Murray, Margaret Alice: The Osireion at Abydos (London, 1904)

36

THE OSIREION.

There was an oracle of Bes in one of the side
chambers, and those who consulted the oracle slept
one night in the temple, and the dreams that they
dreamt on that night were supposed to be the
answer of the God. The names of these anxious
inquirers are scratched thickly on the walls of the
staircase and corridor of the Bull, and the small
chamber of Osiris, but more sparsely elsewhere.

In Coptic times the temple was used as a nunnery,
and the walls are covered, in many places, with
inscriptions in the characteristic red paint of the
Copts. The greater number are in the pillared
chamber (called Z in the plan in Caulfeild's Temple
of the Kings), but, like the Greek graffiti, they are
to be found in other parts of the building. Some
had faded almost away during the time that the
temple was used as a Christian Church, and fresh
inscriptions had been painted over them. No. 16
was a palimpsest of this kind, one inscription being
in black, the other in red. The black was not so
permanent as the red, and had vanished almost
entirely. It could only be seen when the wall itself
was in shade and the sun shining fully on the wall
at right angles to it. Then by sitting as close as
possible to the wall and looking along it, the letters
were seen like shadows by the reflected light. I have
copied about half the Coptic inscriptions in the
temple and not a third of the others. Professor
Sayce copied all the Greek, Karian, and Phoenician
graffiti and published some, though not in facsimile.
Mr. Garstang (El ArabaJi) published in facsimile
some of the graffiti in the small chambers of Osiris,
Isis, and Horus. This is all that has been done for
the Greek graffiti. Of the Coptic inscriptions,
M. Bouriant is, I think, the only person who has
published any, and those were hand copies, not
facsimiles.

38. Hieratic graffiti. Graffiti in hieratic are rare
in the Temple of Sety. They are inscribed in red on
blank spaces on the walls. The first is in the chapel
ofPtah, the second in the corridor of the Bull.

Mr. Griffith's translation and notes are as follows :

i. "King of Upper and Lower Egypt........

chief prophet of Amonrasonther, son of the Sun,
Lord of Crowns, the leader Psebkhane (Psusennes)
beloved of Amonrasonther (?). The chief prophet of

Amonrasonther.......Pasebkhane, beloved of

Amon."

There is no proper end to the cartouche, and it is
rather extraordinary in itself. Perhaps one might



, considering the

cut it down to ( O tV^> & £
\______^ ~

other signs as superfluous.

2. " The king of Upper and Lower Egypt

........who hath made a monument in the

house of his maker ; he hath builded........

for his father Osiris. The scribe Pshasu, who came

with the scribe......."

39. Pl. XXII. The Phoenician graffiti are
roughly scratched on the walls, even more roughly
than the Greek. Professor Midler of Vienna has
very kindly looked at them and has given a tentative
translation of No. i. " Ich[bin] Ebdosiris ....
der Machtige aus (?) Hazta (?)."

The figures given on this plate are scratched on
the blank walls of the passage which contains the
Tablet of Abydos. These unfinished walls offer a
good field for graffiti of all kinds, and visitors to the
temple appear to have availed themselves of the
space afforded. I have given only a few specimens.
Abraxas, the Gnostic deity, appears as a Roman
soldier with a staff in his hand. The mounted
soldier is remarkable for the ingenious manner in
which the artist has made the bridle form part of
the horse's head.

40. Greek graffiti. The Greek graffiti are de-
scribed by Mr. Grafton Milne as follows:

The copies made last winter by Miss Eckenstein
are reproduced in facsimile on Pls. XXI, XXIII, and
XXIV. They form a supplement to those copied by
Mr. Garstang in igoo, which I edited in chap, vi of
his volume on El Arabah (Quaritch, igoi) : and the
remarks there given in preface may be applied here.
It may be added that only one of the present instal-
ment is included among those published by Professor
Sayce, but many appear in the plates of the Corpus
Inscriptionum Semiticarum prepared from Theodule
Deveria's note-books. A comparison of the latter
plates with the recent copies suggests that the
surface of the stones in the great staircase has
suffered an appreciable amount of damage in the
last forty years.

i. I am unable to obtain any connected sense out
of these letters. In the second line 1ik[v]coi/io<;,
in a hand of the 3rd cent. B.C., may be read.

Chapel of Amen : South wall.
2. 'Apio-Tts I d(j)LKeTo' I Ti/xap ^o?1 | Notion | L±p6/U.COV.
2nd cent. B.C.



1,'if

I ft nimroin

'iH