demonstration, or even by anger; these he considers as proofs of
weakness. The greatest reserve alone, and the most careful distant
politeness towards the great, or the bearing of a person of some
consequence, and absolute commands to inferiors, answers the purpose
here. A Turkish Kawass drives a whole village of Fellahs, or Arabs,
before him, and makes a decided impression even on the still prouder
Bedouins. The Pascha employs the Kawass-corps as special messengers,
and on commissions, throughout the whole country. They are the chief
executive servants of the Pascha, and of the governors of the provinces.
Every foreign consul has also a similar Kawass, without whom he hardly
takes a single step, since he is his guard of honour, the sign, and the
right hand of his indisputable authority. When he rides out, the Kawass
rides before him with a great silver stick, and drives the people and
animals with words or blows out of his path; and woe to him who should
make a movement, or even a gesture of disobedience. The Pascha sometimes
also gives such a guard of honour, with similar authority, as an escort
to strangers who are specially recommended to him, and thus we also
received a Kawass at the commencement of our journey, who however, during
our long period of repose in Gizeh was only a burden, and at length,
on account of his making extravagant demands, was not very graciously
dismissed by me. On the occasion of the attack in Saqâra, I caused
another to be given me by Scherif Pascha; but he still is not the sort
of man that we want, so I have now brought a third with me from Cairo,
who hitherto has proved an excellent one. He relieves me from the entire
superintendence over the servants, and manages admirably all that I
have to transact with the people and authorities of the country. If I
were in Europe I should have supposed that I had more than sufficient
strength for the whole external guidance of the expedition, as well as
for its more immediate object, but in this climate one must measure by a
different scale. Patience and repose are here, just as necessary elements
of life, as meat and drink.
LETTER XI.
_The Labyrinth, the 25th June, 1843._
These lines are written to you from the distinctly recognised Labyrinth
of Mœris and the Dodecarchs, not from the doubtful spot whose identity
is still contested, of which I myself was unable to form any conception
from the hitherto more than deficient descriptions even of those who
have removed the Labyrinth hither. An immense cluster of chambers still
remains, and in the centre lies the great square, where the courts once
stood, covered with the remains of large monolithic granite columns, and
of others of white hard limestone, shining almost like marble.
I approached the spot, fearing that we must only endeavour, as others
had done before us, to confirm the information of the ancients on the
geographical position of the place; that all form of the edifice itself
had disappeared, and that an unshapely heap of ruins might deter us from
making any examinations. Instead of this, at the first superficial survey
of the ground, a number of complicated spaces, of true labyrinthine
forms, immediately presented themselves, both above and below ground, and
the eye could easily detect the principal buildings, more than a stadium
(Strabo) in extent. Where the French expedition had vainly sought for
chambers, we literally at once find hundreds of them, both next to, and
above one another, small, often diminutive ones, beside greater ones, and
large ones, supported by small columns, with thresholds, and niches in
the walls, with remains of columns, and single casing-stones, connected
by corridors, without any regularity in the entrances and exits, so
that the descriptions of Herodotus and Strabo, in this respect, are
fully justified. But at the same time also, the opinion, which was never
adopted by me, and is irreconcileable with any architectonic view, that
there are _serpentine_, case-like windings, in place of square rooms, is
decidedly refuted.
The whole is so arranged, that three immense masses of buildings, 300
feet broad, enclose a square place, which is 600 feet long and 500 feet
wide. The fourth side, one of the narrow ones, is bounded by the Pyramid,
which lies behind it; it is 300 feet square, and therefore does not quite
reach the side wings of the above-mentioned masses of buildings. A canal
of rather modern date, passing obliquely through the ruins, and which one
can almost leap over, at least at the present season, cuts off exactly
the best preserved portion of the labyrinthian chambers, together with
part of the great central square, which at one time was divided into
courts. The travellers preferred not wetting their feet, and remained
on this side, where the continuation of the wings of the buildings is
certainly more concealed beneath the rubbish. But the chambers lying on
the farther side, especially their southern point, where the walls rise
nearly ten feet above the rubbish, and about twenty feet above the base
of the ruins, are to be seen very well even from this, the eastern side;
and viewed from the summit of the Pyramid, the regular plan of the
whole design lies before one as on a map. Erbkam has been occupied ever
since our arrival, in making the special plan, on which every chamber
or wall, however small, will be noted down. The farther portion of the
ruins is, therefore, by far the most difficult to record. On this side
it is an easier task, but so much the more difficult to understand. Here
the labyrinth of chambers passes on southwards. The courts were situated
between this and the Pyramid lying opposite on the northern side. But
almost all of these have disappeared. We have, therefore, nothing to
guide us but the dimensions of the square, which lead us to suppose that
it was divided into two halves, by a long wall, against which the twelve
courts (for we cannot, indeed, with any certainty, make out that there
were more) abutted on both sides, so that their entrances turned towards
opposite sides, and had immediately facing them the extensive mass of
innumerable chambers.
