Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

The Oasis of Siwah

389

represent Amnion and the ram-headed Harschaf the Arsaphes of
the Greeks, and lastly that the texts contained speeches of those
deities addressing a god named Urtestu that is Lord of the nations.
This appellative proves that the king was not a native but must
have belonged to a foreign dynasty.' Here again more exact
results were obtained by Steindorff1. The reliefs are accompanied
by inscriptions of the fourth century B.C. On one side of the naos
stands Set-erdai's, ' chief of the foreigners, the son of the chief of
the foreigners, Retneb,' and pays homage to a row of deities with
Amen himself at their head. The chief, whose figure is much
damaged, wears the costume of an Egyptian king but, like the
light-skinned Libyans mentioned above, has an ostrich-plume in
his hair. On the other side of the naos a similar scene shows the
real Pharaoh making an offering to the gods. He wears the
crown of Lower Egypt; and the name inscribed in his cartouche
may be completed as Kknemnia-Re, the first name of Akoris or
Hakoris, a l^ing of the twenty-ninth dynasty, who reigned at
Mendes 396—383 B.C. and succeeded in freeing his realm from
the Persian yoke. Whether he actually built this temple or merely
redecorated it, can hardly be decided.

Rohlfs also discovered in the thickness of the inner long wall
on the east side a secret passage 2 ft broad leading to a great
spring on the south side of the piazza. This spring filled a deep and
roomy cutting in the rock. Looking down into it, he could see
just above the level of the water a small platform on which the
priests' passage ended. To the south of the temple he found a
great wall of colossal blocks, but was unable to trace it far. Out-
side Agermi on the south-west are other remains of walls, perhaps
those of an outer precinct. The net result of these discoveries
was fully to confirm the accuracy of the description cited above
from Diodoros2.

About a furlong to the south of Agermi Rohlfs detected the
ruins of a Greek temple lying east and west. Its outline could be
made out by means of blocks projecting from the soil; but of the
upper part of the structure nothing was to be seen beyond the
shafts of two fluted columns. The debris formed a mound 18 paces
long by 14 broad.

Some twelve kilometers to the east of Agermi Steindorff3 found
the remains of another building known as Qasr el-GJiashashdm.

1 G. Steindorff Durch die Libysche Wiiste zur Amonsoase pp. 60, 118 with figs. 67, 68
(here reproduced as fig. 294).

2 Supra p. 369.

3 G. Steindorff Durch die Libysche Wiiste zur Amonsoase p. 125 f. with fig. 78.