The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1886-11-18
EGYPTIAN CITIES.
The Local History of Hundreds Of Once
Prosperous Towns Along the Nile.

The Local History of Hundreds of Once
Prosperous Towns Along the Nile.
Upon some spot of rising ground
above the level of the annual inunda.
ton few mud huts, cluster round a
rude sanctuary. The hut-dwellers null
tiply; the village spreads; the sanctuary
is enlarged or rebuilt. As time goes
on the village becomes a town; the
town becomes a city; and the temple,
enriched by successive generations OF
Kings, Governors and pious donors be.
comes a vast historical aggregate OF
chapels. halls, courts, avenues, pylons
and sacred enclosures. BY and by,
whether ravaged by foreign foes or
shatteredby some convulsion of nature,
the splendid structure falls into partial
ruin. Hereupon the degenerate princes
OF a later age, careless of the past and
eager to raise some memorial of their
own uneventful rule. lay profane hands
upon the monuments of their great
predecessors, cut them up for building
material and use them in the con-
struction of debased limitations of
earlier schools. This. process, in all
probability, is again and again re-
peated. Not merely stones9 but statues,
sphinxes, obelisks, are appropriated
and reappropriated, worked and re-
worked. till atlast there comes q time
of disruption and change, when the
old religion is abolished, and the I'M
ages of the gods are cast down, and the
very language of the Inscriptions is for
gotten. After this, the sacred places
become quarries for the builders of
Coptic churches, Arab MOSQUES and the
palaces of Turkish Governors. Mean
while the actual city, consisting OF
labyrinthine lanes Of mud built dwell
ings, gradually disappears. Ehe spa
| cious houses of the rich, the novels of
| the poor. crumble, collapse AMI resolve
| themselves into mounds of dust and
potsherds. Such is the local history of
hundreds of ancient Egyptian sites,
and such is the history of Tanis.
| A hundred years ago, the grave OF
this dead city was yetinyiolate. Then.
as now. the great sand island was
heaped high with desolate piles of red
dish brown rubbish. Then, as now,
those mounds enclosed a low, level
area of large extent Ike the bed of a
| dry lake, or the crater of an extinct
volcano. The traveller who-once, per-
| chance, in adecaie- those crum-
| bling slopes and looked down into that
area, beheld at his feet an undulating
waste enclosed by what at first sight
| looked like a quadrangular rampant Of
| earthworks, but which proved on closer
inspection, to be the remains of an ex-
traordinary massive wall built of sun
dried bricks. The space thus bounded
| was strewn with ruins.
Such was the aspect OF the place
when surveyed in 1873 by the engineers
of the great French expedition. Mean
while there was war in Egypt, in India,
in Europe, on land. on sea--universal
war, followed, in 1916, by universal
| peace. The rich, the learned, the
adventurous, the speculative, were
once more free to travel, and the world
was speedily overrun by tourists and
traders. The picture market and the
| antiquity market, both long dormant,
| started into new and vigorous life In
Egypt the soil was strewn with treas
ares which it was not only profitable
but praiseworthy to rescue from the
destructive propensities of native fell
laheen and Turkish Pashas. A host of
depredators laid hands accordingly
upon every movable, object within
their reach, and the collections so
amassed were sold for enormous sums
to crowned heads and wealthy rirtaosi.
Thus were founded the great Egyptian
galleries of our European museums
Amelia B. Edaoards, IN Harper's Mag.
| azine.