The Magnolia gazette. [volume] (Magnolia, Miss.) 1872-current, 1883-02-15
Historical Egtntinn Mounds.

II is fact that no Egypt an mound
has ever been Systematically eXcavated
---eXcavated, thar is 10 say, in the careful,
thorough, scientific way in which tine
Germans have g ne to work at Olympia
and Df Schliemann at Hissarlik Yet
a well-ch sen Egyptian m und would
yield results more varie | and more uni
versally interesting than any Greek, or
Trojan, or even Assyrian site. Not
many of even those who are in gen
eral way acquainted with Egyptian an
tiquity have probably any clear idea OF
the constituent parts tho geological
strata, so to speak-of the typical
Egyptian mound. Yet that mound, as
we will endeavor to sketch it, is in itse
an epitome OF 1.-THE Egypt OF the past
We may suppose it TO be situate in the
Delta-possibly in the old land of Go
shen, where there are many such--and
to have been founded about the time of
the Twelfth Dynasty. Some natural
elevation having been chosen for its
site, temple would first be erected to
the local divinity; and round the enclos-
ing wall OF this temple the houses of
the first inhabitants would spring up.
Like the h )uses of the modern Egyp-
bricks dried in the sum but the temple
was of enduring stone. Easily built
and easily replaced, the crude brick
dwellings were constantly falling out Of
repair, being leveled to the ground,
trodden upon, and rebuilt with the same
materials whereby n higher elevation
was each time obtained for the new
foundations. In country sub ect to
4t,,, Il zl,,
garded as an advantage. Thus, in the
course Of ages, what was originally
rising ground was converted into a lofty
hill; and the houses of the townsfoll1-
uplifted, as it were, upon coral reef
made by human hands-rose so high
that the temple stood in q hollow
in the middle of the city, rs if built in
the crater Of an extinct volcano.
Such was the condition of Bubastis
when visited by Herodotus in the fifth
century b. C. AS time went on, and
the last native dynasties expired, and
the period of Greek rule arrived, our
town still increased as to size and
height, and threw out new suburbs.
The Ptolemies probably added to the
temple, and perhaps built two or three
subsidiary chapels. Then came the
Roman period, and the i1trodu ton OF
Christianity; and, by and by, when the
| old national religion was finally pro-
scribed, the Coptic priests, then called
mono hysites, converted the ortico of
the temple into Christian church. The
town now quickly overilowed into the
old sacerdotal. pre- incts. Mud huts
were plastered against sculptured walls,
and between painted columns; and the
ground began TO rise in and about the
temple, just rs it had previously risen
on side the enclosure. Ere long the
priests, tired Of living in a pit, decided
to build a dayr, or convent, with n
many-domed church, in one Of the
suburbs So the temple was partly
pulled down to provide materials for
this dayr, and its iuins (now the poor
est and most crowded quarter Of The
town. became gradually choked within
and without At last ii was altogether
buried, and its very site forgotten. A
few centuries later the town is de.
vastated by some calamity of plague OF
war, and after an existence Of, perhaps,
$500 years, is deserted. In course OF
time even the crude brick. ruins OF its
latest habtations crumble away. or are
demolished for "top di essing' by the
husbandmen round about. So the town
ends by becoming a mere congeries OF
brown mounds, desolate, unsightly, and
strewn with innumerabe potsherds.
Such being the history of our mound,
nothing is easier than to predict what
may be found in it. The excavator
sinks vertical trench in the keliest
part of the mass, and this trench uts
through the relics OF 120 generations OF
men. II is not one town that's thus laid
open, but an immense succession OF
towns in superimposed strata a Coptic
town at the top, town of the Twelfth
D. nasty THAT is, of the time of Abra-
ham or thereabout) at the bottom. =
London Times.