OCR Text |
Show HEW SPHINX FOUND Student of British Museum Discovers Dis-covers It in Egypt. Figure Fourteen Feet High of Alabaster, Alabas-ter, Dug From Between the Colossi Co-lossi in Water-Logged Plain of Old Memphis. Cairo, Egypt. Another sphinx, weighing ninety tons, and carved from a single block of alabaster, has been unearthed at a point between the world-famed Colossi, on the waterlogged water-logged plains of Memphis, in Egypt. For hundreds of years it has lain in a recumbent position buried beneath the sands on the road to Sakkareh. Today To-day it is half-exposed to view, and next year it is to be raised to a vertical verti-cal position above the water-line. This newly found sphinx was betrayed betray-ed in its hiding place by its tail, which Mr. Mackay, one of the students of the British School in Egypt, discovered about a year ago. This year, when the water on the plain subsided, the complete figure wa3 excavated, and was found to measure some fourteen feet in height and twenty-six feet in length. Alabaster being a rock foreign to the neighborhood, the new sphinx ranks as the largest that has ever been transported. The figure bears no inscription, but is considered by Prof. Flinders Petrie, the director of the British School in Egypt, to have been carved about 1300 B. C. Many other remarkable discoveries, taking the mind back as far as 5500 B. C, and lifting the veil of centuries from Egypt's romantic story, have also been made by the same school, and, with the exception of a red granite group of Rameses II and the god Ptah, which will be sent direct to the Ny Carlsberg Museum at Copenhagen, and a few other details, are now on exhibition at University College, Gower street. They include many objects quite new to Egyptologists. Among these are coffins made of basket work, reeds or withes, sandal trays, an axe handle, in which the grip is composed of delicately knotted string, a pot of unburnt incense for a fire-offering of 4000 B. C, and numerous numer-ous pieces of timber, showing by their , ! I Coffin of Basket Work. formation the principles of building construction that were in vogue nearly 6000 years B. C. The graves of the early Egyptians were always well provided with such necessaries as were thought essential for the spirit of the departed when it again materialized. Consequently, the relics from Tarkhan include headrests (some of them carved out of trees trained specially Into peculiar shapes), sandals, large jars of food, and various vessels, of gypsum and semi-transparent alabastar. Some of the vases bear the name of Mena, the earliest known Egyptian king. They are considered by some experts to be a; tribute corresponding corre-sponding to the modern floral wreath. Evidence is also provided of the lack of historical sentiment in the Roman occupants of Egypt by numerous examples exam-ples of inscribed Egyptian tablets that have been used as hearth stones, door lintels, and mill stones. There is also ample evidence of .the belief that sacrilege sac-rilege among the tombs was more common com-mon in the earlier periods of Egyptian history than in later periods. |