Naville, Edouard: Bubastis: (1887 - 1889) (London, 1891)

56

Horns. The name of the priestess, which alone
has been preserved, is SonUuui.

I assign also to the Saitic epoch a fragment
of a statue in black granite; part of the
inscription of the sides and of the back has
been preserved. The monument was dedicated
to Bast of Bubastis. The fragments of lines of
the lateral inscription are not destitute of
interest; they speak of the child of Tep, with its
pleasant face, ivho is in the garden of Bast

(pi. xliii. c).

I saw also in the shop of a dealer at Z
a small fragment of green basalt, of the same
date. The deceased, as usual, addresses the
priests who pass by going into the temple,

entering the sanctuary of the lady of Bast.

Following the chronological order, we come
to a small statue in limestone, the middle part
of which only has been preserved (pi. xliii. b).
It is a dedication of the king Hakoris, of the
twenty-ninth dynasty, to the goddess Bast of
Bubastis. It is the first time that a monument
of this king has been found in the Delta. The
fragment is now in the British Museum.

THE THIRTIETH DYNASTY.

I noticed in another work6 the considerable
number of constructions which have been raised
in the Delta by the thirtieth dynasty, and
especially by the first king, Nekhthorheb.
Bubastis is one of the localities where he dis-
played the greatest activity ; for he added to
the temple a hall which he intended to be the
largest. It prolonged the temple on the west,
and was 160 feet square. All around the walls,
on the top, ran a cornice adorned with large
projecting asps ; a fragment of it was visible at
the end of last century, and has been repro-

5 Goshen, p. 3.

BUBASTIS.

duced in the work of the French Expedition ;
we discovered a few more.

The hall of jSTekhthorheb, like the others, is
only a heap of blocks; the granite alone has
been left. A great part of the building was
made of red limestone from Gebel Ahmar, chips
of which cover the ground, so that, more than
any other spot in the temple, this hall has the
appearance of a quarry. I think the hall never
was finished ; the walls were to be covered with
sculptures, a part of which only has been
executed. Nekhthorheb frequently employed
in his structure materials taken from the older
halls. Thanks to his unscrupulousness, we have
preserved the block of Amenemha I., and that of
Amenophis II., which was used as a door lintel,
so that the inscription remained unhurt. Agreat
many inscriptions have been completely erased,
and it is impossible to assign a date to them.

Nekhthorheb followed the traditions of the
Bubastites; he dedicated his structure to Bast,
and even, in order to show better how devoted
he was to the goddess, he changed his cartouche,
and instead of calling himself the son of Isis, as
he does elsewhere, he styles himself the son of
Bast. When he made the great constructions
of Bubastis, he had already erected the temple
of Eeb; his cartouche contained already the
name of that city; however, we discovered a
fragment of a statue dedicated at the begdnnino-
of his reign, when he had not yet built the
temple of Isis. He is called there
(pi. xliii. e) Nehhthomeb, or Hornebnekht, j
as on the large cartouches of Sanaa
nood.6

Nekhthorheb was not satisfied with buildino-
the great hall, he put in it a shrine of polished
red granite ; the workmanship is so perfect that
it must rank among the finest remains of
Egyptian art. The sculptures are not very
deep, but engraved with the most minute
details (pi. xlvii. and xlviii.). Most of the frag-

See The Mound of the Jew, pi. vi. 2, p. 25.