DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4665#0011
CHAPTER I.—INTRODUCTORY.
THE SITE OF EXCAVATION AND THE DATING OF THE DEPOSITS.
The town Arabah, from which this volume
and char- takes its name, is the modern representa-
acterofsite tive of that ancient Abydos, which, from
the first dynasty down to the close of the
monarchic history of the country, remained one of
the chief centres of religious and funereal rites in
Upper Egypt. Of the former town little remains :
its site is possibly marked by a portion of the modern
one, where it abuts upon the desert near to the
Temple of Sety, a district which bears the significant
appellation of madfuna, or " buried." Yet there is no
indication that the town itself ever attained to a
degree of size or importance: as usual, it was due to
no special feature of its social life, to no excellence of
its domestic arts, that the name of Ab-du became
famous. It was rather because of religious traditions
the origin of which dated back to the remote begin-
nings of the country. It was there, near to his
reputed burial-place, that stood the chief shrine to
Osiris, the greatest of the old gods. In the outlying
desert, too, lay buried Egypt's earliest kings, whose
names with lapse of time became enshrouded with a
sanctity almost divine. From these causes, then,
more than any other, in after years there arose the
custom, which long persisted, that chief men in the
country should be buried if possible in a spot so
sacred, or at least make their tribute of offer-
ings there at the shrine of the god of the dead.
Hence the necropolis of Abydos became one of
the most vast as well as the most important in the
country.
To the excavator it is also one of the most fertile.
Probably it can be claimed for no other site that not
one dynasty, from the first to the last, is unrepre-
sented in its tombs. Nor does this indicate merely
an unparalleled local continuity. There may here
lie in neighbouring graves a priest of one of the
temples, a foreigner with Semitic name and Syrian-
looking tomb furniture, and a general who fought
his king's battles abroad. The deposits of this site,
could an adequate series be brought together, would
yield not merely a complete illustration of the
changes, through four thousand years, in the local
artistic forms, but would provide also examples of
the types prevailing elsewhere throughout Egypt
contemporaneously at several different epochs.
This continuity in the expansion of the
Situation and \- • c i • • , L ■ • r
character of necropolis is ol peculiar interest, in view of
site—Par- jts general bearing on the problem now in
hand, the dating of these remains. To
realize this it is well to keep in view the general plan
of the surroundings and the disposition of the tombs.
At the north-western corner of the town, where it
gives way to the waste sands, is the four-walled
enclosure that marks the site of the oldest temples, of
which little remains. About a mile to the south, in a
similar situation, are the better known temples of the
kings of the XlXth dynasty. It is in the desert to
the west of this tract, which lies between the old
temples and the new, that the tombs chiefly abound.
Haifa mile directly west from the early temple site,
alone in the desert, stands the old-kingdom fortress
known as the Shunet-ez-Zebib. Two or three miles
beyond, the limestone cliff which marks the edge of
the Libyan plateau here bends around in the form of
a bay several miles across, forming the boundary of
the lower desert and the complete horizon of the west.
A broad and slowly ascending valley, passing to the
south of the fortress, leads towards the centre of
this bay.
B
THE SITE OF EXCAVATION AND THE DATING OF THE DEPOSITS.
The town Arabah, from which this volume
and char- takes its name, is the modern representa-
acterofsite tive of that ancient Abydos, which, from
the first dynasty down to the close of the
monarchic history of the country, remained one of
the chief centres of religious and funereal rites in
Upper Egypt. Of the former town little remains :
its site is possibly marked by a portion of the modern
one, where it abuts upon the desert near to the
Temple of Sety, a district which bears the significant
appellation of madfuna, or " buried." Yet there is no
indication that the town itself ever attained to a
degree of size or importance: as usual, it was due to
no special feature of its social life, to no excellence of
its domestic arts, that the name of Ab-du became
famous. It was rather because of religious traditions
the origin of which dated back to the remote begin-
nings of the country. It was there, near to his
reputed burial-place, that stood the chief shrine to
Osiris, the greatest of the old gods. In the outlying
desert, too, lay buried Egypt's earliest kings, whose
names with lapse of time became enshrouded with a
sanctity almost divine. From these causes, then,
more than any other, in after years there arose the
custom, which long persisted, that chief men in the
country should be buried if possible in a spot so
sacred, or at least make their tribute of offer-
ings there at the shrine of the god of the dead.
Hence the necropolis of Abydos became one of
the most vast as well as the most important in the
country.
To the excavator it is also one of the most fertile.
Probably it can be claimed for no other site that not
one dynasty, from the first to the last, is unrepre-
sented in its tombs. Nor does this indicate merely
an unparalleled local continuity. There may here
lie in neighbouring graves a priest of one of the
temples, a foreigner with Semitic name and Syrian-
looking tomb furniture, and a general who fought
his king's battles abroad. The deposits of this site,
could an adequate series be brought together, would
yield not merely a complete illustration of the
changes, through four thousand years, in the local
artistic forms, but would provide also examples of
the types prevailing elsewhere throughout Egypt
contemporaneously at several different epochs.
This continuity in the expansion of the
Situation and \- • c i • • , L ■ • r
character of necropolis is ol peculiar interest, in view of
site—Par- jts general bearing on the problem now in
hand, the dating of these remains. To
realize this it is well to keep in view the general plan
of the surroundings and the disposition of the tombs.
At the north-western corner of the town, where it
gives way to the waste sands, is the four-walled
enclosure that marks the site of the oldest temples, of
which little remains. About a mile to the south, in a
similar situation, are the better known temples of the
kings of the XlXth dynasty. It is in the desert to
the west of this tract, which lies between the old
temples and the new, that the tombs chiefly abound.
Haifa mile directly west from the early temple site,
alone in the desert, stands the old-kingdom fortress
known as the Shunet-ez-Zebib. Two or three miles
beyond, the limestone cliff which marks the edge of
the Libyan plateau here bends around in the form of
a bay several miles across, forming the boundary of
the lower desert and the complete horizon of the west.
A broad and slowly ascending valley, passing to the
south of the fortress, leads towards the centre of
this bay.
B