76. Sedan Chair, Terra Cotta. 1: 4.
In one instance a far more valuable prize accompanied a body; under the head of a lady lay a papyrus roll, which still preserved a large part of the second book of the Iliad, beautifully written, and with marginal notes. A great quantity of pieces of papyrus, letters and accounts, of Roman age, were also found scattered about in the cemetery. In a large jar buried in the ground lay a bundle of title-deeds: they recorded the sale of some monastic property, and were most carefully rolled, bound up with splints of reed, to prevent their being bent, and wrapped in several old cloths.
77. 1:6. Roman Rag Dolls. 1: 4.
In yet another respect Hawara proved a rich field. In the coffins, in the graves, and in the ruins of the chambers, were still preserved the wreaths with which the dead had been adorned, and the flowers which the living had brought to the tombs. These wreaths were often in the most perfect condition, every detail of the flowers being as complete as if dried for a herbarium. They illustrate the accounts of Pliny and other writers about ancient wreaths, and the plants used for them, and show what a careful and precise trade the wreath-maker’s was. Beside the decorative plants there were many seeds, and remains of edible fruits and vegetables, which had been left behind in the surface chambers of the tombs after the funereal feasts. Altogether, the cemetery of Hawara has doubled the extent of our list of ancient Egyptian botany, under the careful examination given by Mr. Newberry to the boxes full of plants which I brought away.
Few places, then, have such varied interest as Hawara; the twelfth dynasty pyramid, the labyrinth, the amulets of Horuta, the portraits, the botany, and the papyri, are each of special interest and historical value.
In this year also I visited the other side of the lake of the Fayum, now known as the Birket Kerun. There, at some miles back in that utter solitude, stands a building of unknown age and unknown purport. It is massively constructed, but without any trace of inscription, or even ornament, which would tell its history. That it cannot be as late as the Kasr Kerun, is probable from its being at a much higher level. There would be no object in making a building at some miles distant in the desert, as it now is; and we must rather suppose it to belong to the age when the lake was full, and extended out so far. But where it comes before the Ptolemaic age we cannot say. The front doorway leads into a long court, which has a chamber at each end, and seven recesses in the long