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was founded by the Empress Helena,* and there is in this

The church "is partly subterrecesses of an ancient stone

case no reason to doubt it. ranean, being built in the quarry; the other parts of it are of stone plastered over. The roof is flat and is formed of horizontal beams of palm trees, upon which a terrace of reeds and earth is laid. The height of the interior is about 25 feet. On entering the door we had to descend a flight of narrow steps, which led into a side aisle about ten feet wide, which is divided from the nave by octagon columns of great thickness supporting the walls of a sort of clerestory. The columns were surmounted by heavy square plinths almost in the Egyptian style. I consider this church to be interesting from its being half a catacomb, or cave, and one of the earliest Christian buildings which has preserved its originality..... it will be seen that it is constructed on the principle of a Latin basilica, as the buildings of the Empress Helena usually were." (Curzon, Monasteries of the Levant, p. 109.) In Curzon's time the convent possessed fifteen Coptic books with Arabic translations, and eight Arabic MSS. As the monks were, and are, extremely poor, they used to descend the rock and swim out to any passing boat to beg for charity; the Patriarch has forbidden this practice, but it is not entirely discontinued.

Abû Salih identifies Gebel al-Kaff, i.e., the 'Mountain of the Palm of the Hand,' with Gebel at-Têr, and records an interesting tradition concerning our Lord. According to this writer there is at this place the mark of the palm of His hand (hence the name) on the rock in the mountain out of which the church is hewn. The mountain is said to have bowed down in worship before Him, and He grasped the mountain as it worshipped, and set it back in its place, and the mark of His palm remains impressed upon it until

* Died about A.D. 328, aged 80. (Sozomen, Eccles. Hist., II., 2.)

this day. In the impression of the hand there is a small hole, large enough to admit a stibium needle, and if the needle be inserted and drawn out, it brings with it a black powder, the mark of which cannot be effaced.

Two or three miles from the convent are some ancient quarries having rock bas-reliefs representing Rameses III making an offering to the crocodile god Sebek Amen-Rã.

before

Minyah, or Minyà, 153 miles from Cairo, on the west bank of the Nile, is the capital of the province of the same name; its Arabic name is derived from the Coptic Mone, one, which in turn represents the Egyptian

in its old name Khufu-menat

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Ment

i.e., the Nurse of Khufu.' There is a large sugar el factory here, in which about 2,000 men are employed.

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few miles to the south of Minyà are a number of tombs which were excavated by Mr. George Fraser in 1893; they are near the ancient site now called Ţahna al-Gabal. These tombs are maṣṭabas cut in the solid rock. In all the undisturbed burials Mr. Fraser found that the body was placed with the head to the north; it lay on its left side, with the face to the east, the knees drawn up, and the arms straight, and a dome of stones and mud was built over each body. In one of the tombs the cartouches of Userkaf and Men-kau-Ra were found. In 1903 MM. G. Lefebure and Barry excavated the temple of Tahna which was, apparently, built in the reign of Nero, whose cartouches are found here in the following forms:

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The hypostyle hall contained eight columns, and was built close to the mountain, and was approached by a ramp ; in each wall was a door. The sanctuary consisted of four chambers hewn out of the rock; in the first was a rectangular well, or pit, which contained a black granite figure of Sekhet, and in the fourth was an altar. The hypostyle hall is 20 metres long, and 11 metres wide; the sanctuary, or speos, which is probably an ancient tomb, is about 28 nietres long. The ramp was 25 metres long and 7 metres wide, and had a row of statues on each side of it; half way up was a terrace 11 metres long, which extended to the right and left of the ramp. A few miles south, on the eastern side of the river, is the village of Zawiyet alMėtin, near which are the remains of some tombs of the VIth dynasty. They appear to be the tombs of the nobles of the city of Ḥebenu, the capital of the XVIth nome of Upper Egypt.

