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The excavations recently made by M. Edouard Naville, of Geneva, are described in his Memoir written for the Egypt Exploration Fund, from which Memoir we glean the following interesting information. The city was called Pi Tum, which means the house or abode of Tum (the god of the setting sun), and the surrounding district was called Thuku or Thukut, which is equivalent to Succoth. It is a mere philological accident that the Hebrew language has a word succoth, signifying tents. The inscriptions appear to show that it was Rameses II. who caused the city to be built; and in this they do but confirm the view previously entertained by Egyptologists. Pithom was both a store city and a fortress, and so was surrounded by very thick walls, part of which are yet preserved. The civil city of Thuku extended all round the sacred buildings of Pithom. We have first of all a square area enclosed by enormous brick walls, the space within being equal to 55,000 square yards. In the south-west angle is a small temple. The wall enclosure is honeycombed with rectangular chambers, well built, the bricks being of Nile mud, and united by mortar. It is a curious fact that some of the bricks contain straw, while others are without. These chambers M. Naville believes to be the granaries into which Pharaoh gathered the provisions necessary for armies about to cross the desert, and perhaps for caravans and travellers, who were on the road to Syria.

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