ASSOUAN.--DAM.--A huge dam is to be thrown across the Nile at Assouan: its height will raise the water to the level of the floors of the ruins at Philae, enhancing rather than detracting from their picturesque grandeur. It is said that the structure of the dam will harmonize with the ancient architecture of Philae. The material already cut and lying in the quarries of Assouan will be almost sufficient to complete the dam.--Biblia, V. p. 109.
TOMBS.--Some new tombs have been opened, one by the Crown Princess of Sweden and Norway, the other by Mr. James. One of them belonged to the reign of Nofer-Ka-Ra; and, in an inscription found in it, Prof. Schiaparelli has read the name of the land of Pun, which accordingly, was already known to the Egyptians in the age of the dynasty.--PROF. SAYCE in Academy.
CAIRO (NEAR). DESTRUCTION OF AN ANCIENT CHRISTIAN CHURCH.--Rev. Greville J. Chester writes (Acad. March 19). "Permit me to draw public attention to an almost incredible act of vandalism which was perpetrated during the last year in Egypt, close to the capital. The finest Roman ruin in Egypt was the fortress of Babylon, south of Cairo, known also as Mus'r el Ateekeh and Dayr esh Shemma. One of the most interesting sights in that Dayr was the Jewish synagogue, anciently the Christian Church of St. Michael, but desecrated by being handed over in the middle ages by an Arab Sultan to the Jews, and thenceforward to the present time used by them as a place of worship. The building was of much architectural interest. The old Christian nave and aisles were preserved intact; but the Jews had destroyed the apse which must have existed, and had replaced it by a square Eastern sanctuary, and over the niche, within which were preserved the Holy Books of the Law, had adorned the wall with numerous Hebrew texts executed in gesso, forming an interesting example of Jewish taste and work in the middle ages. Some of the ancient Christian screenwork of wood was preserved, but was turned upside down, probably because gazelles and other animals formed part of the design. Behind this building, in a sort of court, the very finest portion of the original wall of the Roman fortress was visible, and, what is more important, the inner and most perfect circuit of one of the Roman bastion-towers, which outside looked out on the desert.
All this is now a thing of the past. The Jews have razed the ancient church and synagogue to the ground, and in its place have erected a hideous square abomination, supported internally on iron pillars. Of the fine Roman wall which bounded the property, and with it the bastion-tower, with its courses of brick at regular intervals, and its deeply-splayed windows, not a vestige now remains."
CAIRO.--GIZEH MUSEUM.--M. de Morgan has been appointed director of the Museum in place of M. Grébaut. This will meet with general approval. He is young and energetic, and the work he has done in the Caucasus and in Persia has placed him in the front rank of archaeologists and explorers. Moreover, he is an engineer, and therefore possesses a practical knowledge which, in view of the conservation of the ancient monuments of Egypt, is a matter of prime importance. He has asked the Board of Public Works for £50,000 in order to secure the building against fire; it is built of very inflammable material. During the past summer the museum has been entirely rearranged by him. Of the rooms in the palace, only some thirty-eight contained antiquities last winter; now, however, about eighty-five are used as exhibition rooms, and, for the first time, it is possible to see of what the Egyptian collection really consists. On the ground floor the positions of several of the large monuments have been changed, and the chronological arrangement is better than it was before. In one large room are exhibited for the first time eleven fine mastaba stelæ of the Ancient Empire, (VI. Dyn.) which were brought from Sakkarah during the past summer; they are remarkable for the brightness of the colours, the vigour of the figures, and the beauty of the hieroglyphics. On the same floor are two splendid colossal statues of the god Ptah which have been excavated at Memphis during last summer, and many other large objects from the same site. In a series of rooms, approached from the room in which the Dêr el-Bahari mummies are exhibited, are arranged the coffins and mummies of the priests of Amen which were brought down from Thebes two years ago. The coffins are of great interest, for they are ornamented with mythological scenes and figures of gods which seem to be peculiar to the period immediately following the rule of the priest-kings at Thebes, i.e., from about B.C. 1000 to 800.
A new and important feature in the arrangement of the rooms on the upper floor is the section devoted to the exhibition of papyri. Here in flat glazed cases are shown at full length fine copies of the 'Book of the Dead,' hieratic papyri, including the unique copy of the 'Maxims of Ani.' and many other papyri which have been hitherto inaccessible to the ordinary visitor. To certain classes of objects, such as scarabs, blue glazed faïence, linen sheets, mummy bandages and garments, terracotta vases and vessels, alabaster jars, etc., special rooms are devoted. The antiquities which, although found in Egypt, are certainly not of Egyptian manufacture, e.g., Greek and Phœnician glass, Greek statues, tablets inscribed in cuneiform from Tel el-Amarna, etc., are arranged in groups in rooms set apart for them; and the monuments of the Egyptian Christians or Copts are also classified and arranged in a separate room.--Athenæum, May 14 and Nov. 19.
THE FRENCH SCHOOL AT CAIRO.--M. Maspero analyzed before the Acad. des Inscr. (Oct. 28), the recent work and immediate prospects of the French School at Cairo. The Memoirs recently issued show the field that it covers at present. First comes a fascicule of Greek texts, the mathematical papyrus of Akmim, explained and commented by M. Baillet; a long fragment of the Greek text of the Book of Enoch, remains of the apocryphal Gospel and Apocalypse of St. Peter, reproduced by M. Bouriant. All these works are of extreme importance for primitive church history. Arab archæology is represented by memoirs of M. Casonova on an Arab globe, on sixteen Arab steles, and especially by M. Burgoin's great work on Arab art in Egypt. Father Scheil makes an incursion into Assyriology by his publication of some of the Tel el-Amarna tablets, and in this connection M. Maspero states that the intention of the school is to extend their researches to Syria and Mesopotamia and to include the entire East both ancient and modern. In the Egyptian domain, besides the Theban fragments of the Old Testament and the remains of the Acts of the Council of Ephesos, the notable event is the appearance of the first fasciculus of the work on Edfu by M. de Rochemonteix. In it a complete temple will be placed before students. The entire Egyptian religion will be illustrated, in all its rituals,--ritual of foundation, of sacrifice, of the feast of Osiris. M. Benedite has commenced in the same way the publication of the Temples of Philae.-- Revue Critique, 1892, No. 45.
The investigations enumerated above are far from being all. They represent merely the official governmental side of the work. The learned societies have done a great deal; such as the Ecole des lettres of Algiers, the management of historical monuments (Tebessa), and the French School of Rome.
EL-KARGEH.--PLASTER BUSTS.--At a meeting of the Académie des Inscriptions, M. Héron de Villefosse exhibited four painted plaster busts from El-Kargeh, in the Great Oasis, which have recently been sent to the Louvre by M. Bouriant, director of the French School at Cairo. They have been taken from the lids of sarcophagi; but the peculiarity about them is that the heads were not in the same plane with the body, but as it were erect. The features have been modelled with extraordinary verisimilitude; the eyes are of some glassy material, in black and white; the hair was modelled independently, and afterwards fitted to the plaster head; the painting is in simple colours--various shades of red for the skin, and black or brown for the hair. M. Héron de Villefosse maintained that they were certainly portraits. The physiognomy of one is Jewish; another recalls a bronze head from Cyrene in the British Museum, which Fr. Lenormant considered to be of Berber type; the third might be Syrian, and the fourth Roman. The date is probably about the time of Septimius Severus. M. Maspero declared that he had never seen anything of the kind in any museum.--Academy, July 9.
These busts have been placed on exhibition at the Louvre, in the Salle des fresques.--Chron. des Arts, 1892, No. 28.