DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12249#0037
PRESENT ASPECT OP ITS SITE.
7
takings. Recovered relics and pictorial details from
various sepulchral sources offer a key to a large number
of the incidents of life which had concurrently per-
formed their part. But of the actual structure of the
city, of its general outline, much more of internal
details, it is possible, from the very limited amount of
attainable guidance, to speak only inferentially and in
the highest degree vaguely. In the first place, the
present aspect of the plain on which it stood is such
as to offer almost no assistance on the subject. Not
merely does it fail to present a sufficient body of
vestiges for a reconstruction satisfactory to technical
rules, but in itself it might equally defy the efforts of
any beholder scanning the scene untrammelled by
rigid procedure, and striving only to shadow forth to
his own mind something like a resuscitation to satisfy
the natural impulse which endeavours to conjure up
dead cities when gazing on their graves.
Whence this arises will be more readily understood
if, aided here by the map*, Plate I., we glance for a
moment at the principal features of the wide prospect
across and along the valley of the Thebiiis, commanded
from a lofty peak of the mountain range of the Western
Desert, immediately overhanging the Necropolis. A
rich plain of intensest green lies stretched out with
unnatural minuteness under that cloudless sky. It is
* In this map prominence is given to the chief points, and the
obscurity of overcrowding is as far as possible avoided. In the relation
of the outlines I have with his friendly approval always had reference
to Sir G-. "Wilkinson's excellent large Survey published in 1S30.
b 4
7
takings. Recovered relics and pictorial details from
various sepulchral sources offer a key to a large number
of the incidents of life which had concurrently per-
formed their part. But of the actual structure of the
city, of its general outline, much more of internal
details, it is possible, from the very limited amount of
attainable guidance, to speak only inferentially and in
the highest degree vaguely. In the first place, the
present aspect of the plain on which it stood is such
as to offer almost no assistance on the subject. Not
merely does it fail to present a sufficient body of
vestiges for a reconstruction satisfactory to technical
rules, but in itself it might equally defy the efforts of
any beholder scanning the scene untrammelled by
rigid procedure, and striving only to shadow forth to
his own mind something like a resuscitation to satisfy
the natural impulse which endeavours to conjure up
dead cities when gazing on their graves.
Whence this arises will be more readily understood
if, aided here by the map*, Plate I., we glance for a
moment at the principal features of the wide prospect
across and along the valley of the Thebiiis, commanded
from a lofty peak of the mountain range of the Western
Desert, immediately overhanging the Necropolis. A
rich plain of intensest green lies stretched out with
unnatural minuteness under that cloudless sky. It is
* In this map prominence is given to the chief points, and the
obscurity of overcrowding is as far as possible avoided. In the relation
of the outlines I have with his friendly approval always had reference
to Sir G-. "Wilkinson's excellent large Survey published in 1S30.
b 4