[44] Both the plate in the Description de l'Égypte (Ant. vol. ii. pl. 31), and that in Lepsius (part iii. pl. 166), suggest this interpretation.
[45] Lepsius, Briefe aus Ægypten, p. 259.—See also Maspero, Histoire Ancienne, pp. 111-113.
[46] It is of Mokattam limestone (see vol. i., p. 223). M. Perrot probably meant to refer to the two upper "chambers," both of which are lined with granite.—Ed.
[47] Mariette, Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte, vol. i. p. 59.
[48] Exodus v. 6-8.
[49] Mariette, Traité pratique et raisonné de la Construction en Égypte, p. 59. All these operations are shown upon the walls of a tomb at Abd-el-Gournah (Lepsius, Denkmæler, p. 111, pl. 40). Labourers are seen drawing water from a basin, digging the earth, carrying it in large jars, mixing it with the water, pressing the clay into the moulds, finally building walls which are being tested with a plumb-line by an overseer or foreman (see also Fig. 16).
[50] Prisse, Histoire de l'Art Égyptien, letter-press, p. 179.
[51] Lepsius (Denkmæler, part iii. plates 7, 25A, 26, 39) has reproduced a certain number of these stamped bricks.
[52] We do not here refer to the kind of maple which is often erroneously called a sycamore with us, but to a tree of quite a different family and appearance, the Ficus Sycomorus of Linnæus.
[53] Ed. Mariette, Traité Pratique, etc., p. 95.