Wanderings in North Africa

by traveler James Hamilton

I was now able to examine the town, as seen from the exterior, occupying its lofty table-rock. I was astonished, as well as pleased, to perceive in its outer wall, on the north side, a large piece of ancient building in perfect condition. This, as far as I am aware, has not been remarked by any previous traveller, and I eagerly inquired if there were any appearance of buildings connected with this within the town. I was assured that nothing was visible in the interior, houses being built against it; but information which I derived from the Gibely induced me to return to the town a few days later, and I now proceed to describe the results of my second visit.

After passing the wall, a steep street to the right leads round a large group of houses, in some of which I remarked ancient foundations, and thence one reaches a very massive wall, built of large stones. A doorway has been broken in this leading into the court of a house. At my request this door was opened, and I found myself in the forecourt of a temple or palace, now divided in its breadth by a modern wall. On entering, to the right and left are two immense doorways, now walled up, with a pure Egyptian outline and well-cut cornice, but unadorned with hieroglyphics. This court now measures sixteen feet by ten feet, but in its original state it must have been nearly twenty feet wide. After much parley, the door to the right was opened, and to my astonishment I found myself in an apartment very low and dark, but whose sides were covered with hieroglyphics. A modern wall divides it in length into two chambers, and a flooring seemed to have been added to make a second story. Having penetrated so far, and being told there were no women in the house, I went up-stairs, where I found the sculptures continued on the wall up to a heavy projecting cornice, above which the wall is undecorated. A window in the end of the second chamber on this floor enabled me to see that it was the wall of this building which I had seen from below. This chamber, in its original dimensions, is about twenty-four feet long by fourteen broad, and twenty-one high, and from its cornice, which seems calculated to support a ceiling, I presume it consisted of two stories. In the upper and further room, as it at present exists, I found on the right a passage, made in the thickness of the walls, eight feet in length by two in width, which may have served as a place of concealment, there being no egress from it. In the lower room, on the left, is also a small chamber, about six feet by four feet, which seems to have formed a cupboard or some such repository.

Here, as at Omm Beida, I could see no appearance of a cartouche among the sculptures on the walls; but I might have overlooked them, if any such exist, as only a cursory examination was reluctantly granted me by my guides; the walls, moreover, were perfectly blackened by smoke, and the only light we had was that of a flaring palm-branch. Leaving this building by the door by which I had entered, and turning round its exterior, I found the remaining part of the wall of the court, with another large doorway, similar to those I had already seen. Proceeding southwards from this I came upon indications of walls, and from the edge of a hill of rubbish to which I had advanced, I saw the wall just below my feet. I now turned away, leaving the western door of the old building I had entered behind me, and after a few steps came to a gigantic gateway (under which the road passes) of less finished, though good workmanship, and formed of stones of Cyclopean size. Other antiquities may probably exist among the houses, but my time was so short, and the unwillingness of the people to allow me to push my investigations further was so great, that I was unable to make a more satisfactory examination of the locality.

Agharmy is undoubtedly the ancient Acropolis of the Oasis, as it is described by Diodorus Siculus. He says that it had three walls, the first inclosing the palace of the kings; the second the women’s apartments (the harem) and the oracle; the third containing the habitation of the guards—this is, I believe, from Quintus Curtius; having no means of examining the originals, I quote at second-hand or from memory. I suppose that the building still so well preserved is a part of the palace of the kings; and if the three walls are understood as having been not concentric, but the chords of a curve dividing the inclosure into three (the only reading which I think admissible), we have the present town nearly exhibiting the distribution of the old Acropolis. A wall, now principally formed of houses, runs round the edge of the table-rock, and the town can only be entered by a steep ascent on the south-east. At the extremity of this, where the present guard is lodged, I suppose was drawn the first wall, defended by the barracks of the Satellites. In the space beyond this were the palace of the women and the temple, near the well which still exists, separated by a wall (one of whose massive gateways I passed under) from the royal palace.

Outside the town, in the rock on which it is built, and nearly beneath the remains of what I call the palace, is a cave eight feet by six feet, which seems to have been formerly the mouth of a passage cut in the rock, a postern from the Acropolis. The abruptness of the sides of the rock, the fragments scattered round its base, the springs which flow from beneath, the apricots and pomegranate trees with their lively shade around it, render the exterior view of Agharmy a most picturesque desert scene.

I spent an afternoon on the Gara el Musaberin, the hill of mummies, which lies to the north-east of the town. Its surface is literally, in every part, cut into caves, all of which seem to have been violated by the Siwy, those ransackers of tombs. In many there are still heaps of bones, in general bleached by the sun; and in two I found fragments of well-preserved remains, wrapt in a coarse cotton cloth, with stripes of bright red and blue. Several of these tombs exhibit great care in their execution, not a few, towards the summit, have decorated portals, and many are plastered with a fine stucco, on which are traces of painting in blue or red. The Ammonians seem to have interred their dead without coffins, as there are no remnants of wood scattered among the graves; and those who told me of their discoveries here and in once cultivated tracts to the west (though they had found many mummies), never seem to have met with them in coffins.[10]

To the south of Siwah is a curious hill called Gibel el Beyruh, formed of five cones. It contains several excavations, which have been used as tombs, but which seem to have been originally the quarries whence the stone, for building the temple was taken. There was formerly a spring here, celebrated for its medicinal virtues, but now sanded up, called ’Ain el Handalieh.

Accompanied by the brother of the Mufti, the only one of the Sheikhs of the Lifayah whom I could trust, I went to see the town proper of Siwah. We first went to the date yards (mestahh, مستاح), in which the dates are piled up in great heaps, the ground being divided by stones, which distinguish each individual’s property. These stone places are three in number, and lie in the plain to the north of the town; they are surrounded by a wall, with a gate to each, one belonging to the Gharbyin, one to the Lifayah, and the centre one to members of both communities. They said that thus left exposed to the sun and air the dates will keep for a long time, neither subject to decay nor to the attacks of insects.

Crossing the open space which separates the mestahh from the foot of the town, we passed the chapel of Sidi Suleiman, who is the most venerated Marābut of this place; he seems, indeed, to have succeeded, in the estimation of the surrounding Arabs, to the old sanctity of Ammon. All disputes and lawsuits, which in Moslem jurisprudence are decided by the oaths of the parties, are adjourned to Sidi Suleiman for decision; and many who fear not to swear falsely by God and his Prophet will speak the truth here, as the Sheikh is said never to have left a false oath sworn in his name unpunished.

From this place, entering by a flight of steps one of the fourteen doors, I was introduced into the interior of the town. A servant carried a lamp, which I soon found quite necessary, for without a light no one unacquainted with the locality could find his way through the dark lanes which run through the town. The principal street, some ten feet wide by seven or eight feet high, runs round the rock which forms the nucleus of this agglomeration of houses; from this branch other streets, seldom more than four feet wide, and so low that one must bend the head to pass through them. There are four wells, two saltish, and two of sweet water; into two of them the light is allowed to enter, the houses being built round, not over them. Excepting here, neither air nor light enter the town from above; it is not, therefore, wonderful that every year Siwah is visited by a typhoid fever, whose virulence is so great that during its continuance no stranger ventures to approach the Oasis.