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)

490 HIERASYCAMINON. [Chap. VII.

the hieroglyphics over this deity, Taut-sn-pnubs, or
Taut-n-pnubsbo, the Thoth of Pnubs * or Pnubsho,
the Egyptian name of Pselcis.

At Koortree or Korti and Maharraka f the ruins
are very trifling. The latter is the Hierasycaminon
of ancient writers; J and on a wall here is a rude re-
presentation of Isis seated under the sacred fig-tree,
and some other figures of a Roman epoch. Near
it is an hypsethral building, apparently of the
time of the Caesars, unfinished as usual, and as we
learn from a Greek exvoto § on one of the columns,
dedicated to Isis and Sarapis. Like most of the
edifices in Nubia, it has been used as a place of
worship by the early Christians, and is the last
that we find of the time of the Ptolemies or
Cassars, with the exception of Ibreem or Primis.

Sabooa, so called from " the lions" (andro-
sphinxes) of the dromos, is of the early epoch of
Remeses the Great. It is all built of sandstone,
with the exception of the adytum, which is ex-
cavated in the rock. The dromos was adorned
with eight sphinxes on either side, and terminated
by two statues with sculptured stela? at their back ;

* This cannot be the Pnups of Ptolemy, which he places half
a degree above the second cataract.—Lib. iv. c. 1. The last part
of this word may signify Chemi, or Egypt. This town appears to
have been at one time considered the confine of Egypt and
Ethiopia. May we not trace it in this name ? Is Metachompso
(Met-Chem-cah) related to it ?

t Called also Oofideena. J But not of Ptolemy.

§ In reading this it is curious to find oneself (the reader) in-
cluded in the proscynema.