Specimens recovered from here date from the fourth to the twenty-second dynasties, and the relics from Termuther are from the last period of the Ptolemies.
Early in 1891, Professor Petrie made his exhaustive examination of the pyramid of Me-dum, which he declared to be the earliest of all dated Egyptian pyramids, and probably the oldest dated building in the world. Its builder was Snofrui of the third dynasty; and, joined with it, and in a perfect state of preservation, was the pyramid temple built at the same period. From forty to sixty feet of rubbish had accumulated around the buildings, and had to be removed. The front of the temple was thirty feet wide and nine feet high, and a door was discovered at the south end. A wide doorway leads to the open court built on the side of the pyramid. In the centre of the court stands the altar of offerings, where there is also an inscribed obelisk thirteen feet high. The walls of the temple are all marked with graffiti of visitors who belonged to the twelfth and eighteenth dynasties. A statuette was found dedicated to the gods of the town by a woman.
The tombs at this place had been rifled in ancient times, but many skeletons of people, who had been buried in a crouching attitude, were discovered, and Petrie considered that these belonged to a different race from that which was accustomed to bury the dead recumbent. A quantity of pottery was also unearthed, dating from the fourth century. The method by which the plan of a pyramid was laid out by the ancient Egyptians was discovered in this excavation, and the designs show considerable mechanical ingenuity in their execution, and afford a perfect system for maintaining the symmetry of the building itself, no matter how uneven the ground on which it was to be built.
In the spring of 1891, M. Naville started an excavation on the site of the ancient Heracleopolis Magna at a place now named Hanassieh. He found here many Roman and Koptic remains, and further discovered the vestibule of an ancient Egyptian temple. There were six columns, on which Ramses II. was represented as offering gifts. The name of Menephtah was also noticed, and the architraves above the columns were seen to be cut with cartouches of Usirtasen II. of the twelfth dynasty. This temple was probably one of those to the service of which Ramses II. donated some slaves, as is described in one of the papyri of the Harris collection.
A stone was discovered by Mr. Wilborn at Luxor, recording a period of seven years’ successive failure of the Nile to overflow, and the efforts made by a certain sorcerer named Chit Net to remove the calamity.
During the season of 1895, Professor Petrie and Mr. Quibell discovered homes belonging to paleolithic man on a plateau four thousand feet above the Nile. Thirty miles south of Thebes, there are many large and beautifully worked flints. Their great antiquity is proved by the fact that they are deeply stained, whereas, in the same locality, there are other flints of an age of five thousand years, which show no traces of stains.
Close by this site was discovered the abundant remains of a hitherto unknown race. This race has nothing in common with the true Egyptians, although their relics are invariably found with those of the Egyptians of the fourth, twelfth, eighteenth, and nineteenth dynasties. Petrie declares these men to have been tall and powerful, with strong features, a hooked nose, a long, pointed beard, and brown, wavy hair. They were not related to the negroes, but rather to the Amorites or Libyans. The bodies in these tombs are not mummified, but are contracted, though laid in an opposite direction from those discovered at Medum. The graves are open, square pits, roofed over with beams of wood. This ancient race used forked hunting-lances for chasing the gazelle, and their beautiful flints were found to be like those belonging to an excellent collection already existing in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford. They also made an abundant use of copper for adzes, harpoons for spearing fish, and needles for sewing garments. They used pottery abundantly, and its variety is remarkable no less than the quality, which, unlike the Egyptian, was all hand-made and never fashioned by aid of the wheel. They entered Egypt about 3,000 B.C., and were probably of the white Libyan race, and possibly may have been the foreigners who overthrew the old Egyptian empire.
The discovery of the name of “Israel” in an Egyptian inscription was in a sense, perhaps, the most remarkable event of the year 1895 in archæology. It was first laid before the public by Professor Petrie,* and was treated by Spiegelberg** in a communication to the Berlin Academy, and by Steindorff.***