DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4372#0072
56
granite statue* called by Pococke that of Cnuplns, to whom
(the son of Isis and Osiris) the large temple in this island is said
by Strabo to have been dedicated. We found ourselves among
heaps of ruins of diiferent dates, Egyptian, Roman, Saracen,
and Arab. These ruins were covered, as usual, with a pro-
digious quantity of broken pottery, the consumption of which
must have been immense. From the high ground to the South
we commanded a view of the stream of the Nile for about a
quarter of a league, during which it is interrupted by 20 or 30
small rocks of very fine red granite, the antient quarries of
Elephantine, which produced so many portals, columns, and
obelisks to adorn the chief cities of antiquity, and to form the
noblest mansions of the gods.
Towards the channel which separates the island from the
Eastern Continent there are remains of a very high wall, con-
structed perpendicularly above the water, to support the soil of
the island against the force of the stream. The masonry is of
the best rustic kind ; and it is hard to say, whether it be a work of
the Pharaohs, the Ptolemies, or the Cesars—it is worthy of any
one of them. A little to the North of it is a very handsome
stone stair-case, leading by a gentle ascent from the river to-
wards the temple. Sixty-six steps, of about five inches each in
height, are still more or less preserved. At the top is a mass of
unburnt brick ruins and stone walls, among which it is impos-
sible to discover any order, or trace a plan-f*. A little South
of them is a large pyramidal portal of red granite: on some of
* This statue lias not, as Pococke says, a lituus in each hand, but a crosier or
pastoral crook in the left, and a kind of flagelhini in the right.
f On the West side of the island we saw two Sarcophagi, cut in the granite rock,
on a level with the upper surface of the soil—one of them was rectangular, the other
was curved at one end.
the
granite statue* called by Pococke that of Cnuplns, to whom
(the son of Isis and Osiris) the large temple in this island is said
by Strabo to have been dedicated. We found ourselves among
heaps of ruins of diiferent dates, Egyptian, Roman, Saracen,
and Arab. These ruins were covered, as usual, with a pro-
digious quantity of broken pottery, the consumption of which
must have been immense. From the high ground to the South
we commanded a view of the stream of the Nile for about a
quarter of a league, during which it is interrupted by 20 or 30
small rocks of very fine red granite, the antient quarries of
Elephantine, which produced so many portals, columns, and
obelisks to adorn the chief cities of antiquity, and to form the
noblest mansions of the gods.
Towards the channel which separates the island from the
Eastern Continent there are remains of a very high wall, con-
structed perpendicularly above the water, to support the soil of
the island against the force of the stream. The masonry is of
the best rustic kind ; and it is hard to say, whether it be a work of
the Pharaohs, the Ptolemies, or the Cesars—it is worthy of any
one of them. A little to the North of it is a very handsome
stone stair-case, leading by a gentle ascent from the river to-
wards the temple. Sixty-six steps, of about five inches each in
height, are still more or less preserved. At the top is a mass of
unburnt brick ruins and stone walls, among which it is impos-
sible to discover any order, or trace a plan-f*. A little South
of them is a large pyramidal portal of red granite: on some of
* This statue lias not, as Pococke says, a lituus in each hand, but a crosier or
pastoral crook in the left, and a kind of flagelhini in the right.
f On the West side of the island we saw two Sarcophagi, cut in the granite rock,
on a level with the upper surface of the soil—one of them was rectangular, the other
was curved at one end.
the