and Abeken; from the Labyrinth we followed the Bahr Wardâni, which
traverses the eastern boundary of the desert, and marks the frontier to
which the shores of Lake Mœris once extended. Now the canal is dry, and
its place is taken by the still more modern Bahr Sherkîeh, which, it is
said, was the work of Sultan Barquq, and leads through the middle of the
Labyrinth, crosses and recrosses the Wardâni, but then keeps more
inland. In three hours we arrived at the place where the monster dam of
Mœris, from the middle of the Faiûm, touches the desert. It runs from
there in a direct line for one and a half geographical miles to El Elâm;
in the middle of this course it is interrupted by the Bahr bela-mâ, a
deep river bed, which now passes through the old lake bottom, and is
generally dry, but is used at a great inundation to draw off the
surplus toward Tamîeh and into the Birqet el Qorn. This gave us the
advantage of being able to examine more closely the dyke itself. The
occasionally high-swelling and tearing stream has not only penetrated
the disturbed bed of the lake, but also several other strata, and even
the lowest, crumbling limestone, so that the water now flows during the
dryest season of the year, at sixty feet below the now dry surface. I
measured the single strata carefully, and brought away a specimen of
each. The breadth of the embankment cannot be exactly given, but was
probably 150 feet. Its height has probably decreased in the lapse of
time. I found 1 m. 90. above the present basin, and 5 m. 60. above the
opposite surface. If we take that to be of an equal height with the
original lake bottom (which, however, appears to have been deeper,
because the outer region was watered, and was therefore made higher),
the former height of the embankment, its gradual declension not being
considered, would have been 5 m. 60., _i. e._ 17 feet, and the bottom of
the lake would thus have been raised by the sediment about 11 feet in
its existence of 2,000 years. But if we take for granted that the 11 or
12 feet of black earth were deposited in historical times, the above
amounts would be almost double. Thus it may be understood how it is that
its usefulness is so much, diminished, for, by the deposit of 11 feet,
the lake lost (if we accept Linant’s statement as to its circumference)
about 13,000,000,000 square feet of water, which it could formerly
contain. Raising the dykes would not, it may be readily understood,
have counteracted it, because they had already been put into the proper
connection with the point of entrance of the Bahr Jussuf into the Faiûm.
This may have been one of the most cogent reasons for the neglect into
which Lake Mœris had been permitted to fall, and even if Linant had the
Bahr Jussuf turned off much higher from the Nile than the ancient
Pharaohs found it good, his daring project of restoring the lake again
would not completely succeed.
In two hours and a half from this breach, we arrived by El Elâm, where
the dam ends, at the remarkable ruins of the two monuments of Biahmu,
which Linant considers to be the two pyramids of Mœris and his wife,
mentioned by Herodotus as seen in the lake. They are built up of massive
blocks; there is yet a heart existing of each of them, but not in the
middle of the square rectangles, which appear as if they had been
originally quite filled by them. They rose in an angle of 64°, therefore
much more steeply than pyramids usually do. Their present height is only
twenty-three feet, to which must be added, however, a protruding base of
seven feet. A slight excavation convinced me, that the undermost layer
of stone, which only reaches four feet below the present surface of the
ground, is neither founded upon sand or rock, but upon Nile-earth, by
which the high antiquity of this structure is much to be doubted. At
least this proved that they did not stand in the Lake, which must have
had a considerable bend to the north-west if it included them.
Up to this time we had ridden along the boundary of the ancient lake,
and the adjoining region. This was bare and unfruitful, because the land
now lies so high, that it cannot be inundated. The land, however,
immediately enclosing the old lake, forms by far the most beautiful and
fertile part of the Faiûm. This we now traversed, leaving the metropolis
of the province, Medînet el Faiûm, with the hills of ancient
Crocodilopolis, to our left, and riding by Selajîn and Fidimîn to
Agamîeh, where we staid for the night. Next morning we arrived by way of
Bisheh on the frontier of the uninterrupted garden land. Here we entered
a new region, particularly striking by its unfertility and desolateness,
which lies round the other like a girdle, and separates it from the
deepest, and most distant, crescent-shaped Birqet el Qorn. About noon we
reached the lake. The only bark we could possibly find here, carried us
in an hour and a half over the waters, surrounded on all sides by
desert, to an island in the middle of the lake, called Gezîret el Qorn.
