EXCAVATIONS IN EGYPT

Evening Star, Issue 19197, 13 March 1926, Page 24

EXCAVATIONS IN EGYPT

HOW HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF The first two months of the present excavating season have been a fruitful time at Sakkara, where the Department of Antiquities is continuing the work, begun two years ago, of investigating the area surrounding the Step Pyramid (writes the Cairo correspondent of ‘ The Times ’). The Stop Pyramid, the oldest stone building in the world, and the tomb of King Zoser (third dynasty) is enclosed by a well 500yds long by 300yds wide, and the work which Mr G. M. Firth, of the Department of Antiquities, has for tho last three years been engaged upon consists in the excavation of the whole of this enclose'd area. Last year the temple built to commemorate the thirtyryear jubilee of King Zoser was brought to light, and this season operations have been carried on to the south and west of that temple. Here has been found a beautiful colonnade, about 85yds long, which appears to have formed the main entrance to the pyramid enclosure, as it is situated at the nearest point to the valley. There are forty-eight columns of white limestone, arranged in pairs. The columns were originally over five metres high and are one metre in diameter at the base. The shafts are not fluted, like those found nearly two seasons ago, but are carved to imitate a bundle of reeds. IMITATION DOORS. Tho east and west ends of the colonnade are not closed, but have curious imitation doors carved in the masonry of the walls, in imitation of wooden doors swung open. At the eastern entrance a considerable length of the exterior limestone casing of tho great enclosure wall has been uncovered. This wall, once perhaps 23ft high, is built in a pattern of panelled bays, in imitation of a mudbrick fortress of the archaic period, fhcro are projecting towers similar to those built' in fortress walls to enable archers to shoot down upon enemies immediately below. In one of the hays or spaces between tbo columns of the colonnade were found two heads in diorite representing foreign prisoners. These heads (which make the third and fourth found on this exclusively third dynasty site) are in the stylo of the now so-called Hyksos statues, which are now generally considered to be of the Middle Kingdom. The discovery of four heads at different points on a site in which everything may he ascribed with certainty to tho third dynasty makes it possible that these curious sculptures may be of very early date. The colonnade is the work of Imhotep, the first known architect, who was afterwards canonised and worshipped as the patron saint of wise men, scribes, etc. AN OLD COMPLAINT. On the floor of one of the rooms to the north of the colonnade and between it and the great temple excavated last year was found a letter, probably of the sixth dynasty, as with it were fragments of accounts of the building of the Pyramids of Merenre and Pepi 11. The letter is on papyrus, and is a complaint to the AVam’r’s office from the officer in charge of troops’ at Turn, near Cairo, that the men under him had been sent to receive their clothing and had been kept waiting for six days before the issue was made. This letter, forty-five centuries old, from the Tura company commander, has a curiously modern’ ring to anyone who has had experience of on orderly room or a quartermaster’s office.

On a wall near by is the record left by a tourist, eleven centuries before Christ, who stated in a fair, round hand that ho had given himself a holiday and had come to see the wonders or Sakkara, after having spent several years in campaigning, of which lie was the only survivor of his troop, ft is*an interesting coincidence that the Antiquities Department, when recently clearing an altar in a little-used temple at Sakkara, found the roughly cut inscription of a trooper in the Australian Light Horse, who, recording tho date of his visit, on leave after the armistice, went on to say that ho was the sola member of bis snuadnan who had come scathlesa through the campaigns of Gallipoli, Egypt, and Palestine. Ancient Egyptian, in 1100 n. 0., and Antipodean Anglo-Saxon in A.n. 1919, having gone through similar experiences, felt impelled to leave for posterity almost identical records. In'a “ serclab ” (in which the “Ha,” guardian spirit or double, of the deceased was buried) of an early fifth dynasty “ mastaba ” (tomb buildings! were found no loss than thirteen wooden statues and statuettes in a very fair state of preservation. Of these one of the most interesting is an IBin figure of a hunchbacked dwarf, the living original of which was doubtless a favorite in the household of tho unknown occupant of the tomb —long since rifled of mummy and everything else excepting the statues—in which the effigy was found.