Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/346

 330 MERCUEII PROM, to signify the estimated width of the northern inlet separating the island from the main ; and this esti' mate is probably much esaggerated. The mode of fishing with baskets is still practised in the jtibah islands, and along the coast. The formation of the coast of E. Africa in these latitudes — where the hills or downs upon the coast are all formed of a coral conglomerate, comprising fragments of madrepore, sheil, and sand— renders it likely that the island which was close to the main sixteen or seventeen centuries ago, should now be united to it. Granting this theory of gradual transformation of the coast-line, the Menuthias of the " Periplus" may be supposed to have stood in what is now the rich garden-land of Shnmba. where the rivers, carrying down mud to mingle with the marine deposit of coral drift, covered the "choked-up estuary with a rich soil. (Cooley, Plolcmy and the Nile, London, 1854, pp. 66— 68.) [E.B.J.] MERCU'RII PROir. ('Epixa'ia IXKpa, Ptol. iv. 3. § 7 ; Pomp. Mela, i. 7. § 2 ; Plin. r. 3), the m.ost northerly point of the coast of Afiica, to the^E. of the gulf of Carthage, now Cape Bo?i, or the Has Adddr of the natives. [E. B. J.] MERGABLUM, a town of Hispania Baetica, on the road from Gades to Malaca, now Beger de la Miel. (Mem. de VAcad. des Inscr. sss. p. 111.) MERINUM. [GARGANU3.] MERMESSUS (M^p^Tjo-crtSs or MvpiJ.i(Ta6s a town in Troas or Mysia, belonging to the territory of Lampsacus, was celebrated in antiquity as the native place of a sibyl (Steph. B. s. v.; Paus. s. 12. § 2; Lactant. i. 6, 12, where it is called Marmessus; Suid. s. v.); but its exact site is unknown. [L. S.] MEROBRICA. [Mirobeiga.] ME'ROE (Mepdjj, Herod, ii. 29; Diod. i. 23, Beq.; Strab. xviii. p. 821 ; Plin. ii. 73. s. 78, v. 9. s. 10; Steph. B. s.v.: Eth. Mepoa7os, Mfpoutrios). The kingdom of Jleroe lay between the modern hamlet of Khartoum, where the Astapus joins the true Nile and the influx of the Astaboras into their united streams, lat. 17° 40' N., long. 34° E. Although described as an island by the ancient geographers, it was properly an irregular space, like Mesopotamia, included between two or more con- fluent rivers. According to Diodorus (i. 23) the region of ]Ieroe was 375 miles in length, and 125 in breadth; but Strabo (xviii. p. 821) regards these numbers as referring to its circumference and dia- meter respectively. On its eastern side it was bounded by the Abyssinian highlands; on the western by the Libyan sands — the desert oi Bahiouda. Its extreme southern extremity w.as, according to a survey made in the reign of Nero, 873 miles distant from Syene. (Plin. vi. 29. s. 33.) Eratosthenes and Artemidurus, indeed, reduced this distance to 625 and 600 miles. (Mannert, Geog. d. Altai, x. p. 183.) Within these Hmits Meroe was a region of singular opulence, both as respects its mineral wealth and its cereal and leguminous productions. It possessed, on its eastern frontier, mines of gold, iron, copper, and salt: its woods of date-palm, almond-trees, and ilex yielded abundant supplies of both fruit and timber for export and home consumption ; its mea- dows supported large herds of cattle, or produced double harvests of millet (dhoiirra) ; and its forests and swamps abounded with wild beasts and game, which the natives caught and salted for food. The banks of the Nile are so high in this region, that Meroe derives no benefit from the inundation, and, as rain falls scantily in the north, even in the wet JIEROE. season (Strab. xv. p. 690), the lands remote from the rivers must always have been nearly desert. But the Waste bore little proportion to the fertile lands in a tract so intersected with streams ; the art of irrigation was extensively practised; and in the south, where the hills rise towards Abyssinia, the rains are sufficient to maintain a considerable degree of fertility. The Valley of the Astaboras {Tacazze) is lower and warmer than the rest of Meroe. Partly from its natural richness, and partly from its situation between Aethiopia and the Red Sea, — the regions which produced spice, and those which yielded gold-dust, ivory, and precious stones, "-.-Meroe was from very early times the seat of an active and diver- sified commerce. It was one of the capital centres of the caravan trade from Libya Interior, from the havens on the Red Sea, and from Aegypt and Aethiopia. It was, in fact, the receptacle and terminus of the Libyan traffic from Carthage, en the one side, and from Adule and Berenice on the other. The ruins of its cities, so far as they have been explored, attest its commercial prosperity. The site of the city of Meroe was placed by Eratosthenes {ap. Strab, xvii. p. 786) 700 stadia, or nearly 90 miles, south of the junction of the Nile with the Astaboras, lat. 16° 44'; and such a position agrees with Philo's statement (ii. p. 77) that the sun was vertical there 45 days before the summer solstice. (Comp. Plin. vi. 30.) The pyra- mids scattered over the plains of this mesopotamian region indicate the existence of numerous cities besides the capital. The ruins which have been discovered are, however, those of either temples or public monuments, for the cities themselves, being built of palm-branches and bricks dried in the sun, speedily crumbled away in a latitude to which the tropical rains partially extend. (Ritter, Africa, p. 542.) The remains of Meroe itself all lie be- tween 16° and 17° lat. N., and are not far from the Nile. The most southerly of them are found at Naga-gebel-ardan. Here have been discovered the ruins of four temples, built in the Aegyptian style, but of late date. The largest of them was dedicated to the ram-headed deity Ammon. The principal portico of this temple is detached from the main building,-^ an unusual practice in Aegyptian architecture, — and is approached through an avenue of sphinxes, 7 feet high, and also bearing the ram's head. The sculptures, like those of Aegypt, re- present historical events, — Ammon receiving the homage of a queen, or a king holding his captives by the hair, and preparing to strike off their heads with an axe. At Woad Naja, about a mile from the Astapus, are the remains of a sandstone temple, 89 feet in length, bearing on the capital of its columns the figures and emblems of Ptah, Athor, and Typhon. These ruins are amidst mounds of brick, which betoken the former presence of an extensive city. Again, 16 or 17 miles west of the Astapus, and among the hollows of the sandstone hills, surrounded by the desert, are the ruins of EU Mesaourat. Eight temples, connected with one another by galleries or colonnades, and divided into courts and cloisters, are here found. The style of architecture is that of the era of the Ptolemies. On the eastern bank, however, and about 2 miles from the river, are found groups of pyramids, which mark the site of a necropolis and the neighbourhood of a city : they are 80 in number, and of various dimensions; the base of the largest being 63 feet square, of the smallest lesa than 12 feet. The