But who was the Maros, Mendes, Imandes, who, by the account of the
Greeks, erected the Labyrinth, or rather the Pyramid belonging to it, for
his tomb? In the Manethonic list of Kings, we find the builder of the
Labyrinth introduced towards the end of the 12th Dynasty, the last of the
Old Monarchy, shortly before the invasion of the Hyksos. The fragments of
the mighty columns and architraves which we have dug up from the great
square of the halls, exhibit the name-shields of the sixth king of this
same 12th Dynasty, Amenemha III. Thus the important question of its place
in history is answered.[23] We have also made excavations on the north
side of the Pyramid, because it is here that we conjecture the entrance
must have been. But it has not been hitherto discovered. We have only
as yet penetrated into a chamber which lay in front of the Pyramid, and
which was covered by a great quantity of rubbish, and we have several
times found the name of Amenemha here also. The builder and occupier
of the Pyramid is therefore determined. But this does not refute the
statement of Herodotus, that the Dodecarchs, only 200 years before his
time, had undertaken the building of the Labyrinth. We have found no
inscriptions in the ruins of the great masses of chambers which surround
the central space. It may be easily proved by future excavations that
this whole building, and probably also the disposition of the twelve
courts, belong only, in fact, to the 26th Dynasty of Manetho, so that
the original temple of Amenemha formed merely part of this gigantic
architectural enclosure.
So much for the Labyrinth and its Pyramid. The exact position which its
builder occupies in history is by far the most important result that
we could altogether hope to obtain here. I must now say a few words
respecting the other world’s wonder of this province, Lake Mœris.
The obscurity which has hitherto hung over it seems at length to have
been dispersed, by a beautiful discovery, which was made a short time
ago by the excellent Linant, the director of the water-works of the
Pascha. Hitherto there was only one point of agreement, that the lake
was situated in the Faiûm. Now, as at the present day there is only
one single lake in this remarkable semi-oasis, the Birqet-el-Qorn,
which is situated in its most remote and lowest parts, this must be the
Lake Mœris; we have no other choice. Its celebrity, however, rested
principally upon this, that it was an artificially designed (Herodotus
says an excavated) and extremely profitable lake, which was filled by
the Nile when it was high, and when the water was low, flowed off again
by the connecting canal; and irrigating on the one side the grounds of
the Faiûm, on the other, during its reflux, the adjacent tracts of the
Memphitic district, at the same time yielded extremely rich fishing
near the double sluices at the mouth of the Faiûm. To the annoyance
of Antiquarians and Philologists, not one of all these peculiarities
belonged to the Birqet-el-Qorn. This is not an artificial, but a natural
lake, which is only in part fed by the water of the Jussuf canal. One of
its useful qualities can be hardly said to exist, since no fishing-boat
enlivens its surface, encircled by an arid desert, because the brackish
water contains scarcely any fish, and is in no degree favourable to the
vegetation on its shores. When the Nile is at its height, and there is
a more abundant supply of water, it certainly rises; but it is situated
at far too low a level to allow a drop of the water with which it has
been supplied, ever to flow back again. The whole province must be buried
beneath the flood before the waters could find their way back into
the valley, for the artificially lowered rocky channel through which
the Bahr Jussuf is brought hither, branching off from the Nile about
forty miles south, lies higher than the whole oasis. The surface of the
Birqet-el-Qorn is now about seventy feet below the point where the canal
flows in, and can never have risen to a much greater height,[24] which
is proved by some remains of a temple upon its shores. As little does it
agree with the statement, that the Labyrinth, and the capital Arsinoë,
the present Medînet-el-Faiûm, were situated on its shores.
