Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/487

 ELLAHUN— ABSINOE. 897 centre for those hatching ovens, or artificial hatchers, which have for ages constituted one of the special industries of Egypt Beni-Suef has succeeded the ancient lIeraclvo/H>fi«, which was a royal residence during the ninth and tenth dynasties, and the ruins of which lie further west, scattered round the modem village of Ahnas-el-Medinch. Travellers intending to visit the Fayum depression generally leave the main route at Beni-Suef or some of the neighbouring stations nearer to Cairo, and take the routes leading westwards. From JUl- Wanta they reach the province directly by a branch line ; but from the two southern stations the Fayum is approached through the opening followed by the Bahr-Yusef Canal, which was formerly lined by monuments dating from the ejx>ch of the Pharaohs. • El-Lahun — Arsinoe. At the very entrance of the gorge, near the village of El-Lahun {Illahun), which has preserved its ancient Egyptian name of Lo-IIun, or " Mouth of the Canal," are seen the remains of the dam and sluices by which the waters of Lake McDns were regulated. Farther on stands a pyramid, now a shapeless mound, which is supposed to have been erected by Amencmha III., under whose reig^ the vast lacustrine reservoir was excavated. Another pyramid, calletl by the name of Howara, about 100 feet high, occupies a site beyond the gorge within the circular basin of the Fayum, the ancient " country of the sea.'* Fonneil of a rocky nucleus, round which have been built layers of bricks made of the Nile mud, this structure presents somewhat the appearance of a natural hillock ; but it is in a good state of repair, compared at least with the building which Lepsius supposed must have been the famous " Labyrinth, which comprised two stories of fifteen himdred chambers each, where the visitor became entangled in endless passages." Of the sumptuous group of buildings forming the Loparohun, or " Temple of the Canal Mouth," if it really stood on this spot, nothing now remains except heaps of rubbish, crumbling brick walls, vestiges of gateways, and some choice fnigmcnts of sculpture in granite and limestone. Here has also been discovered the head of a royal sphinx, resembling those of S4n, a proof that the Ilyksos must have pene- trated into this part of Egypt. A papyrus preserved in the museum at Bulaq contains a minute description of the ancient edifice, and serves as a " guide-book " to the archajologists, who are endeavouring to restore the original plan. The flooded basin of Lake Mooris, over four miles broad, and enclosed by embankments which can here and there still be traced, formerly separated the Labyrinth from Pa-sebak; one of the great cities of Egypt. This " City of the Crocodile," as its name indicates, was the Arsinoe of the epoch of the Ptolemies, when it still covered a vast extent of ground. The remains of walls, a broken obelisk, and other debris, show that it stretched for at least five miles in the direc- tion from north to south. In some of the neighbouring tombs have been discovered several papyrus manuscripts of the highest interest, written in various languages — Egyptian, Hebrew, and even Pehlvi, or old Persian. The Greek documents have furnished variant readings of the text of Thucydides, Aristotle, and the Gospels.