Wilkinson, John Gardner: Topographie of Thebes, and general view of Egypt: being a short account of the principal objects worthy of notice in the valley of the Nile, to the second cataracte and Wadi Samneh, with the Fyoom, Oases and eastern desert, from Sooez to Bertenice (London, 1835)

386 TANOOF AND DAHROOT. [Chap. VI.

worked for a considerable time by the ancients, and
which confirmed my opinion that the town in the
plain below was Alabastron, though it is true its
position does not exactly accord with that given by
Ptolemy. But Alabastron was at all events a city
of the Nile, as we learn from Pliny; and Ptolemy *
merely assigns to it an inland position, like Hermo-
polis.

Several Greek inscriptions prove that these
grottoes were sufficiently admired by ancient travel-
lers to be considered deserving of a visit, like the
tombs of Thebes; and one of the writers has
expressed his surprise at the " ingenuity of the
sacred masons."

Many large roads extend across the plain in dif-
ferent directions, from the river to the mountains ;
and at some distance to the southward, are other
grottoes in the low hills containing similar sculptures.
Tanoof, or Tanis (superior), in Coptic, Thoni, lies
inland, on the opposite bank; and a few miles
beyond Dahroot e' Shereef, is the entrance of the
Bahr Yoosef. Strabo tells us that the canal passed
from the Thebaic castle (Phy'lace) to Tanis, which
would require the site of the former to have been
at Dahroot e' Shereef; and indeed we may trace in
this name the word ourit, " a garrison" or " guard,"

in a subsequent visit in 1826, in company with Mr. Burton, that
of the quarry and the town in the plain.

* Ptolemy makes the same difference in longitude between
Alabastron and Acoris as between Coptos and Thebes.—Geog.
1. iv. c. 5.