48. Granite Shrine of Temple.
CHAPTER V.
NEBESHEH.
1886.
While living at Tanis I heard of a great stone, and a cemetery, some miles to the south of that place, and took an opportunity of visiting it. The site, Tell Nebesheh, is a very out-of-the-way spot; marshes and canals cut it off from the rest of the delta; and the only path to it from the cultivated region is across a wide wet plain, on the other side of which is a winding bank hidden among the reeds of the bogs, and only to be found by a native. After leaving Naukratis I went to this place, to try to clear up its history; and Mr. Griffith finished the work here, after I had moved on to fresh discoveries. The great stone was seen to be a monolith shrine, and therefore probably a temple lay around it. As I walked over the mounds, I saw that the tufts of reedy grass came to an end along a straight line, the other side of which was bare earth. This pointed out the line of the enclosing wall of the temple, which I soon tracked round on all sides. In the middle of one side the mound dipped down, and a few limestone chips lay about. Here I dug for the entrance pylon, and before long we found the lower stones of it left in position; on clearing it out a statue of Ramessu II, larger than life, was found, and fragments of its fellow; also a sphinx, likewise in black granite, which had been so often reappropriated by various kings, that the original maker could hardly be traced. Probably of the twelfth dynasty to begin with, it had received a long inscription around the base from an official (the importance of which we shall see presently), and later on six other claimants seized it in succession. Outside of the pylon there had been an approach, of which one ornament remained; this is an entirely fresh design, being a column without any capital, but supporting a large hawk overshadowing the king Merenptah, who kneels before it. The sides of the column are inscribed.
The ground all around the monolith shrine was dug over by us. Directly beneath the shrine the granite pavement and its substructure remains entire; but over the rest of the area only the bed of the foundation can be traced, all the stone having been removed. Near the place of the entrance lay the throne of a statue of Usertesen III, probably one of a pair by the door, and showing that a temple had existed as far back as the twelfth dynasty. The foundation deposits in the corners I had to get out from beneath the water; they were plaques of metals and stones, with the name of Aahmes Si-nit, and pottery, showing that the temple had been built in the twenty-sixth dynasty. Among the ruins was found part of the black granite statue of the goddess Uati, which had doubtless stood in the monolith shrine as the great image of the temple.
49. Foundation Deposit. 1: 2.
At the back of the shrine lay a black granite altar of Usertesen III, which, like the sphinx, had received an inscription by an official at a later time. These added inscriptions are of value, although they have been nearly effaced by subsequent kings; they show that in the dark times before the eighteenth dynasty (for by their rudeness they fall in that age), certain royal chancellors could venture to usurp the monuments of previous kings. This could hardly have been possible if the king of that period cared for the monuments; and we probably see in these chancellors the native viziers of the Hyksos kings, who were also apparently reckoned by the Egyptians as their rulers, and entered with ephemeral reigns of a year or two in the lists of the fourteenth dynasty. It was this vice-royalty that was conferred on Joseph, when the royal signet was given to him, and he had the honour of the second chariot.