However, we found nothing remarkable upon it, not a single trace of
building: towards evening we returned back again.
On the following morning, we cruized in a more northerly direction
across the lake, and landed on a little peninsula on the opposite side,
that rises immediately to a _plateau_ of the Libyan desert, one hundred
and fifty feet high, commanding the whole oasis. Thither we ascended
and found, about an hour distant from the shores, in the middle of the
inhospitable water and barren desert, the extended ruins of an ancient
city, which is called in earlier maps Medînet Nimrud. Of this name no
one knew anything; the place was known as Diméh. Next morning, the 7th
of July, the regular plan of these ruins, with the remains of their
temple was made by Erbkam, who had stopped the night here with Abeken.
The temple bears no inscription, and what we found of sculptures point
to the late origin of this remarkable site. Its purpose can only have
been a military station against Libyan incursions into the rich Faiûm.
On the 8th of July we went in our boat to Qasr Qerûn, an old city at the
southern end of the lake, with a temple, in excellent preservation, but
bearing no inscriptions of recent date, the plan of which was taken next
day. Hence we pursued the southern boundary of the oasis by Neslet, to
the ruins of Medînet Mâdi at lake Gharaq, in the neighbourhood of which
the old embankments of Lake Mœris run down from the north, and we
arrived in our camp at the ruins of the labyrinth, on the 11th of July.
We found all well except our Frey, whom we had left indisposed, and
whose recurring, seemingly climatic, illness gives me some pain.
To-morrow I am thinking of going to Cairo, with Abeken and Bonomi, to
hire a bark for our journey to the south, and to prepare everything
required by our final departure from the neighbourhood of the
metropolis. We shall take four camels with us, for the transport of the
monuments gathered in the Faiûm, and go the shortest way, by Tamiêh,
which we did not touch on our tour, and thence over the desert heights,
which divide this part of the Faiûm from the valley of the Nile. We
shall enter this by the pyramids of Dahshur. Thus we expect to reach
Cairo in two days and a half.
LETTER XIII.
CAIRO.
_August 14, 1843._
Unfortunately, I received, soon after our return to Cairo, such very
questionable news of Frey’s health, that Abeken and Bonomi have
determined to go to the camp and bring him, in a litter they took with
them, from the Labyrinth to Zani, on the Nile, and thence by water
hither. As soon as Dr. Pruner had seen him, he declared that the only
advisable course was to let him depart immediately for Europe. Disease
of the liver, in the way it developed itself in him, is incurable in
Egypt. So he left us yesterday at noon. May the climate of his native
land soon restore the powers of a friend, equally talented as estimable,
in whom we all lose much.
A few days ago I purchased from a Basque named Domingo Lorda, who has
stayed a long time in Abyssinia, and has since accompanied d’Abadie in
several journeys, some Ethiopic Manuscripts for the Berlin Museum. He
bought them, probably at an inconsiderable price, in a convent on the
island of Thâna, near Gorata, a day’s journey from the sources of the
Blue Nile, where the inhabitants had been put to fearful distress by the
locusts. One contains the history of Abyssinia from Solomon to Christ,
is reported to come from Axum, and to be 500 or 600 years old! This
first portion of Abyssinian history, named _Kebre Negesty_, “The Fame of
the Kings,” is said to be far rarer than the second, _Tarik Negest_,
“The History of the Kings;” but this manuscript contains at the end a
list of the Ethiopian kings since Christ. The largest manuscript, with
many pictures ornamented in the Byzantine style, and, according to what
Lieder tells me, almost unique in its kind, contains mostly lives of
Saints. In the third, the yet valid _Canones_ of the church are
completely preserved. I hope the purchase will be welcome to our
library.[38]
Now, too, are our purchases for the voyage ended; a comfortable bark is
hired, and will save us the great difficulties of a land journey, which
is scarcely possible during the coming season of inundation.
LETTER XIV.
THEBES.
