DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6640#0009
PBEFAC E
The present volume contains the description of all that has been discovered
in the excavations at Bubastis, with one exception. I did not include in it the
numerous inscriptions referring to the great festival of Osorkon II., which will
be the subject of a supplementary volume. By the great number of plates which
it will require, the description of this festival would have been quite out of
keeping with the rest of the book ; and it would differ also in character from
this memoir, which bears chiefly on the historical results of the excavations.
When I settled in 1887, with Mr. Griffith, on the well-known mounds of
Tell Basta, where the dealers in antiquities have been working for years—the
extent of which has been much reduced by the fellaheen digging for " sebakh,"
or by the construction of the railway, and which Marietta had pronounced so
little encouraging for scientific explorers—I was far from expecting such a large
crop of monuments belonging to various epochs of Egyptian history, during a
period of 4000 years.
In 1887, a month's work brought to light the second hall of the temple,
the " Festival Hall," where we found, among numerous inscriptions of Barneses
II. and Osorkon II., remains of the twelfth dynasty, and cartouches of Pepi,
showing that the city went as far back as the sixth dynasty.
In 1888 the Rev. "W. MacGrcgor and Count d'Hulst joined the work.
This campaign has been the most productive. Its riches may be appreciated by
what is seen in Ghizeh, in the British Museum, at Boston, and in several other
museums of Europe, America, and even Australia. During that winter the
Hyksos remains were found, as well as the statue of Ian-Ila, both showing that
Bubastis had been an important Hyksos settlement. Therefore it was not a
purely Egyptian city of high antiquity, reconstructed by Barneses and Osorkon,
as might have been concluded from the first excavations. The strangers had
a 2
The present volume contains the description of all that has been discovered
in the excavations at Bubastis, with one exception. I did not include in it the
numerous inscriptions referring to the great festival of Osorkon II., which will
be the subject of a supplementary volume. By the great number of plates which
it will require, the description of this festival would have been quite out of
keeping with the rest of the book ; and it would differ also in character from
this memoir, which bears chiefly on the historical results of the excavations.
When I settled in 1887, with Mr. Griffith, on the well-known mounds of
Tell Basta, where the dealers in antiquities have been working for years—the
extent of which has been much reduced by the fellaheen digging for " sebakh,"
or by the construction of the railway, and which Marietta had pronounced so
little encouraging for scientific explorers—I was far from expecting such a large
crop of monuments belonging to various epochs of Egyptian history, during a
period of 4000 years.
In 1887, a month's work brought to light the second hall of the temple,
the " Festival Hall," where we found, among numerous inscriptions of Barneses
II. and Osorkon II., remains of the twelfth dynasty, and cartouches of Pepi,
showing that the city went as far back as the sixth dynasty.
In 1888 the Rev. "W. MacGrcgor and Count d'Hulst joined the work.
This campaign has been the most productive. Its riches may be appreciated by
what is seen in Ghizeh, in the British Museum, at Boston, and in several other
museums of Europe, America, and even Australia. During that winter the
Hyksos remains were found, as well as the statue of Ian-Ila, both showing that
Bubastis had been an important Hyksos settlement. Therefore it was not a
purely Egyptian city of high antiquity, reconstructed by Barneses and Osorkon,
as might have been concluded from the first excavations. The strangers had
a 2