DOI Artikel:
Hogarth, David G.; Grenfell, Bernard P.: Egypt Exploration Fund, [8]: Cities of the Faiyûm, Kanaris and Bacchias
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.10056#0027
Cities of the Faiyum:.
15
was a very fair field in the Faiyum, and that more valuable results might
still be obtained there at possibly less cost than anywhere else in Egypt.
To this effect the Fund Committee was advised in the summer of 1 895,
and we obtained in the autumn a concession of a long stretch of the
northern desert, which contained, among other sites, two large mounds
situated on the highway from Nitria and Memphis, and known to the
natives as Kum UsMm and Kum el Kail {'• Mound of Murder").
The first mound, we knew, had been sorely plundered, but was very
large and reputed a rich source of papyri. Parts of a temple with
inscribed gates had been uncovered by the fellaMn; and, one thing
taken with another, the mound was most likely to prove to bo Karanis,
a town mentioned more often in Faiyum papyri than any other beside
Arsinoe and Socnopaei Nesus. The second mound lay farther back in
the desert, and owed to its position a greater immunity from plunderers.
It was obvious that the difficulty of getting water and labour there
would be great, but that some return was certain. What town this last
mound might prove to represent we had no idea. Having weighed the
claims of the two sites, we elected to explore both, and to take Kum
Ushim first, as the easiest and the least costly.
Work was begun at Kum Ushim on Christmas Eve, and continued for
twelve days ; then it was intermitted to allow7 of Kum el Katl being
undertaken in good time, and it was resumed for a short week at the end
of February. We explored the temple thoroughly, and tested sufficiently
the houses of the town and the cemeteries to the north of the mound.
The temple, a stone edifice of the same type as the well-known shrine
which was believed in the last century to bo the Labyrinth, and stands
almost perfect at this day at Kasr Kerun in the southern Faiyum waste,
proved, together with its outer courts, to be blocked with its own debris
and with a superimposed mass of rubbish, resulting from Bedawin occupa-
tion. In the outer courts we found four stone lions, one inscribed, and
a criosphinx. In a hidden cavity in the shrine itself were discovered a
few objects, e.g. a mutilated gilded statuette and a beautiful blue glaze
ornament : but the main reward of our excavation of this group of
buildings was its plan. As no detailed memoir is to appear until next
year, we subjoin here in cursive the inscriptions read by us on the gates
and on the base of one of the lions, from which it will be seen that, built
originally in Ptolemaic times, the group of buildings was added to and
restored in the reigns of various Emperors of the first and second
centuries a.d. The local gods, to whom the temple was dedicated, were
Petesuchus and Pnepheros, of whom the first is mentioned in a Faiyum
papyrus at Berlin, while the second is not otherwise known.
15
was a very fair field in the Faiyum, and that more valuable results might
still be obtained there at possibly less cost than anywhere else in Egypt.
To this effect the Fund Committee was advised in the summer of 1 895,
and we obtained in the autumn a concession of a long stretch of the
northern desert, which contained, among other sites, two large mounds
situated on the highway from Nitria and Memphis, and known to the
natives as Kum UsMm and Kum el Kail {'• Mound of Murder").
The first mound, we knew, had been sorely plundered, but was very
large and reputed a rich source of papyri. Parts of a temple with
inscribed gates had been uncovered by the fellaMn; and, one thing
taken with another, the mound was most likely to prove to bo Karanis,
a town mentioned more often in Faiyum papyri than any other beside
Arsinoe and Socnopaei Nesus. The second mound lay farther back in
the desert, and owed to its position a greater immunity from plunderers.
It was obvious that the difficulty of getting water and labour there
would be great, but that some return was certain. What town this last
mound might prove to represent we had no idea. Having weighed the
claims of the two sites, we elected to explore both, and to take Kum
Ushim first, as the easiest and the least costly.
Work was begun at Kum Ushim on Christmas Eve, and continued for
twelve days ; then it was intermitted to allow7 of Kum el Katl being
undertaken in good time, and it was resumed for a short week at the end
of February. We explored the temple thoroughly, and tested sufficiently
the houses of the town and the cemeteries to the north of the mound.
The temple, a stone edifice of the same type as the well-known shrine
which was believed in the last century to bo the Labyrinth, and stands
almost perfect at this day at Kasr Kerun in the southern Faiyum waste,
proved, together with its outer courts, to be blocked with its own debris
and with a superimposed mass of rubbish, resulting from Bedawin occupa-
tion. In the outer courts we found four stone lions, one inscribed, and
a criosphinx. In a hidden cavity in the shrine itself were discovered a
few objects, e.g. a mutilated gilded statuette and a beautiful blue glaze
ornament : but the main reward of our excavation of this group of
buildings was its plan. As no detailed memoir is to appear until next
year, we subjoin here in cursive the inscriptions read by us on the gates
and on the base of one of the lions, from which it will be seen that, built
originally in Ptolemaic times, the group of buildings was added to and
restored in the reigns of various Emperors of the first and second
centuries a.d. The local gods, to whom the temple was dedicated, were
Petesuchus and Pnepheros, of whom the first is mentioned in a Faiyum
papyrus at Berlin, while the second is not otherwise known.