The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-07-02

eOnD OF the king VINO constructor uhe
Labyrinth. After proceeding beyond the
first entrance OF the canal about thirty or
forty stadia there is table-shaped plain,
with village and large palace composed
OF as many palaces as there were formerly
homes. = y At the end of this building,
which occupies more than stadium, is the
tomb, which is quadrangular pyramid,
each side of which is about four plethra in
length and of equal hight. Book XVII,
chap. L., section 81"
So also Herodotus. at the end of his fam
GUS description of this marvellous building,
which in his opinion surpassed all the great
est works of the Greeks expressly says:
AT the corner of the Labyrinth stands
pyramid 40 fathoms high, with large fig
ures engraved on it, which is entered by
subterranean passage" Book H., CHAP.
14S)
Here, then, was table land; and here,
on the verge of the table land, was the
pyramid. Stripped of the stone casing
with which it must have been covered
when Herodotus saw it engraved with
Large figures" it still answered, without
more discrepancy than might be allowed
for surface loss, to the measurement given
by Strabo That is to say, the four plethra
OF the Greek geographer equal 400 feet, and
the present dimensions of the square of the
pyramid are about 34S feet each way. SO
Mr.. Petrie decided to lay siege to the place
by opening the pyramid and excavating be-
low the Roman remains in the table land. !"
The results OF this last test We're extremely
interesting. The Roman houses proved to
have been built upon foundation composed
OF mass of the finest white limestone
chips, clearly the debris of some vast build
ing Digging through this debris, Mr.. Pet
| RE everywhere discovered below the chips
most carefully prepared foundation-such
foundation as was never dreamed of i'll
Rameseslde tlmeS-consisting i'll some places
OF kind of concrete made of rammed
stone chips, and in other places of clean,
leveled sand. He then tracked out to the
edges of the site, and ascertained that the
building must have covered an i'm
mense area Of some forty OF fifty acres in
extent. LepSius was correct as to the site, but
wrong as to the ruins; and it is now clear
that, after having served for many centu
rles as quarry for the architects of Medi
net-el-Fayum, the most renowned build
ing of all antiquity has so utterly persisted
that only its foundation remains to meas
ure its greatness.
Mr.. Petrie has also explored a vast ceme-
terry, hitherto unknown and untouched,
which he discovered in the immediate
neighborhood. 1t proved to be entirely of
the Greek and Gr8co-Roman period, and
must have been the metropolis of the town
built over the site of the Labyrinth. The
graves reach to no great depth below the
surface. He has exhumed many hundreds
of mummies, and found an extraordinary
number of interesting objects buried with
the dead, as funeral vases in alabaster ter
ra-cotta and glass; toilet ornaments, tools,
toys, coins Chiefly Roman), amulets, mir
rors, beads, moulds, a casket with panels of
carved ivory, hundreds of fragmentary pa
pyri, consisting mainly of lists and ac-
counts; a great store of funeral wrappings
of beautiful embroidered and woven tex
tiles; and, most interesting of all, SPLEEN
did fragment of the Second Book of the Had,
written on papyrus in the finest Greek hand
before the rounded uncial or cursive scripts
came into use. This precious document
was found rolled up under the head of
mummy. The date of the manuscript is
about the second or third century
The mummies found i'll this cemetery are,
as usual, of all classes, some parts being
crowded with poor interments and others
reserved for the tombs of the rich. By far
the most valuable possessions which these
good Egyptians of Roman time carried
with them to their graves were their por-
traits-portraits painted on panel, the pig
ments being laid on with a wax medium,
and in many instances as fresh as the day
they left the easel of the artist. OF these
Mr.. Petrie has found no less than sixty
men and women youths and maidens, and
children of both sexes; some admirably free
and bold in treatment, some delicately and
even infinitely finished, others stiff and
hard, thus showing the work of various
hands, and testifying to the existence of
local school of art in this remote provin-
cial town of upper Egypt which can have
been little, if at all, inferior to the contem-
poraneous schools of Rome and Pompeii.
Twelve of the finest of these portraits have
been claimed by NJ. Grebaut for the Bou-
lax museum; but among the forty-eight
which Mr.. Petrie brings to England are
some very beautiful specimens. The best
of these, together with a large number of
the richest gllded mummies and many hun
dreds of interesting antiquities from the
Havana cemetery, will, it is understood, be
exhibited in London during the present
season.