IS 
TANIS. 
The outsiiie of the walls of the sanctuary were 
covered with representations of Bamessu II. 
offering to various gods, of whom Ptah and Ba 
can be still seen. These figures were about life 
size, varying from 65 to 77 inches high. Of the 
inside of the sanctuary we know no details, and 
can only say that it was adorned by Siamen 
with plates of gold bearing his name (Bulak), 
and a bronze sphinx with his name inlaid in gold 
(Louvre); and by Pisebkhanu with blue pottery 
tablets, and small tablets made of a paste of 
granite powder mixed with clay (?), bearing his 
cartouche (Bulak and Brit. Museum). 
24. Around the sanctuary many monuments 
appear to have been grouped ; though their 
original emplacement by Bamessu II. is rendered 
doubtful by the fact that they have been nearly 
all re-used again in later times, probably by 
Siamen and Pisebkhanu. Of the great historical 
stel® there remain, 1st, the upper part of the stele 
of 400 years (now buried); 2nd, the largest stele 
(161), which was 16 feet 10 inches high, 11 feet 
6 inches wide, and 3 feet thick, weighing about 
38 tons, and which is now broken in two pieces ; 
3rd, a stele (214) which was 71X 24 inches, 
now broken in two pieces; 4th, a stele (196) 
which was 72 x about 24, and 122 high, now in 
three pieces, besides one missing; 5th, a stele (215) 
which is over 50 wide, over 17^ thick, and of which 
only the bottom remains; 6th, a stele (190) 
which is 17|- thick, only the bottom remaining ; 
7th, a stele (242), of which (243) is probably the 
base, 60 wide and 21 thick; 8th, a stele (8) in the 
pylon, unbroken, but the face nearly all weathered 
away, 112 high, 70 wide, and about 28 thick; 
and, besides these, there remain fragments scat¬ 
tered in the sanctuary which may belong to other 
stelae. What renders the recovery of these monu¬ 
ments hopeless, is the fact that many of them, in¬ 
cluding the larger ones, have scaled off so much 
by weathering that the inscriptions are gone, and 
only rough outlines of the figures on the upper- 
parts can be seen. The great stele is entirely 
weathered on both sides, only just the names of 
the gods on the top of the lower side remaining 
legible. Besides this there is proof positive that 
many of them, perhaps all, were cut up for build¬ 
ing purposes in later times; the broken and 
shifted state of the parts, the holes cut in them, 
• the mortar sticking in the inscriptions, all show 
that Siamen or Pisebldianu used up these great 
monuments—and not without some reason, con¬ 
sidering how much decomposed and how illegible 
many of them were at the time. The celebrated 
“ tablet of 400 years,” called so from its being 
dated 400 years after the era of Nubti, was 
carefully reburied by its discoverers, and hence I 
did not light upon it in working, as I did not 
search the clean sand for monuments which would 
only be there if recently hidden. Not having seen 
it, I cannot judge whether any of the portions of 
stelse in the sanctuary belong to it; but from the 
many pieces of which we cannot find the corre¬ 
sponding parts, it does not seem at all likely that we 
should be able to recover all the fragments of any 
monument after it had been broken up for building 
materials, as these have been. Besides the series 
of stel®, there are two pillars (244, 248-9), which 
have been covered with inscriptions, and do not 
seem as if intended for a structural purpose, but are 
rather types of a monument intermediate between 
a column and an obelisk. That they did not 
support any roof seems probable from their height: 
(244) is 203 inches long and 41 square (or 10 
cubits X 2 cubits); and the two pieces of the other 
pillar (248-249) are 242 inches in total length. As 
no other pillars of this height or size remain, and 
even these two are different in height, they pro¬ 
bably were not part of the structure of the sanc¬ 
tuary. The larger pillar (248-9) has a double 
row of inscription down each face, which was 
originally cut by Bamessu II.; after being much 
weathered, it was used for building in later 
times, as may be seen by the mortar in the 
cartouches. The other pillar (244) has an in¬ 
teresting series of 16 scenes on it of Bamessu 
offering to various gods, of whom Ptah, Khnum, 
