these reach up to her neck; she is in the attitude with which all are familiar from the vignette in the last section of the Ani Papyrus. On her head she wears the head-dress of Hathor, i.e., the lunar disk and two feathers. No cow of such beautiful workmanship and such size has hitherto been discovered, and it is probably the first time that a goddess has been found undisturbed in her sanctuary. Beneath her is a kneeling figure of the king as a boy, whom she is suckling, and standing under

Behind the head

her head we see the king as a grown-up man. of the cow is the cartouche of Amen-hetep II, the son of Thothmes III, whose sculptures cover the walls. The authorities in Cairo were at once informed of this important discovery, and soldiers arrived the same night to guard the "find." As soon as possible both the cow, symbol of Hathor, and her shrine were removed to Cairo, and the monument has been established in a suitable place in the Museum.

The Subterranean Sanctuary at Dêr al-Baḥarî.The account of the clearing out of this Sanctuary and the corridor which leads to it is best given in the words of Prof. Naville the discoverer :

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"In the open court of the temple of Menthu-hetep which we reached in 1906 we stopped at the entrance of a sloping passage extending down "below the pavement, and the door of which was obstructed by heaps of enormous stones and rubbish. We left the clearing of it for 1907, and 66 we entered it at the end of March. It is a well-cut rock tunnel, which goes down quite straight for about 500 feet. On more than half of its length it is vaulted: two sandstone blocks leaning against each other at "the top, and cut in the form of an arch, rest on the rock and on walls of 'dry stones erected on both sides. Except at the entrance, where there 66 was a pile of stones, the passage was free. Between the two walls there was a path sufficiently wide for a man to go down. At the end of the "tunnel there is a room of granite made of big blocks extremely well 'joined, like the chambers in the pyramids. The door was blocked by a 66 stone. One might have expected that this chamber was a tomb, but it "seems clear that it had a different purpose. The greatest part of it is occupied by a great alabaster shrine, made of large blocks of that "beautiful stone. Except a cornice and a moulding, it has no sculpture or ornament of any kind. The ceiling is made of an enormous mono"lithic red granite slab, over which comes again alabaster. This shrine 66 was empty except for a few well-cut black granite stones, which were part of a casing inserted between the shrine and the walls of the chamber. "In my opinion this shrine was a sanctuary; it was the abode of the ka, as the Egyptians called the double or the image of the King, which was represented by a statue now destroyed. In front of the shrine there was a heap of broken wooden figures, fragments of furniture, and a quantity "of cloth in which must have been wrapped offerings, or perhaps "mummified animals, also a few small pieces of bones said to be human. "But there was no trace of a wooden or stone coffin, no definite evidence "of a burial. That is the reason why I consider this shrine as a sanctuary. "This agrees with a decree found on a large stele at the entrance of the passage, in which a successor of Menthu-hetep, of the following dynasty, "orders that for what he calls' the cave of Menthu-hetep' should be provided "every day food and drink, and whenever a bull should be slaughtered in "the great temple of Amon, roast meat should be brought to that cave. "These offerings are those of a god or of the King adored as such; they are not funerary. It must have been a place where priests had frequently "to descend, since an arch was made over the passage evidently after the "chamber and shrine had been finished. There would have been no 66 reason for arching a passage leading to a closed funereal chamber. The "shrine, which is 11 feet long, 7 feet wide, and 8 feet high, is striking by "its fine architecture, and the beautiful material out of which it is made. "It would be extremely difficult to remove it to a museum. It would be

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an expensive work, also somewhat dangerous. Besides, in a large hall "it would by no means produce the same effect as it does in its subter66 ranean granite chamber. It will remain for the present in its deep hiding place. The passage will be closed by a door, so that people "specially interested in Egyptian architecture may reach it; for it is not "advisable for tourists to go in, nor would they much enjoy it. As it is, it

"has added a new feature to the temple of the XIth dynasty, which has "been so rich in unexpected architectural discoveries. The platform, the "pyramid issuing out of a colonnade, the hypostyle hall, the subterranean sanctuary, form a whole of a nature quite unique among Egyptian temples.' (Times, April 9th, 1907.)

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8. Dêr al-Madînat.-The temple built in this place. owes its name to the Coptic Dêr, or Monastery, which stood near here when Thebes was the home of a flourishing Coptic community, and was dedicated to Saint Paul of Pikolol, of whom, however, nothing is known. The monastery must have contained a society of considerable size, for it is said to have possessed two stewards. The small Egyptian temple which stands between the Colossi and Madînat Habû, was begun by Ptolemy IV, Philopator, and continued by Ptolemy VII, Philometor, and finished by Ptolemy IX, Euergetes II. It is built of the ordinary sandstone of the district, and though in many respects it resembles most of the funeral temples built by the Ptolemies, it is a beautiful little example of its class. appears to have been dedicated to more than one of the goddesses of the underworld, but Hathor was regarded as its tutelary deity. The capitals of some of the columns are Hathor-headed, and over the doorway of the large chamber are the heads of the Seven Hathors, who, in their forms of cows, supplied the deceased with food in the underworld. In one of the chambers is a relief representing the Judgment Scene, which forms the Vignette of the CXXVth Chapter of the Book of the Dead. The chief interest of the scene here is that it proclaims the nature of the building, and proves how anxious the Ptolemies were officially to adopt and to maintain the principal religious views of the Egyptians. The temple was much visited by travellers in ancient times, as the number of names written on the walls testify, and by both Greeks and Copts it was regarded as very holy.

9. The principal cemeteries at Thebes are:- (1) Drah Abu'l-Nakkah, which lies between the Temple of Seti I and the Temple of Dêr al-Baḥarî. Tombs were made here under the Ancient Empire, and many objects of the VIth dynasty have been It was a favourite burial ground under recovered from them. the Middle Empire, and many officials of the XIth, XIIth, The coffins of the and XVIIIth dynasties were buried here. Antef kings (XIth dynasty), now in the Louvre and British Museum, were discovered here, and here was made the marvellous "find" of the jewellery of Åäḥ-ḥetep, wife of Kames,

a king of the XVIIth dynasty, about 1650 B.C.

A little more

to the south is the necropolis of Asasif, where during the XIXth, XXIInd, and XXVIth dynasties many beautiful tombs

were constructed. and do not repay a visit. (2) Shekh 'Abd al-Ķûrnah, which contains a large number of important tombs, chiefly

Most of the tombs are in a ruined state