Linant has now discovered huge dams, miles in length, of the most
ancient solid construction, which separates the uppermost portion of
the shell-like, convex-formed basin of the Faiûm from those parts
which are situated lower and lie farther back, and, according to him,
could only have been intended to retain artificially a great lake,
which now, however, since the dams have been long broken through,
lies completely dry. This lake he holds to be that of Mœris. I must
confess that the whole thing, when he first communicated it to me by
word of mouth, impressed me with the idea that it was an extremely
happy discovery, which will also spare us in future many fruitless
researches. An inspection of the ground has now removed all my doubts as
to the correctness of this view. I hold it to be an insubvertible fact.
Linant’s treatise is now being printed, and I will send it to you as
soon as it is to be had.[25]
But finally, if you ask me what the name of Mœris has to do with that of
Amenemha, I can only answer, nothing. The name Mœris neither appears on
the monuments, nor in Manetho. I rather think that here again we find one
of the numerous misunderstandings of the Greeks. The Egyptians called
the lake, Phiom en mere, the Lake of the Nile-inundation (Copt. ⲙⲏⲣⲉ,
_inundatio_). The Greeks made out of _mere_, the water which formed the
lake, a King Mœris who designed the lake, and then troubled themselves no
further about the true originator, Amenemha. At a later period the whole
province received the name ⲫⲓⲟⲙ, Phiom, the Lake, from which the present
name Faiûm has been derived.
LETTER XII.
_The Labyrinth, the 18th July, 1843._
We have accomplished our journey round that remarkable province, the
Faiûm, very rarely visited by Europeans, which, on account of its
fertility, may be named the Garden of Egypt; and precisely because these
parts are almost as unknown as the distant oases of Libya, you will,
perhaps, be glad to hear some more details about them from me.
I started with Erbkam, E. Weidenbach, and Abeken, on the 3rd of July. We
went from the Labyrinth along the Bahr Wardâni, which skirts the eastern
border of the desert, and forms the boundary, to which the shore of
Lake Mœris at one time extended towards the East. The canal is now dry,
and is replaced by the still more recent Bahr Scherkîeh, which, as they
say, was made by the Sultan Barquq, and is conducted through the middle
of the Labyrinth; it at first crosses the Wardâni several times, but
afterwards keeps more inland. In three hours we reached the point where
the huge dam of Mœris projects from the middle of the Faiûm into the
desert. It runs out in this spot for about one and a half geographical
miles as far as El Elâm. In the middle of this tract it is intersected
by Bahr-bela-mâ, a deep bed of a stream, which now cuts through the old
lake-bottom, and is usually dry, but when there is a great supply of
water, it is used as an outlet for the superfluity towards Tamîeh, and
into the Birqet-el-Qorn. This enabled us to examine the dam itself from a
nearer point of view. The current, which at times is swollen and rapid,
has scooped out a passage for itself since the destruction of the lake,
not only through the alluvial soil that formed the bottom of the lake,
but also through several other layers of earth, and even through the
slightly indurated limestone lying undermost; so that the water, at this
season, reduced certainly to a minimum, flows about sixty feet lower than
the present dry bottom of the lake. I measured accurately the separate
layers of earth, and carried away with me a specimen of each. The breadth
of the dam cannot be determined with certainty, but may, perhaps, have
amounted to 150 feet. The height of the dam has probably become somewhat
lower with time. I found it to be 1 m. 90 (6 feet 3 inches English) above
the present bottom of the lake, and 5 m. 60 (18 feet 4 inches English)
above the opposite plain. If we suppose this last to be on a similar
level with the original bottom of the lake (which was, however, probably
lower, because the external ground was irrigated, and consequently became
elevated), then the dam, apart from its gradual levelling from above
downwards, must have been formerly as much as 5 m. 60, consequently 17
feet high, and the ground in the inner part of the lake, during its
existence of more than two thousand years, must have risen by deposits
of earth about 11 feet. But if we admit that the black earth also, from
11 to 12 feet thick, which is still to be found outside of the dams, was
deposited within the historical times, then the above numbers would even
require to be doubled. Thus we have some idea how its utility must have
been much diminished with time; for the lake (if we assume that its
circumference is what Linant asserts), by the filling up of the 11 feet
of earth, must have lost 13,000 millions of square feet of the water,
which it might have formerly contained. An elevation of the dams could
in no possible manner have prevented this, because they had been already
placed in exact relation to the point of the influx of the Bahr Jussuf
into the Faiûm. This may have been one of the most substantial reasons
why Lake Mœris was allowed at a later period to fall into decay; and even
Linant’s bold project to restore the lake could not wholly repair this
loss, even if he were to make the Bahr Jussuf branch off from the Nile at
a much higher point than was thought necessary by the old Pharaohs.
