[Page 49].—“There is, to the north of Memphis,” &c.—“Tout prouve que la territoire de Sakkarah étoit la Necropolis au sud de Memphis, et le faubourg opposé à celui-ci, où sont les pyramides de Gizeh, une autre Ville des Morts, qui terminoit Memphis au nord.” Denon.
There is nothing known with certainty as to the site of Memphis, but it will be perceived that the description of its position given by the Epicurean corresponds, in almost every particular, with that which M. Maillet (the French consul, for many years, at Cairo) has left us. It must be always borne in mind, too, that of the dis[pg 313]tances between the respective places here mentioned, we have no longer any accurate means of judging.
[Page 49].—“Pyramid beyond pyramid.”—“Multas olim pyramidas fuisse e ruinis arguitur.” Zoega.—Vansleb, who visited more than ten of the small pyramids, is of opinion that there must have originally been a hundred in this place.
See, for the lake to the northward of Memphis, Shaw’s Travels, p. 302.
[Page 57].—“The Theban beetle.”—“On voit en Egypte, après la retraite du Nil et la fécondation des terres, le limon couvert d’une multitude de scarabées. Un pareil phénomène a dû sembler aux Egyptiens le plus propre à peindre une nouvelle existence.” M. Jomard.—Partly for the same reason, and partly for another, still more fanciful, the early Christians used to apply this emblem to Christ. “Bonus ille scarabæus meus,” says St. Augustine “non eâ tantum de causâ quod unigenitus, quod ipsemet sui auctor mortalium speciem induerit, sed quod in hac nostrâ fæce sese volutaverit et ex hac ipsa nasci voluerit.”
[Ib.]—“Enshrined within a case of crystal.”—“Les Egyptiens ont fait aussi, pour conserver leurs morts, des caisses de verre.” De Pauw.—He mentions, in another place, a sort of transparent substance, which the Ethiopians used for the same purpose, and which was frequently mistaken by the Greeks for glass.
[Page 58].—“Among the emblems of death.”—“Un prêtre, qui brise la tige d’une fleur, des oiseaux qui [pg 314]s’envolent sont les emblemes de la morte et de l’âme qui se sépare du corps.” Denon.
Theseus employs the same image in the Phædra:—
Ορνις γαρ ὡς τις εκ χερων αφαντος ει
Πηδημ’ ες ἁδου πικρον ὁρμησασα μοι.