Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 92, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 April 1916 — Cyclopean Mystary of Abydos [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Cyclopean Mystary of Abydos

Excavations made several years ago at Abydos by the Egypt exploration fund led to the discovery of a building which is unique In its kind, and which is probably one of the most ancient constructions preserved in Egypt. It consists of a great pool with porches, called Strabo’s well, and the so-called tomb of Osiris. It is situated behind the western wall of the temple built by Seti I, which has been the chief attraction of Abydos for travelers. It was entirely subterranean, at a depth of more than thirty feet below the temple, and nothing revealed its existence. The building, as described by Edouard Naville, director of the excavation, consists of a rectangle, the inside of which is about a hundred feet long and sixty wide. The two long sides are north and south. The inclosure wall is twenty feet thick. It consists of two casings; the outer .one is limestone rather roughly worked; the inner one is in beautiful masonry of red quartzite sandstone. The joints are very fine; there Is only a very thin stratum of mortar, which is hardly perceptible. Here and there the thick knob has been left which was used for moving the stones. The blocks are very large—a length of fifteen feet Is by no means rare; and the whole structure has decidedly the character of the primitive constructions which in Greece are called cyelopean, and an Egyptian example of which is at Ghizeh, the so-called temple of the Sphinx. This colossal character is still more striking In the inner part. It is divided into three naves or aisles of unequal size—the middle one being wider: - These naves are separated by two colonnades of square monolithic pillars in granite about fifteen feet high and eight and one-half feet square. There are five of them in each colonnade. They supported architraves in proportion with them, their height being more than six feet. These architraves and the inclosure wkll supported a ceiling, also of granite monoliths, which was not made of slabs but of blocks, like the architraves, more than six feet thick. It has been calculated that one of the few of them remaining weighs more than thirty tons. Unfortunately, In one corner only has the ceiling been preserved. The whole building has been turned into a quarry, especially the inside, which was entirely granite. Pillars, architraves, ceiling, everything has been broken and split with wedges, traces of which are seen everywhere, in order to make millstones of various sizes. Several of them, weighing seven or eiight tons, have been left. Peculiar Design of Pool. The side aisles only, about ten feet wide, had ceilings. It is doubtful whether the middle nave was roofed.

It was, perhaps, only covered at the end over the entrance to the “tomb of Osiris.” When tire work reached the lower layers of the inclosure wall, a very extraordinary discovery was made. In this wall, all around the structure, are cells about six feet high agd wide, all exactly alike, without any ornament or decoration. They had doors, probably made of wood, with a single leaf; one can see the holes" where they 'turned. Such cfills are not seen in any other Egyptian construction. What was still more surprising is that they do not open on to a floor, hut on to a narrow ledge which ran on both sides of the nave. There was no floor in those aisles; under the ledge, which is slightly projecting, the

beautiful masonry goeß on, and at a depth of twelve feet water was reached. It is at the level of the infiltration water in the cultivated land, though the structure is in the desert. Thus the two aisles and the two ends of the middle nave form a continuous rectangular pool, the sides of whjch are very fine masonry of large blocks. How much deeper the wall goes than the present level of the water, it is difficult to say. The middle nave is a block of masonry also made of enormous stones, whjch goes down as deep as the water, and on which rest the pillars of the colonnades. The floor Is at the same level as that of the cells and of the ledge. This platform is an island; it could be reached only with a small boat or by a wooden bridge; there is water on the four sides.—Even in front of the doorway there is only the ledge; there is no pathway of any kind leading to it. On both sides —east and west —there are two staircases leading from the platform to the water.

Tomb of Osiris. The tomb of Osiris is of a later date than the pool with its cells. It dates from the time of Seti I, the grandfather of Menephtah, who probably made it when he built his temple. As for the pool, It Is probably one of the most ancient constructions which have been preserved In Egypt. It Is exactly In the style of the so-called temple of the Sphinx, which is a work of the Fourteenth dynasty, and one of the characteristic features of which Is the total absence of any inscription or ornament. But the pool Is even more colossal. In the'-temple of the Sphinx the pillars are four feet square; here they are eight -and onehalf. It is impossible, in spite of the havoc made, especially in the southern aisle, not to be struck by the majestic simplicity of the structure, chiefly in the. comer where the ceiling has remained. Besides, this construction of a character quite unknown at present raises many questions which further excavations will, perhaps, solve. Was the pool in connection with the worship of Osiris? Did the sacred boat of the god float on the water? Since the boats of the gods are always towed with ropes, the ledge on both sides would be a very appropriate path for the priests who did it. What were the cells made for? Were they reproductions of those which the Book of the Dead describes as being in the celestial house of Osiris? Was the water supposed to have a curative effect; was It an Egyptian pool of Bethesda? As for the water itself, It must have been stored for some purpose. The enormous ceilings must have been made in order to prevent evaporation. Is it to be imagined that the old Egyptians made such ,an enormous construo-

tlon merely for infiltration water? There Is no doubt that it Is what Is called Strabo’s well, which he describes as being below the temple, and like the Labyrinth at Hawara, but on smaller proportidns, and with passages covered 'by big monoliths. Was there a canal coming from the Nile, as the Greek geographer says? or was the pool filled by the subterranean sheet pf water which flows jurder the desert, the so-called underground Nile which Is now being neers of Egypt? Theae are a few questions which arise from this discovery.

DESERT CART AND MOSOUE

STRABO'S WELL AND TOMEB OF OSIRIS