In two hours and a half from this intersection, following the dam to
El Elâm, where it ceases, we reached the remarkable remains of the two
monuments of Biahmu, which Linant considers to be the Pyramids of Mœris
and his consort, which were seen by Herodotus in the lake. They were
built out of great massive blocks; the nucleus of each of them is still
standing, but not in the centre of the almost square rectangle, which, by
their appearance, they seem to have originally occupied. They rose at an
angle of 64°, therefore, with a much steeper inclination than Pyramids
usually do. Their present height, which, however, seems to have been
originally the same as it is now, only amounts to twenty-three feet, to
which, nevertheless, must be added, a peculiar and somewhat projecting
base of seven feet. A small excavation convinced me that the lowest
layer of stone, which only reaches four feet beneath the present ground,
was founded neither on sand nor on rock, but upon Nile mud, which more
especially render the great antiquity of these buildings very doubtful.
At least it is to be inferred from this that they did not stand in the
lake, which, if it encircled them, must have had a remarkable curve
outwards to the north-west.
We had been riding hitherto on the line of separation between the
ancient bottom of the lake and the adjacent district. The former is
bare and sterile, since the land, at the present day, lies so high that
it cannot be overflowed. On the other hand, the broad tract of land
enclosing the ancient lake, forms by far the most beautiful and most
fertile part of the Faiûm. We now traversed this district, while we left
the capital of the province, Medînet el Faiûm, with the mounds of the
ancient CROCODILOPOLIS on our left, and rode by Selajîn and Fidimîn, to
Agamîeh, where we spent the night. The next morning, near Bischeh, we
reached the limits of this continuous garden-land. Here we entered a
new region, forming a striking contrast to the former, by its sterility
and desolation, enriching it like a girdle, and separating it from the
crescent-shaped Birqet-el-Qorn, situated in the lowest and most distant
part. About mid-day we reached the lake. The only boat which was to be
had, far and wide, conveyed us in an hour and a half across the expanse
of water, encircled all around by the desert, to an island lying in the
centre of the lake, called Gezîret-el-Qorn. We, however, found nothing
on it worthy of notice, not even a trace of a building, so towards the
evening we returned.
The next morning we re-crossed the lake in a more northerly direction,
and landed on a small peninsula of the opposite shore, which rises at
once 150 feet, to a plateau of the Libyan Desert, commanding the whole
Oasis. We then ascended, and about an hour distant from the shore, in
the midst of the inhospitable desert, devoid of water and vegetation, we
found the extensive ruins of an ancient town, which on earlier maps is
named Medînet Nimrud. They were utterly unacquainted with this name here;
the place was only known by the designation of DIMÉH. On the following
day, the 7th July, the regular plan of these ruins, with the remains of
its temple, was noted down by Erbkam, who had spent the night here with
Abeken. There are no inscriptions on the temple, and whatever sculptures
we found, were placed in this remarkable building at a late period. It
was probably intended only as a military station, against invasions from
Lybia into the rich country of the Faiûm.
On the 8th July we went in our boat to QASR QERÛN, an old town on the
southern end of the lake, with a temple of late date, and in excellent
preservation, but with no inscriptions, the plan of which was taken on
the following day. From this place we followed the southern frontier
of the Oasis, by Neslet, as far as the ruins of Medînet Mâdi, on LAKE
GHARAQ, near which the ancient dams of Lake Mœris projected from the
north, and on the 11th July we again arrived at our camp on the ruins
of the Labyrinth. We found all well, including Frey, whom we had left
indisposed, and whose repeated attacks of illness, probably produced by
the climate, cause me some anxiety.
To-morrow I am thinking of going to Cairo with Abeken and Bonomi, to hire
a boat for our journey south, and to prepare everything that is requisite
for our final departure from the neighbourhood of the capital. We shall
take four camels with us for the transport of the monuments which we have
collected in the Faiûm, and strike into the shortest road, namely, from
here by TAMÎEH, which we did not touch at, on our journey round, and
thence across the desert heights which separate this part of the Faiûm
from the Nile valley; we shall then descend into it by the Pyramids of
Daschûr, and thus hope to reach Cairo in two days and a half.
