The American Journal of Archaeology and of the History of the Fine Arts (Volume 1) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1885. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... AFRICA. EGYPT. M. Maspero's excavations at Luxor were briefly described on p. 221, but besides this most important work other excavations were carried on. At Thebes some parts of the city belonging to the xi and xn dynasties have been examined and their method of construction determined: the ruins of five or six chapels--one built by Shabenac, daughter of Psammeticus I.--have been found. More important excavations have been made at Medinet-Abou, where the plan of the Coptic city might easily be reconstituted: under it parts of the Roman and Egyptian cities remain. Researches on the site of the ancient Comonbos show that the city was built, under the Ptolemies, on the ruins of a pharaonic city which remains almost entirely under the ground. Fortifications.--Beside the great fortress of Abydos which, after the fifth dynasty, was overrun by a cemetery, and which has alone been studied up to the present time, M. Maspero has examined two other specimens of early military architecture. Their plan is nearly uniform; they are square enclosures with a large gateway and several posterns; the gateway is formed of wide apertures opening into successive courts.--Acad. d. Inscriptions, July 24, in Le Temps, July 26. At El-Khozam, near Thebes, a funerary stele of the xi dynasty was found: at Sidt, the cavern of a mediaeval Arab alchemist which contained over two hundred early vases in stone and bronze, many of rare archaic types. They must have been collected from the early rock-cut tombs in the neighborhood. Near Edfoo a number of Ptolemaic tombs have been discovered, tunnelled in a friable limestone crag. Only one is intact: a shaft six feet square and twelve feet deep terminates in a small chamber with a stone bench along one side. This chamber opens into a large hall, the ...