to the god Osiris; it lies a little to the north of the temple of

Seti I. Many distinguished scholars thought that this was

the famous

shrine which

all Egypt adored, but

the excavations made

there by M. Mariette proved that

it was not. It would seem that during the

French oc

cupation of

Egypt in the

early part of

this century

this temple

stood al

most intact ;

since that

time, how

ever, SO

much dam

age has been

wrought upon it, that the portions of wall which now remain

Plan of the Temple of Rameses II. at Abydos.

are only about eight or nine feet high. The fragment of the second Tablet of Abydos, now in the British Museum,

came from this temple. The few scenes and fragments of inscriptions which remain are interesting but not important.

A little to the north of the temple of Rameses II. is a Coptic monastery, the church of which is dedicated to Amba Musas.

In recent years a number of excavations which have been productive of important results have been carried on near Abydos. In 1896 M. de Morgan discovered a number of remarkable tombs of the Neolithic Period at Al-'Amrah, about three miles to the east of Abydos, and in 1895, 1896, and 1897 M. Amélineau excavated the tombs of a number of kings of the first three dynasties at Umm al-Ka'ab, which lies to the west of the necropolis of the Middle Empire; and in the course of his work at Abydos he also discovered a shrine which the ancient Egyptians placed on a spot where they seem to have believed that the god Osiris was buried, or at any rate where some traditions declared he was laid. In the winter of 1899-00 Professor Petrie also carried on excavations on M. Amélineau's old sites at Abydos, and recovered a number of objects of the same class as those found by M. Amélineau. The true value and general historical position of the antiquities which were found at Abydos by M. Amélineau and M. de Morgan, as well as of those which were found by M. de Morgan at Nakâda and Abydos, and by Professor Petrie at Ballas and Tûkh, were first indicated by M. de Morgan hin self in his volumes of Recherches sur les Origines de l'Égypte, Paris, 1896 and 1897. The royal names TEN, ATCHAB, and SMERKHAT, discovered by M. de Morgan, were correctly identified with the kings of the 1st Dynasty who are usually called Hesepti, Merbapen, and Semen-Ptah, by Herr Sethe in the Aegyptische Zeitschrift, Bd. 35, p. 1, ff. 1897. M. Jéquier rightly identified PERABSEN with Neter-baiu, a king of the 2nd dynasty, and Professor Petrie has correctly

identified Q with the king of the 1st dynasty who is usually called Qebh. The identifications of AḤA with Menes, and NARMEK with Tetȧ, and TCHA with Ateth, and MER-NIT with Ata, kings of the 1st dynasty, at present need further evidence. Some of these are more probably pre-dynastic kings.

Farshût, 368 miles from Cairo, on the west bank of the river, called in Coptic Repoort, contains a sugar factory.

At Nag' Hamâdi, 373 miles from Cairo, is the iron railway bridge across the Nile.

Kasr es-Sayyâd, or "the hunter's castle," 376 miles from Cairo, on the east bank of the river, marks the site of the ancient Chenoboscion, i.e., the "Goose-pen," or place where geese were kept in large numbers and fattened for market. The Copts call the town ceп ECHT, which is probably a corruption of some old Egyptian name, meaning the place where geese were fattened. is famous in Coptic annals as the place where Pachomius (he died about A.D. 349, aged 57 years) embraced Christianity, and a few miles to the south of it stood the great monastery of Tabenna, which he founded. In the neighbourhood are a number of interesting tombs of the Early Empire.

The town

KENEH AND THE TEMPLE OF DENDERAH.*

Keneh, 405 miles from Cairo, on the east bank of the river, is the capital of the province of the same name.

* The Greek Tentyra, or Tentyris, is derived from the Egyptian

This city is famous for its dates, and the trade which it carries on with the Arabian peninsula.

A short distance from the river, on the west bank, a little to the north of the village of Denderah, stands the Temple of Denderah, which marks the site of the classical Tentyra or Tentyris, called TENтwре by the Copts, where the goddess Hathor was worshipped. During the Middle Empire quantities of flax and linen fabrics were produced at Tentyra, and it gained some reputation thereby. In very ancient times Khufu, or Cheops, a king of the IVth dynasty, founded a temple here, but it seems never to have become of much importance,* probably because it lay so close to the famous shrines of Abydos and Thebes. The wonderfully preserved Temple now standing there is probably not older than the beginning of our era; indeed, it cannot, in any case, be older than the time of the later Ptolemies: hence it must be considered as the architectural product of a time when the ancient Egyptian traditions of sculpture were already dead and nearly forgotten. It is, however, a majestic monument, and worthy of careful examination.† Strabo says (Bk. xvii., ch. i. 44) of this town and its inhabitants: "Next to Abydos is ... the city Tentyra, where the crocodile is held in peculiar abhorrence, and is regarded as the most odious of all animals. For the other Egyptians, although acquainted with its mischievous disposition, and hostility towards the human race, yet worship it, and abstain

* M. Mariette thought that a temple to Hathor existed at Denderah during the XIIth, XVIIIth and XIXth dynasties.

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+ Accessible comme il l'est aujourd'hui jusque dans la dernière de ses chambres, il semble se présenter au visiteur comme un livre qu'il n'a qu'à ouvrir et à consulter. Mais le temple de Dendérah est, en somme, un monument terriblement complexe. . . . Il faudrait plusieurs années pour copier tout ce vaste ensemble, et il faudrait vingt volumes du format (folio!) de nos quatre volumes de planches pour le publier." -Mariette, Denderah, Description Générale, p. 10.

from doing it harm. But the people of Tentyra track and destroy it in every way. Some, however, as they say of the Psyllians of Cyrenæa, possess a certain natural antipathy to snakes, and the people of Tentyra have the same dislike to crocodiles, yet they suffer no injury from them, but dive and cross the river when no other person ventures to do so. When crocodiles were brought to Rome to be exhibited, they were attended by some of the Tentyritæ. A reservoir was made for them with a sort of stage on one of the sides, to form a basking place for them on coming out of the water, and these persons went into the water, drew them in a net to the place, where they might sun themselves and be exhibited, and then dragged them back again to the reservoir. The people of Tentyra worship Venus. At the back of the fane of Venus is a temple of Isis; then follow what are called Typhoneia, and the canal leading to Coptos, a city common both to the Egyptians and Arabians." (Falconer's translation.)

On the walls and on various other parts of the temples are the names of several of the Roman Emperors; the famous portraits of Cleopatra and Cæsarion her son are on the end wall of the exterior. Passing along a dromos for about 250 feet, the portico, A, open at the top, and supported by twenty-four Hathor-headed columns, arranged in six rows, is reached. Leaving this hall by the doorway facing the entrance, the visitor arrives in a second hall, B, having six columns and three small chambers on each side. The two chambers C and D have smaller chambers on the right and left, E was the so-called sanctuary, and in F the emblem of the god worshipped in the temple was placed. From a room on each side of C a staircase led up to the roof. The purposes for which the chambers were used are stated by M. Mariette in his Denderah, Descrip. Gén. du Grand Temple de cette ville. On the ceiling of the portico is the