Arsinoe was situated near the lake of Moeris, on the west shore of the
Nile, where the inhabitants paid the highest veneration to crocodiles.
They nourished them in a splendid manner, embalmed them after they were
dead, and buried them in the subterranean cells of the Labyrinth; thence
the city was called, in ancient times, Crocodilopolis[43]. When the
Greeks conquered Egypt they altered its name to Arsinoe.
This name it retained in the time of Adrian, and Greek medals were
struck here in honour of that emperor as well as of Trajan. Its ruins
are thus described by Belzoni:--"On the morning of the 7th I went to see
the ruins of the ancient Arsinoe; it had been a very large city, but
nothing of it remains except high mounds of all sorts of rubbish. The
chief materials appear to have been burnt bricks. There were many stone
edifices, and a great quantity of wrought granite. In the present town
of Medinet I observed several fragments of granite columns and other
pieces of sculpture, of a most magnificent taste. It is certainly
strange that granite columns are only to be seen in this place and near
the Pyramids, six miles distant. Among the ruins at Arsinoe I also
observed various fragments of statues of granite, well executed, but
much mutilated; and it is my opinion that this town has been destroyed
by violence and fire. It is clearly seen that the new town of Medinet is
built out of the old town of Arsinoe, as the fragments are to be met
with in every part of the town. The large blocks of stone have been
diminished in their sizes, but enough is left to show the purposes for
which they originally served. About the centre of the ruins I made an
excavation in an ancient reservoir, which I found to be as deep as the
bottom of the Bahr-Yousef, and which was, no doubt, filled at the time
of the inundation, for the accommodation of the town. There are other
similar wells in these ruins, which prove that this was the only mode
they had of keeping water near them, as the river is at some distance
from the town. Among these mounds I found several specimens of glass, of
Grecian manufacture and Egyptian workmanship, and it appears to me,
that this town must have been one of the first note in Egypt."
Near this city was the Labyrinth, so greatly celebrated in ancient
times, that Pliny regarded it as the most astonishing effort of human
genius. Herodotus saw it, and assures us that it was still more
surprising than the Pyramids. It was built at the southernmost part of
the lake of Moeris. It was not so much one single palace as a
magnificent pile, composed of twelve palaces, regularly disposed, which
had a communication with each other. Fifteen hundred rooms, interspersed
with terraces, were ranged round twelve halls, and discovered no outlet
to such as went to see them. There were the like number of buildings
under ground. Those subterraneous structures were designed for the
burying-place of the kings; "and who," says Rollin, "can say this
without confusion, and without deploring the blindness of man, for
keeping the sacred crocodiles, which a nation, so wise in other
respects, worshipped as gods?" In order to visit the rooms and halls of
the Labyrinth, he continues, it was necessary, as the reader will
necessarily suppose, for people to take the same precaution as Ariadne
made Theseus use, when he was obliged to go and fight the Minotaur in
the labyrinth of Crete. Virgil describes it in this manner:--
And in the Cretan labyrinth of old,
With wandering ways, and many a winding fold,
Involved the weary feet without redress,
In a round error, which denied recess;
Not far from thence he graved the wondrous maze;
A thousand doors, a thousand winding ways.
Of this monument no more is now to be found than amid the ruins of Babel
Caroan and Casr Caroan. "Hereafter," says Savary, "when Europe shall
have restored to Egypt the sciences it received thence, perhaps the
sands and rubbish, which hide the subterranean part of the Labyrinth
will be removed, and precious antiquities obtained. Who can say that
the discoveries of the learned were not preserved in this asylum,
equally impenetrable to the natives and foreigners? If the dust of
Herculaneum, an inconsiderable city, has preserved so many rarities and
instructive remains of art and history, what may not be expected from
the fifteen hundred apartments in which the archives of Egypt were
deposited, since the governors assembled here to treat on the most
important affairs of religion and state[44]?"