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The existing remains of Tahpanhes are extensive, and show that the ancient city was a large one. Under the corners of the chief buildings were found plaques of metal and of stone, engraved with the cartouche of Psammetichus I.; and under the south-east corner the teeth and bones of an ox, sacrificed at the ceremony when the building was founded. Among the antiquities found are beautiful painted Greek vases, plaques, &c., of gold, silver, lead, and copper, articles of carnelian, jaspar, and lapis lazuli.

A most interesting thing is the finding of the brickwork or pavement spoken of in Jeremiah xliii. 8. “Then came the word of the Lord unto Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying, Take great stones in thine hand, and hide them in mortar in the brickwork which is at the entry of Pharaoh’s house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah; and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: Behold I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar the King of Babylon, my servant, and will set his throne upon these stones that I have hid; and he shall spread his royal pavilion over them, &c.” This brickwork or pavement at the entry of Pharaoh’s house has always been misunderstood, and served as a puzzle to translators. “But” (says Mr Petrie) “as soon as the plan of the palace began to be recovered, the exactness of the description was manifest. On the north-west of the fort was a great open air platform of brickwork, such as is now seen outside all great houses, and most small ones, in Egypt. A space is reserved outside the door, generally along the side of the house, covered with hard beaten mud, edged with a ridge of bricks if not much raised from the ground, and kept swept clean. On this platform the inhabitants sit when they wish to converse with their neighbours or the passers-by. A great man will settle himself to receive his friends and drink coffee, and public business is generally transacted there. Such seems to have been the object of this large platform—a place to meet persons who would not be admitted to the palace or fort, to assemble guards, to hold large levées, to receive tribute and stores, to unlade goods, and to transact the multifarious business which in such a climate is best done in the open air. At the same time the actual way into the palace was along a raised causeway which rose at the back of this platform.