598 
low the breaft-plate is the kneeling figure 
of His, her arms and wings extended, 
with an inftrument, reprefenting a knife 
or fickie, ineach hand ; fhe is naked, and 
has a fillet round her head that fupperts 
a fiery globe. The lower compartments, 
into which the ornaments are divided, 
contain chicfly reprefentations of the ge- 
nil, and myfteries of Ifis and Ofiris. On 
the coffin the face of the perfon embalmed 
is covered witha green varnifh, and the 
head drefs indicates the mummy it con- 
tained to have belonged to a female. 
Another curiofity well entitled to atten- 
tion is a fmall glafs cafe, in which the 
breat-plate of an Egyptian mummy is 
contrafted with one, very fimilar in fhape 
and pattern, though of different materials, 
which Captain Cook brought from the 
Southern Ocean. The Egyptian breatt- 
plate is cf plaiftered linen, ifs companion 
cf feathers ; and the row of white orna- 
‘ments on the Egyptian breaft-plate, is 
fingujarly anfwered by a row of fifhes 
teeth in that from the Friendly Iflands. 
To defcribe the innumerable quantity 
of fmaller antiques from Egypt, which 
have been, from time to time, depofited 
in the Mufeum, wou'd be a tafk both long 
and ufelels. The greater part, I believe, 
have no appropriate hiftory, and may be 
eafily explained by a reference to the 
woiks of former travellers to the Levant. 
Among the gems are many beautiful {pe- 
cimens of the beetle, but none of them 
either bored through, or imprefied with 
the crux anfata. 
I fhail now make a few remarks in ad- 
dition to thefe of your former correfpon- 
dent. Either the band in red granite, or 
one very fimilar to it, occurs in the origi- 
nal of Denon’s Travels (pl. vill.) among 
the ruins of the Old Canopus, now Abu-" 
kir, The red granite is the Thebaic 
ftone mentioned by Herodotus. One fide 
of the fmaller cheff of granite was en- 
graved by Niebuhr (vol. x. pl. xxx.) and 
he afferts the hieroglyphics that were upen 
it to have been the fineft he had met with 
in Egypt. It was then preferved at the 
Mofgue Teilun, not far from Cairo: the 
plan and upright of it alfo were imper- 
fe&tly given by Pococke, in his Defcrip- 
tion of the Ealt (pl. xi.). | Niebuhr 
thovzht it a coffin for {ome Egyptian of 
‘rank. At the time he faw it it was 
‘placed in a niche, which of courfe accounts 
for his engraving but one fide; and the 
hieroglyphics of the interior were covered 
with lime. . The conclufion, however, 
which he drew from the fide he copied 
“was, that the fmaller hieroglyphics were 
Account of Egyptian Antiquities. 
: [June ly 
explanatory of the larger figures. Mail- 
let (tom. 1. p. 245.) who had no better 
opportunity of feeing it than Niebuhr, 
called it /a fontaine des amoureux, and 
thought it had been taken from fome py- 
ramid, and tranfported to Cairo. With 
regard to its particular ufe, M. Niebuhr’s 
idea feems the beft, that people of rank in 
Egypt, who could not go to the expence 
of erecting pyramids, were buried in 
fumptuous chefts. The notion that hiero- 
glyphics on fach chefts prove them to be 
not fepulchral is erroneous, hieroglyphics 
being frequently feen on the old Egyptian 
fepulchres to this day: Herodotus faw 
them on the pyramids, and a few remain- 
ed there fo late as 1673, when Vanfleb vi- 
fited Ecypt. Indeed your former Corre- 
f{pondent mentions a {mall mummy chet 
of ftone, whofe ufe was particularly de- 
fignated by its fhape, that had the fmaller 
fymbols engraved upon it. The cheft in 
gueftion E have feveral times heard called 
the coffin of Cleopatra; perhaps for no 
better reafon than chat at the bottom of 
the infide is a full length ficure of Ifis, by 
whofe name Cleopatra delighted to be 
called. The larger farcophagus, your Cor- 
refpondent fays, was brought from the 
Mofque of St. Athanafius, at Alexandria. 
Tt was placed there in an o€tagon temp-e, 
in the middle of the great court, which 
was formerly kept with a religious care 
from the accefs of Chriftians. The figure 
of the monkey, fo often repeated on it, is 
one of the ftrongeft proofs that ean be ad- 
duced, that it was uled in the celebration 
of the myfteries of Ifis. The Mofque of 
St. Athanafius is deicribed by Niebuhr as 
by far the fine? of the ancient churches of 
Alexandria. It is adorned with pillars of 
red granite, and, previous to the late trou- 
bles was furnifhed with a library of Greek 
books. ‘The court in which the great, 
farcophagus was placed is engraved in the 
originalof Dencn. This too has obtained 
a name, and has by fome been faid to have 
held the bones of Alexander the Great. 
Perhaps it. may be enough to fay that 
there is nothing Greek about it to corro- 
borate the report. 
The fone with the triple infeription your 
Magazine faid very little of. It was 
found by an officer of engineers, while 
clearing out a ditch near Rofetta, and ap- 
pears to have been engraved about tle 
157th year previous to the Chriftian era, 
early in the reign of Ptolemy Philometer, 
and is a decree of the Egyptian prielts in 
honour of Ptolemy ~V. furnamed Epi- 
phanes. 
hicroglyphic character, and is contained m 
fouxteen 
The firft infcription is in the. 
ie 
