NEBESHEH.
1886.
While living at Tanis I heard of a great stone, and a cemetery, some
miles to the south of that place, and took an opportunity of visiting
it. The site, Tell Nebesheh, is a very out-of-the-way spot; marshes and
canals cut it off from the rest of the delta; and the only path to it
from the cultivated region is across a wide wet plain, on the other side
of which is a winding bank hidden among the reeds of the bogs, and only
to be found by a native. After leaving Naukratis I went to this place,
to try to clear up its history; and Mr. Griffith finished the work here,
after I had moved on to fresh discoveries. The great stone was seen to
be a monolith shrine, and therefore probably a temple lay around it. As
I walked over the mounds, I saw that the tufts of reedy grass came to an
end along a straight line, the other side of which was bare earth. This
pointed out the line of the enclosing wall of the temple, which I soon
tracked round on all sides. In the middle of one side the mound dipped
down, and a few limestone chips lay about. Here I dug for the entrance
pylon, and before long we found the lower stones of it left in position;
on clearing it out a statue of Ramessu II, larger than life, was found,
and fragments of its fellow; also a sphinx, likewise in black granite,
which had been so often reappropriated by various kings, that the
original maker could hardly be traced. Probably of the twelfth dynasty
to begin with, it had received a long inscription around the base from
an official (the importance of which we shall see presently), and later
on six other claimants seized it in succession. Outside of the pylon
there had been an approach, of which one ornament remained; this is an
entirely fresh design, being a column without any capital, but
supporting a large hawk overshadowing the king Merenptah, who kneels
before it. The sides of the column are inscribed.
The ground all around the monolith shrine was dug over by us. Directly
beneath the shrine the granite pavement and its substructure remains
entire; but over the rest of the area only the bed of the foundation can
be traced, all the stone having been removed. Near the place of the
entrance lay the throne of a statue of Usertesen III, probably one of a
pair by the door, and showing that a temple had existed as far back as
the twelfth dynasty. The foundation deposits in the corners I had to get
out from beneath the water; they were plaques of metals and stones, with
the name of Aahmes Si-nit, and pottery, showing that the temple had been
built in the twenty-sixth dynasty. Among the ruins was found part of
the black granite statue of the goddess Uati, which had doubtless stood
in the monolith shrine as the great image of the temple.
[Illustration: 49. FOUNDATION DEPOSIT. 1: 2.]
At the back of the shrine lay a black granite altar of Usertesen III,
which, like the sphinx, had received an inscription by an official at a
later time. These added inscriptions are of value, although they have
been nearly effaced by subsequent kings; they show that in the dark
times before the eighteenth dynasty (for by their rudeness they fall in
that age), certain royal chancellors could venture to usurp the
monuments of previous kings. This could hardly have been possible if the
king of that period cared for the monuments; and we probably see in
these chancellors the native viziers of the Hyksos kings, who were also
apparently reckoned by the Egyptians as their rulers, and entered with
ephemeral reigns of a year or two in the lists of the fourteenth
dynasty. It was this vice-royalty that was conferred on Joseph, when the
royal signet was given to him, and he had the honour of the second
chariot.
But it was evident that some temple had existed here before Aahmes, as
the monuments were of earlier ages; and on looking at the plan it is
seen that his temple is not in the middle of the enclosure, nor is it in
the line of the axis, but at right angles to it. I therefore searched
for the first temple about the midst of the area, but for a long time
nothing appeared besides chips. At last a mass of sand was found with a
vertical face, and this I at once recognised as the sand bed laid in the
earth, on which the walls of the temple had been founded. It was covered
with about twelve feet of dust and chips, but by sinking pits at
intervals it was traced all round the whole extent of the former temple.
The foundation deposits were unattainable, as they were too deep beneath
the water level, and the great sand bed collects the water so readily
that it could not be kept down more than three feet by baling.
[Illustration: 50. SANCTUARY AND TEMPLES.]
[Illustration: 51. LYKAONIAN SPEARHEADS AND VASES.]
The cemetery was the other object at this place. It proved to be of
tolerable extent, about half a mile long; but the earliest tomb found
was of Ramesside age. Most of the burials were of the twenty-sixth to
the thirtieth dynasties, and the rarity of earlier interments was
explained by the condition of those which remain. The tomb chambers were
all subterranean, yet most of them were found roofless, though level
with the ground; of some, only a few bricks remained at the sides; very
few were still complete with a brick vault. In fact they were in every
stage of removal, owing to the denudation of the sand ground in which
they were placed. The inference is only too evident, that the earlier
tombs have simply been denuded wholly away, below the last brick of the
walls. Many of the chambers were excavated, but only in a few of them
were any ushabti figures found. Some of them were sumptuous buildings of
limestone; but mostly they were of the mud bricks, both in the walls and
the arched roofing. The most interesting class were those of Lykaonian
mercenaries; most likely from an outpost of the Daphnae camp, stationed
here. In those tombs there were no ushabtis; the bodies lay north and
south, instead of east and west, as in the Egyptian tombs; there were
bronze and sometimes iron spear-heads, and curious forked spear-heads,
like that on a funeral stele at Iconium; and moreover, Cypriote pottery,
generally pilgrim bottles.
While working in the cemetery we found one unrifled tomb, containing
four mummies, with their sets of amulets intact. These I carefully took
off the bodies, noting the position of every object, so that I could
afterwards rearrange them in their original order exactly as found. But
the greatest discovery here in point of size was a great tomb formed by
a brick-walled yard or enclosure sunk in the ground. Within this were
two limestone sarcophagi inscribed, and a splendid basalt sarcophagus,
highly wrought, and with a long inscription; this was encased in a huge
block of limestone for protection, and it required much work to break
this away when Count D’Hulst removed it to London. These sarcophagi were
for a family who held offices in the Egyptian town of Am; another
sarcophagus found near these also named Am, and a piece of a statuette
from the temple gave the same name. From these many different sources it
appears that Am was the name of Tell Nebesheh; especially as Uati was
the goddess of Am, and hers was the statue of the great shrine and
temple here. This gives a fresh point in the geography of ancient Egypt,
and explains what Herodotos means by the Arabian Buto, in contrast to
the other Buto (or ‘Temple of Uati’) in the western half of the delta.
[Illustration: 52. USHABTI FIGURES, TWENTIETH DYNASTY. 1: 8.]
[Illustration: 53. A NILE MORNING.]