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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text
Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 Excerpt: ... 163 M 2 Messaurat El Naga. Some four hours'' journey north of this, the road leads through a ravine to the ruins of Messaurat. Lepsius explains that this word is Nubian for walls adorned with pictures and is applied to all the remains of cities hereabouts. The country is covered with grass and bushes and is good land. Hoskins passed the ancient bed of a canal for storing rain water, for it is high to receive the Nile. Lepsius saw in various places, cisterns then empty, made to store up the water, for this region has its rainy season. Messaurat possesses immense remains of antiquity, one group of ruins alone measures nearly o,000 feet around its square enclosure. Lepsius thinks it is not of very high antiquity, but evidently did not spend much time on its investigation. The temples here have tasteful columns of novel design, and must have been very beautiful. The little temple at Messaurat has pillars with sculptures of riders on lions and elephants, and although Lepsius, who was in search for Egyptian art, calls them barbaric, the work shows much good taste and free original treatment. The huge artificial cistern here called Wot Mahemut must have stored up an enormous quantity of water and the country requires to revert to the ancient means to restore its fertility. The bricks are frequently found to have been burnt in these regions, to stand the heavy tropical rains. Not one of these canals and cisterns is now put to any use, they seem to have been neglected for centuries. Wadi El Sufra. The mountain chain which Lepsius calls Jebel el Naga has to be followed for two hours in a northward direction, until we come to a ravine, opening into a more elevated valley, el Siledia, which widens out and is overgrown with grass and ...
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