DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4372#0380
364
an irregular square, the periphery of which is nearly three miles
in extent. They are almost unexampled in Egypt for their height
and massiveness. Among them are the walls of many houses still
entire, though built of sun-burnt bricks, like those of the Brick
Pyramid. These are very soft and crumbling when handled, and
have a large portion of a thin white straw, not cut but bruised.
Near the river are to be distinguished two smaller enclosures
within the larger one, each of which has evidently been the site
of a temple. The foundations and superstructure of these have
long since disappeared, and have left large hollows into which the
waters of the Nile flow when at their height, and where green
corn was now springing up. A single block of granite seemed
left totestify the former magnificence of Athribis: and in a mosque
at Benalhassar is the fragment of a granite statue of Jsis, the
sculpture of which is in the best Egyptian style. Part of the in-
terior, the level of which is just below the highest rise of the
water, admitting only sufficient moisture for the vegetation of
some wild rushes, was covered with a saline crystallization,
which crackled and yielded to the foot. The river has been here
banked out to a considerable height, as a defence to the city.
A part of this embankment, likewise of unburnt bricks, is still
existing. There is here a great inaccuracy in the maps of the
Delta, and Pococke seems to have mistaken the ruins in question
for those of Bubastus.
This evening we reached the entrance of the old Tanitic branch,
now called the canal of Moes, where D'Anville has incorrectly
'placed the Pelusiac branch; whereas this last diverged from the
main stream considerably higher up. Directly facing it, on the
Delta side of the river, are the remains of an antient city, proba-
bly Xois, which according to Ptolemy was between the Permu-
thiac
an irregular square, the periphery of which is nearly three miles
in extent. They are almost unexampled in Egypt for their height
and massiveness. Among them are the walls of many houses still
entire, though built of sun-burnt bricks, like those of the Brick
Pyramid. These are very soft and crumbling when handled, and
have a large portion of a thin white straw, not cut but bruised.
Near the river are to be distinguished two smaller enclosures
within the larger one, each of which has evidently been the site
of a temple. The foundations and superstructure of these have
long since disappeared, and have left large hollows into which the
waters of the Nile flow when at their height, and where green
corn was now springing up. A single block of granite seemed
left totestify the former magnificence of Athribis: and in a mosque
at Benalhassar is the fragment of a granite statue of Jsis, the
sculpture of which is in the best Egyptian style. Part of the in-
terior, the level of which is just below the highest rise of the
water, admitting only sufficient moisture for the vegetation of
some wild rushes, was covered with a saline crystallization,
which crackled and yielded to the foot. The river has been here
banked out to a considerable height, as a defence to the city.
A part of this embankment, likewise of unburnt bricks, is still
existing. There is here a great inaccuracy in the maps of the
Delta, and Pococke seems to have mistaken the ruins in question
for those of Bubastus.
This evening we reached the entrance of the old Tanitic branch,
now called the canal of Moes, where D'Anville has incorrectly
'placed the Pelusiac branch; whereas this last diverged from the
main stream considerably higher up. Directly facing it, on the
Delta side of the river, are the remains of an antient city, proba-
bly Xois, which according to Ptolemy was between the Permu-
thiac