_October 13, 1843._
On the 16th of August, I went from Cairo to the Faiûm, where our camp
was broken up on the 21st. Two days later we sailed from Benisuef, sent
the camels back to Cairo, and only took the donkeys with us, as it was
found, upon careful consideration, that the originally-intended land
journey by the foot of the mountains, far away from the river, was
altogether impossible during the season of the inundation, and, on the
eastern side, it was not only too difficult, but perfectly useless for
us, by reason of the proximity of the desert, towards which there is
nothing more to be found for our purposes. We have therefore made
excursions from our bark, on foot, and with donkeys, principally to the
east and some attainable mountains, though we have also visited the most
important spots on the western shore.
Even on the day of our departure from Benisuef, we found, in the
neighbourhood of the village of Surarîeh, a small rock temple, not
mentioned by former travellers, indeed, not even by Wilkinson, which was
dedicated already in the nineteenth dynasty of Menephthes, the son of
Ramses Miamun,[39] to Hathor, the Egyptian Venus.[40] Farther on, lie
several groups of graves, which have scarcely received any attention,
although they are of peculiar interest by reason of their great
antiquity. The whole of middle Egypt, to judge from the tombs preserved,
flourished during the Old Empire, before the irruption of the Hyksos,
not only under the twelfth dynasty,[41] to which period the famous tombs
of Benihassan suit, and Bersheh belong, but even under the sixth
dynasty[42] we have found extensive series of tombs, belonging to these
early times, and attached to cities, of which the later Egyptian
geography does not even know the names, as they were probably already
destroyed by the Hyksos. In Benihassan we stayed the longest
time--sixteen days; through this, the season is far advanced, and it
must not be lost in our journey southward. At the next places,
therefore, only notes were taken, and the most important forms in paper,
so also at El Amarna, Siut, at the reverend Abydos, and in the younger,
but not less magnificent, almost intactly preserved, temple of Dendera.
At Siut, we visited the governor of Upper Egypt, Selim Pasha, who is
working an ancient alabaster quarry between Bersheh and Gauâta,
discovered by the Bedouins some months ago.
The town of Siut is well built and charmingly situated, particularly if
it be looked upon from the steep rocks of the western shore. The
prospect of the inundated Nile valley from these heights is the most
beautiful that we have yet seen, and is very peculiar in these times of
inundation in which we travel. From the foot of the abrupt rock, a small
dyke, overgrown with vines, and a bridge leads to the town, which lies
like an island in the boundless ocean of inundation. The gardens, of
Ibrahim Pasha, to the left, form another island, green and fresh with
trees and bushes. The city, with its fifteen minarets, rises high upon
the ruined mounds of ancient Lycopolis; from it a great embankment
reaches to the Nile; toward the south may be seen other long dykes
stretching through the waters like threads; on the other side, the
Arabian mountains come on closely, by which the valley is bounded, and
formed into an easily-overlooked picture.
Since the 6th of October we have been in Royal Thebes. Our bark touched
the shore first beneath the wall of Luqsor, at the southerly point of
the Thebaïc ruins. The strong current of the river has thrust itself so
near to the old temple, that it is in great danger. I endeavoured to
obtain a general view of the ruins of Thebes from the heights of the
temple, in order to compare it with the picture I had idealised to
myself, from plans and descriptions.
But the distances are too great to give a complete view. One looks into
a wide landscape, in which the temple groups are distinguishable only to
those who are acquainted with the neighbourhood. To the north, at a
short hour’s distance stand the mighty pylones of Karnak, forming a
temple city in itself, gigantic and astounding in all its proportions.
We spent the next days in a cursory examination of it. Across the river,
at the foot of the Libyan mountains, lie the Memnonia, once an unbroken
series of palaces, which probably found their equal nowhere in
antiquity. Even now, the temples of Medînet Hâbu, at the southern end of
this row, show themselves, with their high rubbish-mounds at a distance,
and at the northern end, an hour away down the river, is the
well-preserved temple of Qurnah; between both lies the temple of Ramses
Miamun,[43] (Sesostris), already most celebrated by the description of
Diodorus. Thus the four Arab villages, Karnak and Luqsor on the east,
Qurnah and Medînet Hâbu on the west of the river, form a great
quadrangle, each side of which measures about half a geographical mile,
and gives us some idea of the dimensions of the most magnificent part of
ancient Thebes. How far the remainder of the inhabited portion of the
hundred-gated city extended beyond these limits to the east, north, and
south, is difficult to be discovered now, because everything that did
not remain upright in the lapse of ages gradually disappeared under the
annually rising soil of the valley, induced by the alluvial deposit.
