[159] A clew, however, might possibly be found to the date. There is a rudely sculptured tableau—the only piece of sculpture in the place—on a detached wall near the standing columns. It represents Isis worshiped by a youth in a short toga. Both figures are lumpish and ill-modeled; and Isis, seated under a conventional fig-tree, wears her hair erected in stiff rolls over her forehead, like a diadem. It is the face and stiffly dressed hair of Marciana, the sister of Trajan, as shown upon the well-known coin engraved in Smith’s “Dic. of Greek and Roman Biography,” vol. ii, p. 939. Maharrakeh is the Hiera Sycaminos, or place of the sacred fig-tree, where ends the Itinerary of Antoninus.
[160] See The Scarabæus Sacer, by C. Woodrooffe, B. A.—a paper (based on notes by the late Rev. C. Johns) read before the Winchester and Hampshire Scientific and Literary Society, Nov. 8, 1875. Privately printed.
[161] See chap. x, p. 163. Dakkeh (the Pselcis of the Greeks and Romans, the Pselk of the Egyptians) was at one time regarded as the confine of Egypt and Ethiopia, and would seem to have been a great military station. The inscribed potsherds here are chiefly receipts and accounts of soldiers’ pay. The walls of the temple outside, and of the chambers within, abound also in free-hand graffiti, most of which are written in red ink. We observed some that appeared to be trilingual.
[162] “Less than a quarter of a mile to the south are the ruins of a small sandstone temple with clustered columns; and on the way, near the village, you pass a stone stela of Amenemhat III, mentioning his eleventh year.”—“Murray’s Hand-book for Egypt,” p. 481. M. Maspero, writing of Thothmes III, says: “Sons fils et successeur, Amenhotep III, fit construire en face de Pselkis une forteresse importante.”—“Hist. Ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient,” chap, iii, p. 113.
At Kobban also was found the famous stela of Rameses II, called the Stela of Dakkeh; see chap. xv, p. 238. In this inscription, a cast from which is at the Louvre, Rameses II is stated to have caused an artesian well to be made in the desert between this place and Gebel Oellaky, in order to facilitate the working of the gold mines of those parts.
[163] “According to Ptolemy, Metachompso should be opposite Pselcis, where there are extensive brick ruins. If so, Metachompso and Contra Pselcis must be the same town.”—“Topography of Thebes,” etc.; Sir G. Wilkinson. Ed. 1835, p. 488. M. Vivien de St. Martin is, however, of opinion that the Island of Derar, near Maharrakeh, is the true Metachompso. See “Le Nord de l’Afrique,” section vi, p. 161. Be this as it may, we at all events know of one great siege that this fortress sustained, and of one great battle fought beneath its walls. “The Ethiopians,” says Strabo, “having taking advantage of the withdrawal of part of the Roman forces, surprised and took Syene, Elephantine and Philæ, enslaved the inhabitants, and threw down the statues of Cæsar. But Petronius, marching with less than ten thousand infantry and eight hundred horse against an army of thirty thousand men, compelled them to retreat to Pselcis. He then sent deputies to demand restitution of what they had taken and the reason which had induced them to begin the war. On their alleging that they had been ill treated by the monarchs, he answered that these were not the sovereigns of the country—but Cæsar. When they desired three days for consideration and did nothing which they were bound to do, Petronius attacked and compelled them to fight. They soon fled, being badly commanded and badly armed, for they carried large shields made of raw hides, and hatchets for offensive weapons. Part of the insurgents were driven to the city, others fled into the uninhabited country, and such as ventured upon the passage of the river escaped to a neighboring island, where there were not many crocodiles, on account of the current.... Petronius then attacked Pselcis, and took it.”—Strabo’s “Geography,” Bohn’s translation, 1857, vol. iii, pp. 267-268. This island to which the insurgents fled may have been the large sand island which here still occupies the middle of the river and obstructs the approach to Dakkeh. Or they may have fled to the Island of Derar, seven miles higher up. Strabo does not give the name of the island.
[164] “C’est un ouvrage non achevé du temps de l’Empereur Auguste. Quoique peu important par son étendue, ce monument m’a beaucoup interessé, puisqu’il est entièrement relatif à l’incarnation d’Osiris sous forme humaine, sur la terre.”—Lettres écrites d’Égypte, etc.: Champollion. Paris, 1868; p. 126.
[165] I observed mauve here, for the first and only time, and very brilliant ultramarine. There are also traces of gilding on many of the figures.
[166] See [chap. xii], p. 199.
[167] Talmis: (Kalabsheh).