Egypt Exploration Fund [Hrsg.]: Archaeological report: comprising the work of the Egypt Exploration Fund and the progress of egyptology during the year ... (1907-1908)

PROGRESS OF EGYPTOLOGY.

A.—ARCHAEOLOGY, HIEROGLYPHIC STUDIES, ETC.

Since the last Eeport was printed the most generally interesting event
connected with Egyptian discoveries has no doubt been the publication
by Sachau of the petition of the Jews in Elephantine to the governor of
Jerusalem, with its surprising revelation of Jewish religious sentiment
not many years after jSTehemiah and Ezra had introduced their political
and religious reforms.

For Egyptology, however, the most interesting results have come to us
from beyond Elephantine. The Archaeological Survey of Lower Nubia,
organised by Capt. Lyons, is being carried out with great expedition and
yet on the most severely scientific method, opening up new avenues of
information on the history of humanity. The excavations are entrusted
to Dr. llEiSNER and his well-trained body of labourers, who work with rare
intelligence and esprit de corps; Dr. Elliot Smith and his scientific staff
find in the skeletons and mummies, which are being exhumed by the
thousand, an unrivalled field for somatological research and for the
investigation of the history of diseases. Cemetery after cemetery has
been discovered and excavated or tested, and the history of the population
of the Nubian frontier and its relation to the Egyptians is thus revealed.

Hardly inferior to these in importance are the brilliant discoveries of
the German Orient-Gesellschaft in the pyramid-temple of Sahure at
Abusir: and the commencement of Prof. Petrie's exploration of the
ruins of the city of Memphis, parallel with Mr. Quibell's exploration of

b