DOI Artikel:
Hogarth, David G.: Egypt Exploration Fund, [4]: Report on prospects of Research in Alexandria
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.10057#0036
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Egypt Exploration Fund.
Neroutzos, and lately the same view has been presented learnedly and
exhaustively by M. Alexandre de Zogheb in an article published in tho
Rerue d'JSgypte. Primed with tin's belief, various people have de-
scended into the basement of the mosque and seen " caveaux funeraircs
pa'iens les plus magnifiques/' vaulted halls with radiating corridors, and
"granite monuments with angular tops." One enthusiast in 1850 is
said to have descried in the dark a king sitting at the end of a sub-
terranean passage with a gold crown on his head—a tale which has an
enormous family connection all over the Levant.
The attention directed recently to the mosque has incited the local
Moslems to guard jealously their holy place, and not only is excavation
now rendered impossible, but a Christian is not admitted on any pretext
I to the tomb-chamber. There is no reason why this chamber should not
cover the site of the Soma; there is equally no reason, in the present
chaotic state of our knowledge of the map of the ancient city, to conclude
that it does. The tradition passing from Soma to turbo, and thence to
mosque, is broken too seriously to count for much, and general rather
than precise locality is preserved usually by religious survival: the scant
topographical data would be satisfied as well by a site a hundred yards
distant in any direction. Finally, there is every reason to think that, if
ever found, the site would prove rifled and ruined.
Mausulea. Tho same may be predicted safely of the Mausolca of the Ptolemies,
which stood in the same ring-fence as the Soma.1 They were in no way
concealed, and were guarded less effectually by popular veneration than
the Founder's Tomb. Consequently, they were looted probably at an
early period, and no spoil from them is known to exist now. Their
site must be somewhere near or under the Kom el Dikk Mound.
Museum. The Mtiscum, according to Strabo also fiepos tcov fiaaiXeiaiv, cannot
be placed with any greater precision. The discoveries, detailed by
Neroutzos as made along the western side of the Rue Nebi Daniel,
might indicate any building, public or pi-ivate; and my own comparison
of the axis of the Boulevard de Rosette with that of the old Canopic
street makes it improbable that the line of the present Rue Nebi Daniel
represents at all exactly an ancient transverse street. For the rest,
1 Strabo, 1. o. Zenobins (Cent. iii. 91) understands the Sema and some of the
tombs of the Ptolemies to have been contained in one building. He relates a story
that Ptolemy Philopator, having driven his mother to commit suicide, was con-
strained by evil dreams to propitiate her shade by burying her with all her forebears
. and Alexander himself in a new Mausoleum, which is the, same as Zenobius (temp.
Hadrian) knew as the Sema.
Egypt Exploration Fund.
Neroutzos, and lately the same view has been presented learnedly and
exhaustively by M. Alexandre de Zogheb in an article published in tho
Rerue d'JSgypte. Primed with tin's belief, various people have de-
scended into the basement of the mosque and seen " caveaux funeraircs
pa'iens les plus magnifiques/' vaulted halls with radiating corridors, and
"granite monuments with angular tops." One enthusiast in 1850 is
said to have descried in the dark a king sitting at the end of a sub-
terranean passage with a gold crown on his head—a tale which has an
enormous family connection all over the Levant.
The attention directed recently to the mosque has incited the local
Moslems to guard jealously their holy place, and not only is excavation
now rendered impossible, but a Christian is not admitted on any pretext
I to the tomb-chamber. There is no reason why this chamber should not
cover the site of the Soma; there is equally no reason, in the present
chaotic state of our knowledge of the map of the ancient city, to conclude
that it does. The tradition passing from Soma to turbo, and thence to
mosque, is broken too seriously to count for much, and general rather
than precise locality is preserved usually by religious survival: the scant
topographical data would be satisfied as well by a site a hundred yards
distant in any direction. Finally, there is every reason to think that, if
ever found, the site would prove rifled and ruined.
Mausulea. Tho same may be predicted safely of the Mausolca of the Ptolemies,
which stood in the same ring-fence as the Soma.1 They were in no way
concealed, and were guarded less effectually by popular veneration than
the Founder's Tomb. Consequently, they were looted probably at an
early period, and no spoil from them is known to exist now. Their
site must be somewhere near or under the Kom el Dikk Mound.
Museum. The Mtiscum, according to Strabo also fiepos tcov fiaaiXeiaiv, cannot
be placed with any greater precision. The discoveries, detailed by
Neroutzos as made along the western side of the Rue Nebi Daniel,
might indicate any building, public or pi-ivate; and my own comparison
of the axis of the Boulevard de Rosette with that of the old Canopic
street makes it improbable that the line of the present Rue Nebi Daniel
represents at all exactly an ancient transverse street. For the rest,
1 Strabo, 1. o. Zenobins (Cent. iii. 91) understands the Sema and some of the
tombs of the Ptolemies to have been contained in one building. He relates a story
that Ptolemy Philopator, having driven his mother to commit suicide, was con-
strained by evil dreams to propitiate her shade by burying her with all her forebears
. and Alexander himself in a new Mausoleum, which is the, same as Zenobius (temp.
Hadrian) knew as the Sema.