DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4393#0323
DISCO VRRIES AT ABOU 81MBEL. 305
enabled completely to clear the landing, which was curi-
ously paved with cones of rude pottery like the bottoms of
amphora?. These cones, of which we took out some
twenty eight or thirty, were not in the least like the cele-
brated funerary cones found so abundantly at Thebes.
They bore no stamp, and were much shorter and more
lumpy in shape. Finally, the cones being all removed, we
came to a compact and solid floor of baked clay.
The painter, meanwhile, had also been at work. Hav-
ing traced the circuit and drawn out a ground-plan, he
came to the conclusion that the whole mass adjoining
the southern wall of the speos was in fact composed
pf the ruins of a pylon, the walls of which were seven feet
in thickness, built in regular string-courses of molded
brick, and finished at the angles with the usual torus, or
round molding. The superstructure, with its chambers,
passages, and top cornice, was gone; and this part with
which we were now concerned was merely the basement,
and included the bottom of the staircase.
The painter's ground-plan demolished all our hopes at
once fell swoop. The vault was a vault no longer. The
staircase led to no sepulchral chamber. The brick floor
had no secret entrance. Our mummies melted into thin
air, and we were left with no excuse for carrying on the exca-
vations. We were mortally disappointed. In vain we told
ourselves that the discovery of a large brick pylon, the ex-
istence of which had been unsuspected by preceding trav-
elers, was an event of greater importance than the finding
of a tomb. We had set our hearts on the tomb; and lam
afraid we cared less than we ought for the pylon.
Having traced thus far the course of the excavations
and the way in which one discovery led step by step to an-
other, I must now return to the speos, and, as accurately
as I can, describe it, not only from my notes made on the
spot, but by the light of such observations as I afterward
made among structures of the same stylo and period. I
must, however, premise that, not being able to go inside
while the excavators were in occupation, and remaining
but one whole day at Abou Simbel after the work was
ended, I had but a short time at my disposal, I would
gladly have made colored copies of all the wall-paintings;
but this was impossible. I therefore was obliged to be
content with transcribing the inscriptions and sketching a
lew of the more important subjects,
enabled completely to clear the landing, which was curi-
ously paved with cones of rude pottery like the bottoms of
amphora?. These cones, of which we took out some
twenty eight or thirty, were not in the least like the cele-
brated funerary cones found so abundantly at Thebes.
They bore no stamp, and were much shorter and more
lumpy in shape. Finally, the cones being all removed, we
came to a compact and solid floor of baked clay.
The painter, meanwhile, had also been at work. Hav-
ing traced the circuit and drawn out a ground-plan, he
came to the conclusion that the whole mass adjoining
the southern wall of the speos was in fact composed
pf the ruins of a pylon, the walls of which were seven feet
in thickness, built in regular string-courses of molded
brick, and finished at the angles with the usual torus, or
round molding. The superstructure, with its chambers,
passages, and top cornice, was gone; and this part with
which we were now concerned was merely the basement,
and included the bottom of the staircase.
The painter's ground-plan demolished all our hopes at
once fell swoop. The vault was a vault no longer. The
staircase led to no sepulchral chamber. The brick floor
had no secret entrance. Our mummies melted into thin
air, and we were left with no excuse for carrying on the exca-
vations. We were mortally disappointed. In vain we told
ourselves that the discovery of a large brick pylon, the ex-
istence of which had been unsuspected by preceding trav-
elers, was an event of greater importance than the finding
of a tomb. We had set our hearts on the tomb; and lam
afraid we cared less than we ought for the pylon.
Having traced thus far the course of the excavations
and the way in which one discovery led step by step to an-
other, I must now return to the speos, and, as accurately
as I can, describe it, not only from my notes made on the
spot, but by the light of such observations as I afterward
made among structures of the same stylo and period. I
must, however, premise that, not being able to go inside
while the excavators were in occupation, and remaining
but one whole day at Abou Simbel after the work was
ended, I had but a short time at my disposal, I would
gladly have made colored copies of all the wall-paintings;
but this was impossible. I therefore was obliged to be
content with transcribing the inscriptions and sketching a
lew of the more important subjects,