famous "Zodiac," which was thought to have been made in ancient Egyptian times; the Greek inscription=A.D. 35,

south of the temple of Hathor, and consists of three chambers and a corridor; near by is a pylon which was dedicated to Isis in the 31st year of Cæsar Augustus.

The Mammisi, Per-mestu, or “house of giving birth,” also built by Augustus, is the name given to the celestial dwelling where the goddess was supposed to have brought forth the third person of the triad which was adored in the temple close by.

The Typhonium stands to the north of the Temple of Hathor, and was so named because the god Bes figures of whom occur on its walls, was confused with Typhon; it measures about 120 feet × 60 feet, and is surrounded by a peristyle of twenty-two columns.

The Temple of Denderah was nearly buried among the rubbish which centuries had accumulated round about it, and a whole village of wretched mud-huts actually stood upon the roof! The excavation of this fine monument was undertaken and completed by M. Mariette, who published many of the texts and scenes inscribed upon its walls in his work mentioned above.

The crocodile was worshipped at Kom Ombo, and Juvenal gives an account of a fight which took place between the people of this place and those of Denderah, in which one of the former stumbled, while running along, and was caught by his foes, cut up, and eaten.

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A few miles beyond Denderah, on the east bank of the river, lies the town of Kuft, the 4 Qebt of the hieroglyphics, and KeчT of the Copts; it was the principal city in the Coptites nome, and was the Thebaïs Secunda of the Itineraries. From Koft the road which crossed the desert to Berenice on the Red Sea started, and the merchandise which passed through the town from the east, and the stone from the famous porphyry quarries in the Arabian desert must have made it wealthy and important. It held the position of a port on the Nile for merchandise from a very early period; and there is no doubt that every Egyptian

king who sent expeditions to Punt, and the countries round about, found Ķuft most usefully situated for this purpose. A temple dedicated to the ithyphallic god Amsu, Isis and Osiris, stood here. It was nearly destroyed by Diocletian A.D. 292. A copy of a medical papyrus in the British Museum states that the work was originally discovered at Coptos during the time of Cheops, a king of the IVth dynasty; it is certain then that the Egyptians considered this city to be of very old foundation.

Kûs, 425 miles from Cairo, on the east bank of the Nile, marks the site of the city called Apollinopolis Parva by the Greeks, and Qeset by the Egyptians. ୪୪

To the

west of the city stood the monastery of Saint Pisentius, who flourished in the VIIth century, and the well of water which is said to have been visited by our Lord and the Virgin Mary and Joseph; the Copts built numbers of churches in the neighbourhood.

Nakâdah, 428 miles from Cairo, on the west bank of the river, nearly opposite the island of Mațarah, was the home of a large number of Copts in early Christian times, and several monasteries were situated there. The four which now remain are dedicated to the Cross, St. Michael, St. Victor, and St. George respectively, and tradition says that they were founded by the Empress Helena; the most important of them is that of St. Michael. The church in this monastery "is one of the most remarkable Christian structures in Egypt, possessing as it does some unique peculiarities. There are four churches, of which three stand side by side in such a manner that they have a single continuous western wall. Two of the four have an apsidal haikal with rectagular side chapels, while the other two are entirely rectangular; but the two apses differ from all other apses in Egyptian churches by projecting... beyond the

eastern wall and by showing an outward curvature. They form a solitary exception to the rule that the Coptic apse is merely internal, and so far belong rather to Syrian architecture than to Coptic. The principal church shows two. other features which do not occur elsewhere in the Christian buildings of Egypt, namely, an external atrium surrounded with a cloister, and a central tower with a clerestory . . . . Possibly the same remark may apply to the structure of the iconostasis, which has two side-doors and no central entrance, though this arrangement is not quite unparalleled in the churches of Upper Egypt, and may be a later alteration. It will be noticed that the church has a triple western entrance from the cloisters." (Butler, Ancient Coptic Churches of Egypt, Vol. I., p. 361.) In 1897 M. de Morgan carried on some important excavations here, and discovered a large number of pre-historic tombs, and the tomb of a king called Āḥa, who has, by some, been identified with Menȧ, the first king of the Ist dynasty.

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LUXOR (EL-UKṢUR) AND THEBES.

Luxor, 450 miles from Cairo, on the east bank of the river, is a small town with a few thousand inhabitants, and owes its importance to the fact that it is situated close to the ruins of the temples of the ancient city of Thebes. The name Luxor is a corruption of the Arabic name of the place, El-Ukşûr, which means "the palaces." "the palaces." Ancient Thebes stood on both sides of the Nile, and was generally called in hieroglyphics, Uast; that part of the city which was situated on the east bank of the river, and included the temples of Karnak and Luxor, appears to have been called Apet,* whence the Coptic TM & П€

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and the name Thebes have been derived. The cuneiform inscriptions and Hebrew Scriptures call it No (Ezek. xxx. 14) and No-Amon† (Nahum iii. 8), and the Greek and Roman writers Diospolis Magna. When or by whom Thebes was founded it is impossible to say. Diodorus says that it is the most ancient city of Egypt; some say that, like Memphis, it was founded by Menes, and others, that it was a colony from Memphis. It is certain, however, that it did not become a city of the first importance until after the decay of Memphis, and as the progress of Egyptian civilization was from north to south, this is only what was to be expected. During the early dynasties no mention is made of Thebes, but we know that as early as the XIIth dynasty some kings were buried there.

The spot on which ancient Thebes stood is SO admirably adapted for the site of a great city, that it *I.e., "throne city."

In Revised Version, =

Nut-Amen.