Wilkinson, John Gardner: Extracts from several hieroglyphical subjects, found at Thebes and other parts of Egypt: with remarks on the same ([La Valletta], Malta, 1830)

[22]

up the Nile in 1824, at which time they had not been visited
by any modern traveller; and on a second visit in 1826, in
company with Mr. Burton, we discovered in the mountain
behind these grottoes, a large alabaster quarry, which led
us to believe, the town, near the modern village of Til-el,
Amarna, was the Alabastron of the ancients. This town,
which is the most extensive next to Thebes, contains several
curious buildings; but the temples, which were of sand-
stone have been purposely destroyed: the only sculptures,
I could there discover, were of the same king, whose name
occurs in the grottoes; and the plans of some of the houses
and gardens very much resemble those represented in the
excavated chambers of the mountain; indeed the remains
of these houses are more interesting than in any of the
ruined towns of Egypt, being more perfect and of much
greater extent. Pliny places Alabastron on the Nile, and
Ptolemy gives it merely an inland situation like Hermo-
polis. Another reason which led me to conclude, that this
town was not in the mountains (where I had in vain taken
some trouble in searching for it) was, that in two inscrip-
tions I met with in the desert, the writers call themselves
natives of Alabastron, which was not likely to be the case,
were it (like the towns of the Porphyry and Claudian moun-
tains) in the desert; the error has originated in the latitude
and longitude of Ptolemy; on which I hope, at some future
time, to have an opportunity of speaking more fully, than
the limits of this work allow me at present.