LETTER XIII.
_Cairo, the 14th August, 1843._
I regret to say that I received such uncomfortable accounts of the state
of Frey’s health, soon after our arrival in Cairo, that Abeken and Bonomi
at length determined to go to our camp, and to bring him in a litter
which they took with them, from the Labyrinth to Zani on the Nile, and
thence by water to this place. As soon as Dr. Pruner had seen him, he
pronounced that the only advisable course was to let him immediately
return to Europe. The liver complaint, under which he was found to be
suffering, is incurable in Egypt, and as it had already made great
progress, he left us yesterday at mid-day. May the climate of home soon
restore our friend’s strength, who is both amiable and full of talent,
and is a great loss to us all.
A few days ago, I purchased some Ethiopian Manuscripts for the Library
at Berlin, from a Basque, Domingo Lorda, who has lived a long time in
Abyssinia, and accompanied D’Abadie on several journeys. He bought them,
probably, for a small sum, in a convent situated on the island of Thâna,
near Gorata, one day’s journey from the sources of the Blue Nile, whose
inhabitants were brought to a state of great distress by locusts. The one
contains the history of Abyssinia, from Solomon to Christ, and is said to
come from Axum, and to be between five and six hundred years old. This
first part of the Abyssinian history, called KEBRE NEGEST, “the Fame of
the Kings,” is said to be far more rare than the second, TARIK NEGEST,
“the History of the Kings;” but this manuscript also contains at the
end a list of the Ethiopian kings since the time of Christ. The largest
manuscript, adorned with many great pictures in the Byzantine style, and
by what I learn about it from Lieder, almost unique in its kind, contains
chiefly the histories of saints. The third contains the still valid
_Canones_ of the Church, complete. I hope that it will be an acceptable
purchase for our Library.[26]
The purchases for our journey are also now completed; a convenient boat
is hired, which will save us from the great difficulties of a land
journey, since this, more especially during the impending season of
inundation, could scarcely be accomplished.
LETTER XIV.
_Thebes, the 13th October, 1843._
On the 16th August I went from Cairo to the Faiûm, from which our camp
broke up on the 21st. Two days later we sailed away from BENI-SUEF, and,
sending the camels back to Cairo, only took the asses with us in our
boat, as, on considering the matter more attentively, we found that the
land journey, originally contemplated by me along the range of the hills
some distance from the river on the western side, was quite impracticable
during the inundation, and on the eastern bank would have been partly
too fatiguing, and partly devoid of objects of interest to us on account
of the proximity of the desert frontier on that side, beyond which there
is nothing for us to explore. We have, therefore, only made excursions
from the boat, sometimes on foot, sometimes on asses, principally to the
eastern hills, which are easily reached; but on the western bank, also,
we have visited the most important points.
The very day after our departure from Beni-suef we found a small
rock-temple in the neighbourhood of the village of SURARIEH, unnoticed by
earlier travellers, not even mentioned by Wilkinson, which, as early as
the 19th Dynasty, was dedicated by Menephthes, the son of Ramses Miamun,
to the Egyptian Venus (Hathor). Farther on are several groups of tombs,
which had also hitherto received scarcely any notice, although, from
their extreme antiquity, they are peculiarly interesting. The whole of
Middle Egypt, judging by the tombs which have been preserved, seems to
have principally flourished during the Old Monarchy, before the invasion
of the Hyksos, not only during the 12th Dynasty, to which the renowned
tombs of Benihassan, Siut, and Berscheh belong, but even as early as the
6th. We have found groups of tombs, of considerable size, from this early
period, which belonged to towns whose names even are no longer known in
the later Egyptian geography, because they had probably been destroyed by
the Hyksos. We remained the longest time in Benihassan, namely, sixteen
days. Hence the season has now arrived, which we must not lose for our
journey south. In the following places, therefore, notes alone were
taken, and paper impressions of a most important kind; for instance, in
El Amarna, in Siut, in the venerable Abydos, and in the more recent, but
not on that account less magnificent, Temple of Dendera, which is almost
in perfect preservation. In Siut we visited the Governor of Upper Egypt,
Selîm Pascha, who for several months past has been working an ancient
alabaster quarry, which had been re-discovered by the Bedouins, between
Berscheh and Gauâta.