The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-07-05

lighting now and again on a little libra
~ or record official or at least on the torn
remains of some of the rolls they con-
tained once, not thought worthy to be
taken when the town was abandoned
There remains also to be added the chance
OF finding in the tombs a papyrus intact
between the knees of the dead or serv-
ing for his pillow, or even broken up and
But so thoroughly have the cemeteries
been plundered in antiquity, and so often
do the graves lie in damp salt strata, that
experience has shown the towns them
selves to be the happier hunting grounds
The native dealers Of Cairo and Medinet
el Fayum have long known the safe and
easy sources of spoil, and have worked
for the benefit Of European museums un-
regarded and with no obligation to keep or
publish records. Mr.. Petr-e alone has eX-
plotted any part of the Fayum desert with
a scientific object, but his efforts were
confined to that corner where the Bahr
Yusuf breaks through the Nile valley.
The topography of all the rest of the cir
Gle remained unknown, and the miscellan-
GUS collections Of Fayum papyri in Cairo,
Vienna, Berlin, Paris, and London have
lost half their interest and value from the
uncertainty as TO exactly where or how
they had been found II has been re-
served to the English society. the Egypt
Exploration fund.- to obtain the first pre-
else scientific facts about these papyrus
boards and the first additions to our
Gent Fayum.
In December last the representatives
of the society, Mr.. d. G. Hograth and Mr.
B. p. Grenfell, having obtained the con-
cession of a long strip of the northern
desert fringe, went down into the Fayum
and settled on the two largest mounds
east of the lake, called by the natives
Kun Ushim and Kun el Quatl q. e.
Mound of Murder'O. To this region
the desert routes from the north, wheth-
A - -.
phis, must have conVerged on their way
to Arsinoe or the Lesser Oasis, and it
was not long before the eXcaVatOrs dis
covered from the papyrus documents
which were unearthed in the second
mound that they We're in fact on the site
of Bacchias, a town set by Ptolemy las
Bacchis) on the desert road from Alex
andria, and cOnjecturally placed hither-
to by topographers in all localities but
this. In like manner the first named
mound was determined to be Karans
a name read more often on Fayum papy-
ri than any other, except Arsinoe, and that
of the city which lies a Dimeh, but ow-
ing to the absence of any record of the
provenance of those papyri never until
now identified with any site.
Karanis showed abundant evidence of
the plundering which had produced these
papyri, and 1t yielded far less to the ex-
piorers this winter than Bacchis, but
from its tombs came rather unexpected
loose on the sand, of which one is in
Latin, the rarest of all scripts on papy-
rus, and three contain portions of Greek
literary prose texts not yet identified
with any known author. Furthermore
there were many scraps of Homer, and
such were found also at Bacchis, but
these last were exceptions to the rule
of non-hterary documents prevailing
there.
BY way of compensation, however, the
diggers of Kun el Qat were rewarded
with two fragments of peculiar impor-
lance. The first contains a large part of
rescript Of an emperor, probably Commo-
dus, addressed apparently to all prov
inces and cities of his empire The text
is beautifully penned by a local scribe
with very deficient knowledge of Greek
photography. The second (also second
century, purports to be a letter written
by the Emperor Hadrian to friends on
the subject of his own approaching death
The, fragment seems to be a schoolbov's
copy of some once well known text Pal
aeographers, rather than the general pub
lie, will welcome the Intelligence that a
great many documents and fragments of
documents have been found dated to the
frst century B. c., a period of which
hardly any papyri exist. The most part
were found in a chamber of the temnle
of the LEGAL god of Bacchis, discovered
and dug out this year, and among Them
are two little complete petitions address
ed 20 the god, whereof one seems to con-
eoll TIC piaSe u some lOVe-IOrn maiden
fearful that her beloved one may slim
through her hands and depart from the
city. Less pleasing, but always of great
interest 10 the student of ancient life,
are the mass of legal documents. memo,
randa, letters, and the like which these
TWO towns have yielded. So many were
found IN one spot at Kun el Oatl thar n
appears probable that the situation of Inc
local record office, or at least of the ont
pouflhss OF lis official waste-paper has
kets, was found
Hon. Joseph H. Choate has been elect
ed president of the Harvard law school as