DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6551#0161
RETURN FROM UPPER EGYPT.
125
SAA/VV
VSAAA/
then favoured me with the same benediction, no doubt in
full expectation of receiving a backshish. With such in-
structors, can the savage state of the population be any
longer a subject of surprise ? I was informed that the
priests received no regular pay, but that their privileges
consisted in being exempt from conscription, and in being
provided with a house, fuel, and a servant.
I found at Kom Achmar mounds of rubbish, and
foundations composed of burnt, and of unburnt bricks,
amongst which the walls of the town could be made
out, and a gateway, or entrance
opposite to a ravine in a chain
of hills, where there had been
quarries. The place must have
been of importance, but the mate-
rials had been taken away to
Benisouef. I examined a subter-
raneous passage of considerable
length, but did not find any thing
worthy of notice. Several of the
unburnt bricks had been stamped
with hieroglyphics, some of them
in double columns; but the cha-
racters were so much effaced, and
the surface of the bricks so rough,
that I could but imperfectly make
out those in the margin.4
O
4 The hieroglyphics given in the first section are exceedingly dif-
ficult to recognise, and it is still more so to offer any connected inter-
pretation of their meaning. The line on the left seems to coincide with
the line on the right hand side of the second, of which, although rather
125
SAA/VV
VSAAA/
then favoured me with the same benediction, no doubt in
full expectation of receiving a backshish. With such in-
structors, can the savage state of the population be any
longer a subject of surprise ? I was informed that the
priests received no regular pay, but that their privileges
consisted in being exempt from conscription, and in being
provided with a house, fuel, and a servant.
I found at Kom Achmar mounds of rubbish, and
foundations composed of burnt, and of unburnt bricks,
amongst which the walls of the town could be made
out, and a gateway, or entrance
opposite to a ravine in a chain
of hills, where there had been
quarries. The place must have
been of importance, but the mate-
rials had been taken away to
Benisouef. I examined a subter-
raneous passage of considerable
length, but did not find any thing
worthy of notice. Several of the
unburnt bricks had been stamped
with hieroglyphics, some of them
in double columns; but the cha-
racters were so much effaced, and
the surface of the bricks so rough,
that I could but imperfectly make
out those in the margin.4
O
4 The hieroglyphics given in the first section are exceedingly dif-
ficult to recognise, and it is still more so to offer any connected inter-
pretation of their meaning. The line on the left seems to coincide with
the line on the right hand side of the second, of which, although rather