No one ever asks after the weather here; for every day is pleasant,
clear, and up to the present time not too hot. We have no red either in
the morning or at night, as clouds and mists fail. But every first beam
of the day calls a thousand colours forth from the naked and precipitate
limestone rocks, and the brown shining desert, in opposition to the
black or green-clad plain of the valley. A dawn scarcely exists, as the
sun sinks directly down. The boundary between day and night is as sudden
as that between meadow and desert; one step, one moment, parts the one
from the other. The more refreshing, therefore, is the darkly sheen of
the moon and star-bright night to the eye, dazzled by the light ocean of
the day. The air is so pure and dry, that no dew falls, except in the
immediate vicinity of the river, notwithstanding the sudden change at
sundown. We have almost forgotten what rain is, for, as far as we are
concerned, it is six months since it last rained at Saqâra. A few days
ago, we were rejoicing at having discovered toward evening some light
clouds in the south-western part of the sky, which reminded us of
Europe. However, we are not in want of cooling, for a light wind is
almost always blowing, which does not allow the heat to become too
oppressive. Besides this, the water of the Nile is of a sweet taste, and
can be taken in great quantities without danger.
An inestimable benefit are the earthenware water-vessels (_Qulleh_),
which, formed of a fine, porous Nile earth, allow the water to
continually filter through. This evaporates as soon as it comes out to
the warm surface, the evaporation produces cold, as is well known, and,
by this simple process, the bottles are kept constantly cool, even in
the warmest days. The water is therefore generally cooler than it is to
be had in Europe during summer. Our food usually consists mostly of
fowls; as a change, we kill a sheep from time to time. There is but
little vegetable. Every meal is ended with a dish of rice, and as a
desert, we have the most excellent yellow melons, or juicy red
water-melons. The dates are also excellent, but are, however, not always
to be obtained. I have at length agreed, to the great joy of my
companions, to smoke a Turkish pipe; this keeps me for a quarter of an
hour in perfect _kêf_ (so the Arabs call their state of perfect rest),
for as long as one “drinks” from the blue pipe with the long,
easily-spilt bowl, it is impossible to leave one’s place, and begin any
other business. Our costume is comfortable: full trowsers of light
cotton, and a wide, long blouse, with short falling sleeves. I wear,
also, a broad-brimmed, grey felt hat, as a European symbol, which keeps
the Arabs in proper respect. We eat, according to the custom of the
country, sitting with crossed legs on cushions, round a low, round
table, not a foot high. This position has become so comfortable to me,
that I even write in it, sitting on my bed, with my letter case upon my
knees. Above me a canopy of gauze is spread, in order to keep off the
flies, these most shameless of the plagues of Egypt, during the day, and
the mosquitos at night. For the rest, one does not suffer so much from
insects here as in Italy. Scorpions and serpents have not bitten us yet,
but there are very malicious wasps, which have often stung us.
We shall only stop here till the day after to-morrow, and then journey
away to the southward without stopping. On our return, we shall give the
treasures here as much time and exertion as they require. At Assuan, on
the Egyptian frontier, we must unload for the first time, and send back
our large bark, in which we have become quite homeish. On the other side
of the cataracts we shall take two smaller barks for the continuation of
our journey.
LETTER XV.
KORUSKO.
_November 20, 1843._[44]
Our journey from the Faiûm through Egypt was obliged to be much hastened
on account of the advanced season of the year; we have, therefore,
seldom stopped at any place longer than was necessary to make a hasty
survey of it, and have confined ourselves in the last three months to a
careful examination of what we have, and to extending our important
collection of paper impressions of the most interesting inscriptions.
