DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5538#0027
THE EXPLORER IX EGYPT. 7
five or six thousand years ago built his house of mud bricks
mixed with a little chopped straw, and dried in the sun. The
houses of the rich—built of the same material—were plas-
tered and stuccoed, the walls and ceilings being decorated
with elaborate polychrome designs, and the exterior relieved
by light wooden colonnades and balconies. The huts of the
poor were much the same as they are now—mere beehives
of brown clay, which crumble slowly away in dry weather,
and melt if it rains. Easily built and easily replaced, they
were constantly falling out of repair, being levelled to the
ground, trodden down, and rebuilt. Thus, each new house
rose upon the ruins of the old one ; and every time the proc-
ess was repeated, a higher elevation was obtained for the
foundation. In a country subject to annual inundation this
in itself was an important advantage; and so, in the course of
ages, what was probably a mere rising ground when first the
town was founded, became a lofty hill, visible for miles across
the plain.
Rightly to understand what I will venture to call the geo-
logical strata of an Egyptian mound, it is, however, necessary
to have some idea of the processes of its growth and decay.
These processes were everywhere the same ; and if I attempt
to sketch the history of a typical site, it must at the same
time be remembered that my description represents no one
mound in particular, but that it applies, in a general sense,
to all.
We will suppose our typical mound to be situate in the
Delta—possibly in the old Land of Goshen—and we will in
imagination go back to that distant time when as yet the
site was a mere barren sand-hill rising some twenty feet
above the level of the soil. These sand-hillocks are the
last visible vestiges of the old ocean-bed which underlies the
whole of the Delta, beginning at Ivalyiib, about ten miles
below Cairo, and widening out like a gigantic fan to Alex-
andria on the western coast, to Damietta on the east. Xow,
the entire Delta is one vast deposit of mud annually brought
down by the inundation of the Nile, and in the course of
five or six thousand years ago built his house of mud bricks
mixed with a little chopped straw, and dried in the sun. The
houses of the rich—built of the same material—were plas-
tered and stuccoed, the walls and ceilings being decorated
with elaborate polychrome designs, and the exterior relieved
by light wooden colonnades and balconies. The huts of the
poor were much the same as they are now—mere beehives
of brown clay, which crumble slowly away in dry weather,
and melt if it rains. Easily built and easily replaced, they
were constantly falling out of repair, being levelled to the
ground, trodden down, and rebuilt. Thus, each new house
rose upon the ruins of the old one ; and every time the proc-
ess was repeated, a higher elevation was obtained for the
foundation. In a country subject to annual inundation this
in itself was an important advantage; and so, in the course of
ages, what was probably a mere rising ground when first the
town was founded, became a lofty hill, visible for miles across
the plain.
Rightly to understand what I will venture to call the geo-
logical strata of an Egyptian mound, it is, however, necessary
to have some idea of the processes of its growth and decay.
These processes were everywhere the same ; and if I attempt
to sketch the history of a typical site, it must at the same
time be remembered that my description represents no one
mound in particular, but that it applies, in a general sense,
to all.
We will suppose our typical mound to be situate in the
Delta—possibly in the old Land of Goshen—and we will in
imagination go back to that distant time when as yet the
site was a mere barren sand-hill rising some twenty feet
above the level of the soil. These sand-hillocks are the
last visible vestiges of the old ocean-bed which underlies the
whole of the Delta, beginning at Ivalyiib, about ten miles
below Cairo, and widening out like a gigantic fan to Alex-
andria on the western coast, to Damietta on the east. Xow,
the entire Delta is one vast deposit of mud annually brought
down by the inundation of the Nile, and in the course of