavement having several feet of 
mud accumulated upon it, below the foundations 
of a house which was already old in the thirtieth 
dynasty, it is certain that we must date it some 
centuries before .360 b.c. Thus the date of 
Tahraka (or say 670 b.o.) seems about the most 
likely period for this erection, of which at present 
we only know a portion of the pavement. 
It shows, at all events, that a considerable 
time after 800 b.o., and probably as late as 
600 B.O., the great wall was in fair condition, 
and had not become washed down to any serious 
extent into the temple area by the rains. This 
is, however, the last gleam of honour of the great 
temple that we can trace, and it appears to have 
gone finally to ruin when Sais became, under the 
ascendancy of Psamtik, the capital of the Delta; 
though perhaps its death-blow was given by the 
Assyrian conquest and pillage in the latter part 
of the reign of Tahraka. During the next two 
centuries the rains streamed over the walls around 
the deserted temple, and foot after foot of miid 
was scoured off them and deposited on the sandy 
area within the great enclosure of Pisebkhanu. 
The city shows no signs of importance, and only 
one fragment of this age, a disc of pottery of 
Psamtik II., has been found here, and that 
outside of the temple. It was a garrison-town, 
whose lands were the hereditary property of the 
Melanges d'ArcJieolotjie Egyptienne et Assyrien, vol. i. p. 21. 
1872. 
military caste (Herod, ii. 166); and it is not 
until the revival of the native sovereignty in the 
Delta, under the twenty-ninth dynasty, that we 
can begin to see any fresh life in the formerly 
sacred enclosure of the old temple. 
About this time houses were built on the plain 
of mud, within the mouldering walls of black 
brick which surrounded it. Some of the obelisks 
were still standing; the pylon was injured, but 
yet the walls rose high on each side of the 
entrance, which was blocked with fallen masses; 
and the colossi lay half-buried in the heaps of 
stone chips. The great wall, however, offered 
too valuable a shelter to be neglected, and so, 
cutting away the rotten and crumbling surface of 
it, but yet not trusting to it, for fear of the 
streams of rain that ran off its wide and sloping 
top, the houses were built close by it in the 
north-east corner, where its protection from the 
biting winds that swept over the plain was most 
to be valued. 
Under the thirtieth dynasty there appears some 
activity, Nekht-nebf, Nektanebo II., came here ; 
and here, besieged by the Persian power, he was 
rescued by his Greek mercenaries. To his age 
may most probably be attributed the three 
sphinxes which I have found, carved in limestone, 
and evidently belonging to this period: while to 
the revival of Egyptian art, strongly influenced 
by Greek feeling, under the care of this king, we 
may also ascribe the beautiful sets of porcelain 
figures found in the ruins of the house g. ■ 
During the Macedonian age other houses grew 
up within the precincts, as at the western side 
of the north gate; and as the dynasty of the 
Ptolemies gave more peace than the country had 
enjoyed for a long period, fresh houses were built 
against the wall in many parts, both inside it, as 
at D, p, and k, and also against the outside. 
Toward the end of this dynasty, as the area filled 
up more, with accumulations of mud washed off 
the ruined walls, and the walls were thus lowered, 
houses were built at last on the top of the wall, 
which afforded a firm and uniform foundation, as 
