the desert are greater than might be supposed. There is no vegetation
to stop and absorb the rain, the ground is excessively hard, and all
that does not immediately sink into the soil runs rapidly down into
the larger watercourses, and forms in a few hours a deep and broad
stream. Such a storm occurred three years ago at El Kab, and the
inhabitants tell us that, for two days, a tributary stream entered
the Nile there. The railway engineers have had to provide for the
recurrence of such spates.
25. The foundation deposits may be considered together. They came from
two temples--the large one within the walls, and the small temple of
Thothmes III, which lies to the north of the town, and west of the
hill of Paheri. In the latter the deposits were very numerous for so
small a temple (_v._ PL. XXVI). Under each corner of the main wall was
one of the little pits filled with sand, which have now become so
familiar, and at a metre's distance along the side wall was another
and larger deposit. The pits were about ·60 m. in diameter; in two,
there was at the bottom a recess, filled with the small cups of brown
clay. The objects are all closely similar to those found in the other
deposits of this reign at Koptos and Nubt. One shape of pot, however
(XXI, 14), has not been seen in a foundation deposit before, and the
flat tiles (15 cm. long) of blue glaze, one in each deposit, must be
mentioned. All the deposits were carefully unearthed, and the position
of the different objects noted, but there was no obvious design in the
arrangement.
The deposits found under the great temple are of more interest; those
of Amenhotep II, under walls covered with inscriptions of Rameses II,
give one more instance of the latter's usurpations. Deposits of two
other distinct classes contained no inscriptions of kings' names, and
cannot be dated. Their position is shown in the very rough sketch of
the plan of the temple in PL. I.
The contents of the different deposits is given below:--
N. 1. A polygonal sandstone mortar (XXI, 46), twenty small cups (43),
three small round dishes, three taller pots (44), flat tablets of red
and green glass, a bronze pan (30), five long glass beads (38), the
green glaze figure (29) like a small ushabti, a small green glaze
model of an ox with the legs tied together, the bronze models (33, 34,
35), a tile of dull green glaze, a model clay brick, a small piece of
bitumen, and a piece of resin which burns with a smell like myrrh.
N. 4. Sandstone mortar, eye in green glaze (28), the other objects as
in N. 1, but with the addition of tablets of calcite and lead.
N. 5. contained the glaze block (40), a bronze knife, a little brick
of myrrh, and pottery, as in the others.
N. 2. and N. 3. consisted each of a single object, one a small oblong
block of iron 1-1/2 inch long, and the other a tablet of blue frit
(like 37).
These last two deposits clearly do not belong to the same builder as
the rest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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