DOI Artikel:
Griffith, Francis Ll.: Progress of Egyptology: archaeology, hieroglyphic studies, etc.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12424#0040
26
Progress of Egyptology.
having fallen over and been more attacked by the white ants, is but a
poor thing. The lady sits in her palanquin; sundry girls must have stood
before her, but what they were doing is not obvious.
" The coffins were covered with inscriptions, largely of pyramid texts, and
these will be examined by M. Lacau.
" Another point of interest in these burials is that the bodies were
certainly mummified; there has been till now a great lack of securely-
dated mummies before the New Empire.
" (b) The clearing of the site of the pyramid temple, a long and expensive
task, was continued. A few scraps of sculpture reproducing the motives
found by Borchardt in the Userenre temple, were all that the first
building gave us, but in the S.E. we came on a new pyramid, though a
very small one, it is true, circa 16 metres square. This was cleared except
for a part of the S. side, and the chamber was entered. It had been
entered at least once before, for it contained nothing but a lot of Old
Kingdom potsherds and one Eoman lamp: the first robbers had broken
through the massive roofing slabs; then they, or a second band, had
removed the long plugs from the entrance passage.
" There were no texts in chamber or passage, and the only hint as to the
name of the owner was given by the fact that twice, on a little plaque of
gilt wood and on a tablet that seemed to come from a foundation deposit,
the name of Neferkara occurred.
" The pavement of the court of this pyramid was nearly intact, and sunk
in it were four basins, three of quartzite, one of alabaster.
" The pyramid had, before the New Empire, been quarried till but four
to five courses of stone remained. In the XXth Dynasty it had become
forgotten, and a chapel or chapels were built over it, and several large
stone-lined shafts were sunk through the rubbish filling the court,
breaking through the pavement and opening below into chambers in
which numerous gaily-painted anthropoid coffins were laid. These had
again, of course, been robbed, but one interesting find was made, that of a
loom.
" (c) An accident decided our digging at the third site. It is the spot
at the end of the Bedreshein road which is called ' lioman village ' on the
maps, but was recognised by Maspero in the early eighties as being the
Monastery of S. Jeremiah. It has been, for many years past, given as a
prey to the sebakhin, and many inscriptions sold in the Museum and
others still remaining there come from this site. No paintings, however,
have been reported.
" But one day our guard announced that some sebakhin, clearing sand
Progress of Egyptology.
having fallen over and been more attacked by the white ants, is but a
poor thing. The lady sits in her palanquin; sundry girls must have stood
before her, but what they were doing is not obvious.
" The coffins were covered with inscriptions, largely of pyramid texts, and
these will be examined by M. Lacau.
" Another point of interest in these burials is that the bodies were
certainly mummified; there has been till now a great lack of securely-
dated mummies before the New Empire.
" (b) The clearing of the site of the pyramid temple, a long and expensive
task, was continued. A few scraps of sculpture reproducing the motives
found by Borchardt in the Userenre temple, were all that the first
building gave us, but in the S.E. we came on a new pyramid, though a
very small one, it is true, circa 16 metres square. This was cleared except
for a part of the S. side, and the chamber was entered. It had been
entered at least once before, for it contained nothing but a lot of Old
Kingdom potsherds and one Eoman lamp: the first robbers had broken
through the massive roofing slabs; then they, or a second band, had
removed the long plugs from the entrance passage.
" There were no texts in chamber or passage, and the only hint as to the
name of the owner was given by the fact that twice, on a little plaque of
gilt wood and on a tablet that seemed to come from a foundation deposit,
the name of Neferkara occurred.
" The pavement of the court of this pyramid was nearly intact, and sunk
in it were four basins, three of quartzite, one of alabaster.
" The pyramid had, before the New Empire, been quarried till but four
to five courses of stone remained. In the XXth Dynasty it had become
forgotten, and a chapel or chapels were built over it, and several large
stone-lined shafts were sunk through the rubbish filling the court,
breaking through the pavement and opening below into chambers in
which numerous gaily-painted anthropoid coffins were laid. These had
again, of course, been robbed, but one interesting find was made, that of a
loom.
" (c) An accident decided our digging at the third site. It is the spot
at the end of the Bedreshein road which is called ' lioman village ' on the
maps, but was recognised by Maspero in the early eighties as being the
Monastery of S. Jeremiah. It has been, for many years past, given as a
prey to the sebakhin, and many inscriptions sold in the Museum and
others still remaining there come from this site. No paintings, however,
have been reported.
" But one day our guard announced that some sebakhin, clearing sand