Plate XVI.
PLAN OF OLD BUILDING DISCOVERED BY DR. G. SCHWEINFURTH IN 1884.
Height of chambers from surface of raised floor to ceiling 2·65. Scale ¹⁄₁₀₀. Dimensions in metres.
The object of the building is a riddle. Each of the raised cells has a recess for a door. “In the thickness of the south wall, on the east side of the principal entrance, runs a passage half a metre wide, leading to which, at the south-east corner of the temple, a door of equally narrow proportions is attached. This passage leads downwards to the chambers below” (Schweinfurth). Dr. Schweinfurth came to the conclusion “that the old temple, as well as the original settlement or formation, is one of the monuments belonging to the oldest times.”
Concerning the old town he writes:—“In the neighbourhood of the temple, from south-east to south-west, at a distance of about 500 paces, that is, on the edge of the rising ground, there are quantities of potsherds lying in heaps here and there. They are of the most weather-worn appearance, and have formed portions of coarse, thick vessels. No such things as fragments approaching the pottery work of the Greek or Roman period are found. The eye of the seeker sought in vain for remnants of that blue glazed pottery ordinarily so common, or the long amphoræ of the Greek shape.
“The amphoræ points or ends, which I picked up, were all stumps, and of an almost cylindrical shape. The corresponding pottery showed no sign of rings. They were almost entirely coarse, red clay fragments, with here and there a yellow or black bit, and all distinctly showed the work of the potter’s wheel.
“Below the scarp of the lowest rising ground no more pottery was to be found, neither did the marl mounds display on examination any admixture of manufactured pieces. The heaps of pottery formerly existing appear to have been flattened down and spread out over a much wider space by the disintegration and sweeping down of the marl bed. A similar occurrence may be observed on the few stone walls yet remaining of the old temple settlement.”
For Schweinfurth’s further remarks see pp. 101 to 107 of his veloci-graphed letter to Paul Ascherson on his journey in the depression of the Fayûm, 1886.
The line of levels, which I had taken between this old building (temple) and Dimay, followed a direct line between the two, crossing the elevations and depressions given in the list below:—