DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6551#0171
RETURN FROM UPPER EGYPT.
135
without very extensive excavations, to determine what
was the former surface of the country, but it is evident
that the part next the water had been cultivated, and that
the antient town, we came to visit, had been placed to
great advantage; and that before the plains and moun-
tains, between it and the lake had been overwhelmed
with the vast body of sand, that it commanded a magni-
ficent prospect of the lake, from which it is not three
miles distant, and of the fertile province on the eastern
shore.
The ruins, (said by Mr. Wilkinson to be those of
Dimay, or Nerba,) are situated on an eminence, and
are approached from the eastward by a causeway, com-
posed of black stone, which may be traced to some dis-
tance amidst brick foundations, mounds of broken pottery,
fragments of talc, and of squared stones, as may be also
the walls of the town, built of unburnt bricks, which in
many places are nearly white. Layers of reeds had been
inserted between the courses; and to the right hand of
the entrance, and about two feet above the ground, a re-
markable cavity, one foot in height, and in width, and
nine feet in length, had been worked from the outside
into the wall, and contained three pieces of flat, and as
many of round wood, placed across the bottom, at equal
distances. I could not discover a cartouche, or any in-
scriptions upon the bricks. I fancied with the assistance
of a glass that I could discover stone quarries, and the
remains of a necropolis in some cliffs about two miles to
the westward. There were likewise square masses of
ruins on a mountain between the town, and the lake.
I had intended, in my return to Medinet, to have
examined the obelisk at Biggig; but after a long detour,
135
without very extensive excavations, to determine what
was the former surface of the country, but it is evident
that the part next the water had been cultivated, and that
the antient town, we came to visit, had been placed to
great advantage; and that before the plains and moun-
tains, between it and the lake had been overwhelmed
with the vast body of sand, that it commanded a magni-
ficent prospect of the lake, from which it is not three
miles distant, and of the fertile province on the eastern
shore.
The ruins, (said by Mr. Wilkinson to be those of
Dimay, or Nerba,) are situated on an eminence, and
are approached from the eastward by a causeway, com-
posed of black stone, which may be traced to some dis-
tance amidst brick foundations, mounds of broken pottery,
fragments of talc, and of squared stones, as may be also
the walls of the town, built of unburnt bricks, which in
many places are nearly white. Layers of reeds had been
inserted between the courses; and to the right hand of
the entrance, and about two feet above the ground, a re-
markable cavity, one foot in height, and in width, and
nine feet in length, had been worked from the outside
into the wall, and contained three pieces of flat, and as
many of round wood, placed across the bottom, at equal
distances. I could not discover a cartouche, or any in-
scriptions upon the bricks. I fancied with the assistance
of a glass that I could discover stone quarries, and the
remains of a necropolis in some cliffs about two miles to
the westward. There were likewise square masses of
ruins on a mountain between the town, and the lake.
I had intended, in my return to Medinet, to have
examined the obelisk at Biggig; but after a long detour,