Benson, Margaret; Gourlay, Janet: The temple of Mut in Asher: an account of the excavation of the temple and of the religious representations and objects found therein, as illustrating the history of Egypt and the main religious ideas of the Egyptians (London, 1899)

CHAP. V.]

TRENCHING AND CLEARING.

73

inscription should be found also. But though we
searched that part of the court where they might be,
digging deep below pavement level, we found no
more, and could only conclude that they had
been broken in the general destruction of walls and
roofing.

In the outer court also we dug a couple of deep
diagonal trenches, working till we came to virgin
soil, in the hope of coming across some trace of the
ardently desired earlier temple. Nothing was forth
coming however except two or three more pieces
of the ubiquitous lion-headed statues, one of which
curiously enough had fallen quite four feet below
pavement level, and part of a rough sandstone
figure of a man holding a little shrine in front of
him. The constant presence of figures of this kind
is interesting, as it showed how greatly the temple
of Mut was used as a depository for such monu-
ments.

It only remained now to clear the smaller cham-
bers from the debris with which they were choked
and which quite concealed their number and the
walls which divided them. This was very slow
work, for the rubbish consisted of broken stones,
laro-e and small, which had once been walls and
roofing, and which were now more or less buried
in sand and gravelly soil. Many of the stones were
so large that it required three or four men to deal
with them.

From the second or cloistered court a couple of