DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6551#0073
44 OPERATIONS CARRIED ON AT GIZEH.
Each of them stands in an hollow; from which it would
seem that the sand and stones, used for their construction,
had been taken. They have precisely the appearance of
the tumuli in northern countries, and of having been
raised as monuments after some great battle; for which
the plain, it may be added, would have afforded a proper
arena. The adjacent ground is strewed with a quantity of
broken pottery. These remarkable mounds are inserted
in Colonel Leake's Map, and have been supposed by some
people to be volcanic ; at all events, from the regularity of
their positions, they can scarcely have been occasioned by
the wind. I opened one of them across the centre to
the foundation, and found it to be composed of sand
and stones, without any indication of an artificial
construction.
Ferradj is situated on a high rock, and must have
been a considerable place. It contains walls of unburnt
bricks, and the ruins of towers, and of a fort, which
seems to have been Roman, or of the lower ages. Vast
quantities of pottery, of burnt and unburnt bricks, and
a few fragments of small granite columns, are scattered
about; likewise part of an Egyptian cornice, with the
protecting bird, &c, but of indifferent workmanship. A
party of men were employed in taking away the materials
for other buildings. There is a Turkish burial-ground
below the mountains. The road passes through this
place to Korosko, Dongola, &c. An antient excavation
in the cliff, supported by four columns, is said, by
Mr. Wilkinson, to be of the time of Amenoph the Third;
it contains a remarkable hollow and several groovings,
the object of which it is difficult to understand. This
Each of them stands in an hollow; from which it would
seem that the sand and stones, used for their construction,
had been taken. They have precisely the appearance of
the tumuli in northern countries, and of having been
raised as monuments after some great battle; for which
the plain, it may be added, would have afforded a proper
arena. The adjacent ground is strewed with a quantity of
broken pottery. These remarkable mounds are inserted
in Colonel Leake's Map, and have been supposed by some
people to be volcanic ; at all events, from the regularity of
their positions, they can scarcely have been occasioned by
the wind. I opened one of them across the centre to
the foundation, and found it to be composed of sand
and stones, without any indication of an artificial
construction.
Ferradj is situated on a high rock, and must have
been a considerable place. It contains walls of unburnt
bricks, and the ruins of towers, and of a fort, which
seems to have been Roman, or of the lower ages. Vast
quantities of pottery, of burnt and unburnt bricks, and
a few fragments of small granite columns, are scattered
about; likewise part of an Egyptian cornice, with the
protecting bird, &c, but of indifferent workmanship. A
party of men were employed in taking away the materials
for other buildings. There is a Turkish burial-ground
below the mountains. The road passes through this
place to Korosko, Dongola, &c. An antient excavation
in the cliff, supported by four columns, is said, by
Mr. Wilkinson, to be of the time of Amenoph the Third;
it contains a remarkable hollow and several groovings,
the object of which it is difficult to understand. This