Beni-Hasân, 167 miles from Cairo, on the east bank of the Nile, is remarkable for the large collection of fine historical tombs which are situated at a short distance from the site of the villages known by this name. The villages of the 'Children of asân' were destroyed by order of Muhammad 'Ali, on account of the thievish propensities of their inhabitants. The Speos Artemidos is the first rock excavation visited here. It was built by Queen Hatshepset and her nephew Thothmes III.; about 250 years later Seti I. added his name to several of the half obliterated cartouches of Queen Hatshepset, but it seems never to have been finished. The cavern was dedicated to the lioness-headed goddess Pakheth

, who was

called Artemis by the Greeks; hence the name ' cavern of Artemis.' The Arabs call the cavern the 'Stable of 'Antar,' a famous Muḥammadan hero. The portico had originally two rows of columns, four in each; the cavern

is about 21 feet square, and the niche in the wall at the end was probably intended to hold a statue of Pakheth.

The famous Tombs of Beni-Hasân are hewn out of the living rock, and are situated high up in the mountain; they are about thirty-nine in number, and all open on a terrace, somewhat similar to the terrace outside the tombs at Aswân. Each tomb preserves the chief characteristics of the mastabas of Sakkâra, that is to say, it consists of a hall for offerings and a shaft leading down to a corridor, which ends in the chamber containing the sarcophagus and the mummy. The tombs were hewn out of a thick layer of fine, white limestone, and the walls were partly smoothed, and then covered with a thin layer of plaster, upon which the scenes in the lives of the wealthy men who ordered them to be made might be painted. Lower down the hill are some scores of mummy pits, with small chambers attached, wherein, probably, the poorer class of people who lived near were buried. Of the 39 tombs at Beni-Ḥasân only twelve contain inscriptions, but it is clear from these that the men who made the necropolis there were well-born, independent, and almost feudal proprietors of the land in the neighbourhood, who filled various high offices in the city of Menat-Khufu, which was situated not far off, and that they flourished during the XIth and XIIth dynasties. Of the twelve inscribed tombs, eight are of governors of the nome Meḥ, two are of princes of Menat-Khufu, one is of the son of a prince, and one is of a royal scribe. The 39 tombs were divided by Lepsius into two groups, northern and southern; in the former are 13 and in the latter 26 tombs. Six of the inscribed tombs belong to the reigns of Amenemḥāt I., Usertsen I., and Usertsen II., and the other six were probably made during the rule of the kings of the XIth dynasty. Tomb of Amenior Amenemḥāt

No. 2.

Ameni was the governor of the XVIth

nome of Upper Egypt, called Meḥ by the Egyptians and Antinoë by the Greeks, and he flourished in the reign of Usertsen I. He was by birth the hereditary prince of the district, and he held the rank of "ḥā" or "duke," and the office of priest to various gods and goddesses; he seems to have combined in his own person the offices of almost every high state official in the nome. Architecturally his tomb is of great interest, and it is instructive to find examples of the use of octagonal and polyhedral pillars in the same tomb; the shrine is at the east end of the hall, and two shafts, which lead to mummy chambers below, are on one side of it. The inscription shows that Ameni was buried in the 43rd year of the reign of Usertsen I., on the 15th day of the second month of the inundation, i.e., about the end of May; the feudal lords of the nome seem to have had an epoch of their own by which to reckon, for we are told that the 43rd year of Usertsen I. was the equivalent of "year 25 of the nome of Meh."

Åmeni makes an appeal to those who visit his tomb to pray that abundant funeral offerings may be made to his ka (ie., double), in these words:-"O ye who love life, and who hate death, say ye, 'Thousands of [cakes of] bread and [vessels of] beer, and thousands of oxen and feathered fowl be to the ka of the prince and duke* Ameni, triumphant.' He then goes on to say that he went with his lord to Ethiopia on an expedition against the peoples of that land, that he set the bounds of Egyptian territory further to the south, that he brought back tribute from the conquered peoples, and that there was no loss among his soldiers. His success was so great that his praise "ascended even into the heavens," and soon afterwards he sailed up the river with 400 chosen men on a second expedition to bring back gold for his lord; his mission was successful, and he was sent

* Here follow other titles.

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