This city was one of great importance and a commercial mart during the reign of Ahmosis, although in the time of the Emperor Commodus it had wholly disappeared. Two temples of Apollo were discovered, one of which was built from limestone in the seventh century B.C.; and the other was of white marble, beautifully decorated, and dating from the fifth century.
Magnificent libation bowls were also discovered here, some of which had been dedicated to Hera, others to Zeus, and others to Aphrodite. The lines of the ancient streets were traced, and a storehouse or granary of the ancient Egyptians was unearthed, also many Greek coins. Besides these were discovered votive deposits, cups of porcelain, alabaster jugs, limestone mortars; and trowels, chisels, knives, and hoes.
Much light was thrown by these discoveries on the progress of the ceramic arts, and many links uniting the Greek pottery with the Egyptian pottery were here for the first time traced. It was learned that the Greeks were the pupils of the Egyptians, but that they idealised the work of their masters and brought into it freer conceptions of beauty and of proportion.
M. Naville was engaged about this time in controversies as to the true site of this ancient Pithom. He also made, in 1886, a search for the site of Goshen. He believed he had identified this when he discovered at Saft an inscription dedicated to the gods of Kes, which Naville identified with Kesem, the name used in the Septuagint for Goshen. Others, however, disagree, and locate the site of Goshen at a place called Fakoos, twelve miles north of Tel-el-Kebir.
The explorations of 1885-86 started under the direction of Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie, Mr. F. Llewellen Griffith, and Mr. Ernest A. Gardiner. Gardiner set out in the direction of Naucratis, and Petrie and Griffith proceeded to explore the site of Tanis. The mound at which they worked, like many other localities of modern and ancient Egypt, has been known by a variety of names. It is called Tel Farum, or the Mound of the Pharaoh; Tel Bedawi, the Mound of the Bedouins; and Tel Nebesheh, after the name of the village upon this site. There are remains here of an ancient cemetery and of two ancient towns and a temple. The cemetery was found to be unlike those of Memphis, Thebes, or Abydos. It contained many small chambers and groups of chambers irregularly placed about a sandy plain. These were built mostly of brick, but there were other and larger ones built of limestone. A black granite altar of the reign of Ahmenemhait II. was discovered, and thrones of royal statues of the twelfth dynasty. Here were also found a statue of Harpocrates, a portion of a statue of Phtah, with an inscription of Ramses II., a sphinx and tombs of the twentieth century B.C. containing many small relics of antiquity.
Professor Petrie went on from here to the site of Tell Defenneh, the Tahpanhes of the Bible, called Taphne in the version of the Septuagint. This proved to be the remains of the earliest Greek settlement in Egypt, and contains no remains from a later period than the twenty-sixth dynasty. It was here that Psammeticus I. established a colony of the Carian and Ionian mercenaries, by whose aid this monarch had won the throne; and this Greek city had been built as one out of three fortresses to prevent the incursions of the Arabians and Syrians. The city of Tahpanhes or Taphne is referred to in the book of Jeremiah.
There were found on this site the remains of a vast pile of brick buildings, which could be seen in outline from a great distance across the plains. The Arabs called this “El Kasr el Bin el Yahudi,” that is, “The Castle of the Jew’s Daughter.” This was found to have been a fort, and it contained a stele with a record of the garrison which had been stationed there; pieces of ancient armour and arms were also found in the neighbourhood. There was likewise a royal hunting-box on this site, and all the principal parts of the settlement were found to have been surrounded by a wall fifty feet thick, which enclosed an area of three thousand feet in length and one thousand in breadth. The gate on the north opened towards the Pelusiac canal, and the south looked out upon the ancient military road which led up from Egypt to Syria. Pottery, bronze-work, some exquisitely wrought scale armour, very light but overlapping six times, were unearthed within this enclosure. There were also Greek vases and other Greek remains, dating in the earlier part of the reign of Ahmosis, who had subsequently sent the Greeks away, and prevented them from trading in Egypt. Since this Greek colony came to an end in the year 570 B.C., and as the locality was no longer frequented by Greek soldiers or merchants, it is possible to set an exact term to the period of Greek art which these antiquities represent. The Greek pottery here is so unlike that of Naucratis and of other places that it seems to be well ascertained that it must have been all manufactured at Defenneh itself. Outside the buildings of the Kasr, Petrie discovered a large sun-baked pavement resting upon the sands, and this discovery was of value in explaining a certain passage of the forty-third chapter of Jeremiah, translated from the Revised Version as follows: “Then came the word of the Lord to Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying, Take great stones in thine hand, and hide them in the mortar of the brick-work which is at the entry of Pharaoh’s house in Tahpanhes in the sight of the men of Judah [i.e. Johannan and the captains who had gone to Egypt]; and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold I will send and take Nebuchadrezzar the King of Babylon, my servant, and will set his throne upon these stones that I have hid; and he shall spread his royal pavilion over them. And he shall come and smite the land of Egypt.” An alternate reading for “brickwork” is the pavement or square. The pavement which Jeremiah described was evidently the one which Petrie discovered, though he was not able at the time to discover the stones which, according to Jeremiah, had been inserted in the mortar. Outside the camp wall was further discovered the remains of a large settlement, strewn on all sides with bits of pottery and jewelry and a great number of weights.
During this season Maspero carried on researches at Luxor, and proceeded to excavate in the neighbourhood of the Great Sphinx. There are many Egyptian pictures which represent the Sphinx in its entirety down to the paws, but the lower parts had for centuries been buried in the accumulations of sand which had covered up all of the ancient site. It had previously been supposed that the Sphinx had been hewn out of a solid mass of rock resembling an immense boulder. Professor Maspero’s excavations enabled him not only to verify the accuracy of the old Egyptian paintings of the Sphinx, but also to show that a vast amphitheatre had been hewn out of the rock round the Sphinx, which was not therefore sculptured from a projecting rock. Since the upper rim of this basin was about on the same level with the head of the figure, it became evident that the ancient sculptors had cut the rock away on all sides, and had subsequently left the Sphinx isolated, as it is at the present day. Maspero dug down during this season to a depth of thirty yards in the vicinity.
Professor Maspero’s last official act as Director-General of the Excavations and Antiquities of Egypt was his examination of the mummy of Ramses II. found in 1884, in the presence of the khédive and other high dignitaries. The mummy of this great conqueror was well preserved, revealing a giant frame and a face expressive of sovereign majesty, indomitable will, and the pride of the Egyptian king of kings. He then unbandaged the mummy of Nofritari, wife of King Ahmosis I. of the eighteenth dynasty, beside which, in the same sarcophagus, had been discovered the mummy of Ramses ITT. The physiognomy of this monarch is more refined and intellectual than that of his warlike predecessor; nor was his frame built upon the same colossal plan. The height of the body was less, and the shoulders not so wide. In the same season Maspero also discovered an ancient Egyptian romance inscribed on limestone near the tomb of Sinûhît at Thebes. A fragment on papyrus had been preserved at the Berlin Museum, but the whole romance was now decipherable.
Professor Maspero resigned his office of directorship on June 5, 1886, and was succeeded in the superintendency of excavations and Egyptian archeology by M. Eugene Grébault. In the same month Grébault started upon the work of unbandaging the mummy of the Theban King Sekenenra Ta-aken, of the eighteenth dynasty. It was under this monarch that a revolt against the Hyksôs, or Shepherd Kings, had originated, in the course of which the Asiatics were expelled from Egypt. The history of this king has always been considered legendary, but from the signs of wounds present in the mummy, it is certain that he had died in battle. In the same season the mummy of Seti I. was unbandaged, and also that of an anonymous prince.