DOI Artikel:
Naville, Edouard: Egypt Exploration Fund, [1]: Excavations: Work of the Winter 1892
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.10054#0018
fi Egypt Exploration Fund,
only necessary to remove one brick to let me see the geographical
name which, followed that of Thoth. To take out the brick and to put
it back again would have been a few minutes' work ; but a two hours'
discussion with the people was without any result. They repeated over
and over again that they did not like to excite the discontent of the
buried sheikh, who certainly would be very wroth and revenge himself
upon them. I was obliged to go away without having seen two or
three inches of an inscription which I think would have confirmed the
name which I had found elsewhere. Such disappointments are by no
means rare with the fellaheen. Their suspicions against Egyptologists
are so strong, and their fear of the magic power which they attribute
to us has such a hold upon their minds, that it often overcomes the
keenest affection which they feel—the love of money, and makes them
insensible to what is for them the most desirable of all sights—the sight
of gold.
From Baklieh we went more west to a mound not very far from
the Damietta branch of the Nile, between the Arab village of Sahragt el
Kubra and the modern city of Mit Gliamr. In the midst of a most
picturesque country, adorned with beautiful sycamore trees, among
villages surrounded by fine gardens where the orange and peach trees
were then in blossom, we settled on a very extensive mound, called Tell
Mokdam, parts of which are still very high. The Victe. Jacques do Rouge
assigns to the old city the Greek name of Leontopolis, and this deter-
mination seems to be quite justified, as the god of the city was a lion.
It belonged to the nome of Athribis, now Benha. The site of the temple
is still visible, but the building lias been entirely destroyed and the
stones carried away. Part of it is now a corn-field, and the trenches
which I cut across the area did not give any result. The work was
carried on chiefly on the north-western corner of the mound; where the
fellaheen had found, a short time before, the base of a statue of the
Xllth dynasty. The excavations proved that here had been a small
sanctuary originally built by TJsertesen III., in which Barneses II. had
put some of his statues, and which had been usurped by Osorkon II.
Besides the base found by the fellaheen, I discovered another, a little
larger, and several fragments of Barneses II., among them the lower
part of a standing statue. The two bases of Usertesen III. are of red
limestone and very well worked. On both sides of the throne are repre-
sented the Nile gods tying the plants of Upper and Lower Egypt around
the sign sam, the sign of junction. One of these statues is particularly
interesting. It has been usurped by Osorkon II., who cut his cartouche
only necessary to remove one brick to let me see the geographical
name which, followed that of Thoth. To take out the brick and to put
it back again would have been a few minutes' work ; but a two hours'
discussion with the people was without any result. They repeated over
and over again that they did not like to excite the discontent of the
buried sheikh, who certainly would be very wroth and revenge himself
upon them. I was obliged to go away without having seen two or
three inches of an inscription which I think would have confirmed the
name which I had found elsewhere. Such disappointments are by no
means rare with the fellaheen. Their suspicions against Egyptologists
are so strong, and their fear of the magic power which they attribute
to us has such a hold upon their minds, that it often overcomes the
keenest affection which they feel—the love of money, and makes them
insensible to what is for them the most desirable of all sights—the sight
of gold.
From Baklieh we went more west to a mound not very far from
the Damietta branch of the Nile, between the Arab village of Sahragt el
Kubra and the modern city of Mit Gliamr. In the midst of a most
picturesque country, adorned with beautiful sycamore trees, among
villages surrounded by fine gardens where the orange and peach trees
were then in blossom, we settled on a very extensive mound, called Tell
Mokdam, parts of which are still very high. The Victe. Jacques do Rouge
assigns to the old city the Greek name of Leontopolis, and this deter-
mination seems to be quite justified, as the god of the city was a lion.
It belonged to the nome of Athribis, now Benha. The site of the temple
is still visible, but the building lias been entirely destroyed and the
stones carried away. Part of it is now a corn-field, and the trenches
which I cut across the area did not give any result. The work was
carried on chiefly on the north-western corner of the mound; where the
fellaheen had found, a short time before, the base of a statue of the
Xllth dynasty. The excavations proved that here had been a small
sanctuary originally built by TJsertesen III., in which Barneses II. had
put some of his statues, and which had been usurped by Osorkon II.
Besides the base found by the fellaheen, I discovered another, a little
larger, and several fragments of Barneses II., among them the lower
part of a standing statue. The two bases of Usertesen III. are of red
limestone and very well worked. On both sides of the throne are repre-
sented the Nile gods tying the plants of Upper and Lower Egypt around
the sign sam, the sign of junction. One of these statues is particularly
interesting. It has been usurped by Osorkon II., who cut his cartouche