Now, as Mr. Weigall devotes to this valley many pages in his Travels in Upper Egyptian Deserts, I shall not attempt to describe what he has so ably given to the public. I will quote what he says of our arrival there, and of the earliest inscription which was found: ‘Amidst these relics of the old world our tents were pitched, having been removed from Bîr Hammamât as soon as breakfast had been finished; and with camera, note-book, and sketching apparatus, the four of us dispersed in different directions, my own objective, of course, being the inscriptions. The history of Wady Fowakiyeh begins when the history of Egypt begins, and one must look back into the dim uncertainties of the archaic period for the first evidences of the working of the quarries of the valley. Many beautifully made bowls and other objects of this tuff are found in the graves of Dynasty I., fifty-five centuries ago; and my friends and I scrambling over the rocks were fortunate enough to find in a little wady leading northwards from the main valley a large rock-drawing and inscriptions of this date. A “vase-maker” here offers a prayer to the sacred barque of the hawk-god Horus, which is drawn so clearly that one may see the hawk standing upon its shrine in the boat, an upright spear set before the door; and one may observe the bull’s head, so often found in primitive countries, affixed to the prow; while the barque itself is shown to be standing upon a sledge in order that it might be dragged over the ground.’

THE MOSQUE AT KOSSEIR

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By the modern German school of computation, which Mr. Weigall accepts, the period of the Shepherd Kings was but of two centuries’ duration; but according to the reckoning of the majority of Egyptologists, this period lasted a millennium longer. Should the latter be right these graffiti would date back sixty-five centuries; and from that remote period (with the exception of the dark ages known as that of the Hyksos or Shepherd Kings) some signs of human activity were visible in this valley, telling us something of the various peoples who ruled Egypt until the three Englishmen scratched their names with a penknife shortly after the British occupation.

Every collection of Egyptological objects will have some specimens of sculptured stone quarried out of these tufa and breccia rocks.

I found a large smooth surface of stone, forming the back wall of a hollow quarried out of a gigantic mass of breccia, which, in Ptolemaic times, had been made to serve as a shrine to the god Min of Koptos, the protecting deity of the Upper Egyptian deserts. There were signs that this shady nook had recently been used as an Arab encampment, and it suggested a delightful subject to paint. I was torn with conflicting emotions: whether to secure so good a background for a figure subject, or whether to join my companions in their search for archæological treasure. The background won the day. A faint hope that we might spend a second morning here on our return journey, which would make it possible to complete my study, finally decided me.

The smooth stone at the back of the hollow was decorated with very delicately incised Ptolemaic work. The spacing of the panels containing the deities was most artistically done, and the figures were chiselled with a delicacy and style not usually seen in work of that period. I had seen little Ptolemaic sculpture on any other material than on sandstone, and this was bound to look coarse compared to the eighteenth dynasty work on the finer grained limestone. The hard breccia rock surface gave the sculptor a chance; and though it lacked the distinction of earlier work, it compared well as to delicacy of treatment. Greek influence seemed more apparent than ever. Hathor looked less of a goddess, and was possibly more charming as a pretty little mortal; Ammon Ra without his headdress would have passed for a lithe and well-proportioned Greek slave; but the god Min, owing to his conventional pose, combined the Hellenic sensuosity with the severer Egyptian traditions. The Ptolemy who made offerings to the above trilogy was a Greek grandee in the pose and apparel of a Pharaoh. The figures measured about two feet high except that of an attendant priest, who, as modesty demanded, was a few inches shorter. There were one or two more panels in which Min figured conspicuously.

The bold forms of the massive rock which overhung this wall may have helped to emphasise the delicacy of the sculpture. The colour of the rock formation is as extraordinary as its drawing: the untouched portions are a chocolate brown, and those parts exposed by the work of the quarrymen vary from green to a bluish black.