We have obtained, in our rapid journey to Wadi Halfa, three or four
hundred Greek inscriptions, in impressions or careful transcripts. They
often confirm Letronne’s acute conjectures, but not seldom correct the
unavoidable mistakes incident to such an investigation as his. In the
inscription from which it was, without reason, attempted to settle the
situation of the city of Akoris, his conjecture ΙΣΙΔΙ ΛΟΧΙΑΔΙ is not
corroborated; L’Hote has read ΜΟΧΙΑΔΙ but ΜΩΧΙΑΔΙ is to be found there,
and previously ΕΡΩΕΩΕ not ΕΡΕΕΩΕ.
The dedicatory inscription of the temple of Pselchis (as the
inscriptions give with Strabo, instead of Pselcis) is almost as long
again as Letronne considers it, and the first line does not end with
KΛEOPATPAΣ, but with AΔEΛΦHΣ, so that it should probably be supplied--
Ὑπὲρ βασιλέως Πτολεμαίου καὶ βασιλίσσης
Κλεοπάτρας τῆς ἀδελφῆς
θεῶν Εὐεργετῶν ...;[45]
At the end of the second line ΤΩΙΚΑΙ is confirmed; the title of Hermes,
following in the third line, was, however, ΠΑΟΤΠΝΟΥΦΙ(ΔΙ), varying from
the spelling in other subsequent inscriptions, where he is called
ΠΑΥΤΝΟΥΦΙΣ. The same name is found not unfrequently hieroglyphically,
and is then _Tut en Pnubs_, _i. e._ Thoth of, or lord of Πνούψ[46], a
city, the position of which is yet obscure. I have already encountered
this Thoth in earlier temples, where he often appears besides the Thoth
of Shonun, _i. e._ _Heliopolis magna_. In the language of the people it
was pronounced Pet-Pnubs, whence Paot-Pnuphis.
The interesting problem concerning the owner of the name Εὐπάτωρ, which
Letronne endeavoured to solve in a new way in connection with the
inscriptions of the obelisk of Philae, seems to be determined by the
hieroglyphical inscriptions, where the same circumstances occur, but
lead to other conclusions.[47] I have discovered several very perfect
series of Ptolemies, the longest coming down to Neos Dionysos and his
wife Cleopatra, who was surnamed Tryphæna by the Egyptians, according
to the hieroglyphic inscriptions.[48] A fact of some importance is also
that in this Egyptian list of Ptolemies, the first King is never
Ptolemæus Soter I. but Philadelphus. In Qurna, where Euergetes II. is
adoring his ancestors, not only Philometor, the brother of Euergetes,
is wanting, which may easily be accounted for, but also Soter I., and
it is an error of Rosselini, if he look upon the king beneath
Philadelphus as Soter I. instead of Euergetes I. It seems that the son
of Lagus, although he assumed the title of King from 305 B.C., was not
recognized by the Egyptians as such, as his cartouches do not appear
upon any monument erected by him. The rather, therefore, do I rejoice,
that I have not yet found his name once upon an inscription of
Philadelphus, as the father of Arsinoe II. But here, it must be
observed, Soter certainly has the Royal Kings about his names, and a
peculiar cartouche; but before both cartouches, contrary to the usual
Egyptian custom, there stands no royal title, although his daughter is
called “royal daughter,” and “Queen.”[49]
It is remarkable how little Champollion seems to have attended to the
monuments of the Old Empire. In his whole journey through Middle Egypt
up to Dendera, he only found the rock graves of Benihassan worthy of
remark, and these, too, he assigns to the sixteenth and seventeenth
dynasty, therefore to the New Empire. He mentions Zauiet el Meitîn and
Siut, but scarcely makes any remark about them.
So little has been said by others of most of the monuments of Middle
Egypt, that almost everything was new to me that we found here. My
astonishment was not small, when we found a series of nineteen rock
tombs at Zauiet el Meitîn, which were all inscribed, gave the names of
the departed, and belong to the old time of the sixth dynasty, thus
almost as far back as the pyramid builders.[50] Five of them contain,
several times repeated, the cartouche of the Macrobiote Apappus-Pepi,
who is reported to have lived one hundred and six years, and reigned one
hundred; in another, Cheops is mentioned. On one side is a single tomb,
of the time of Ramses.