A GREAT TEMPLE.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 December 1915, Page 10 (Supplement)

A GREAT TEMPLE.

FOUND UNDER SILT AND SAND. DISCOVERIES IN EGYPT, The discovery of the great temple at Memphis, Egypt, belonging approximately to the period of Rameses 11., is announced by the University Museum, as a result of the explorations of the Coxe Egyptian expedition, under the leadership of Dr. Fisher.

The find is .considered of the first importance, and is hoped to be only the beginning of further developments in Memphis, which wa3 one of the great cities of the world,, possibly the greatest, in the time of Rameses 11., more than three thousand years ago, and which is known to have been of great importance eight thousand years ago,- and probably has a history of milleniums behind that era. MUD AND SAND COVER IT. The temple was silted over by mud from the Nile, and sand, blown from the desert, covered the glories of the days of Herodotus, and which lasted long after the Roman era. When the excavation was begun it sought particularly the great palace of which so much was written. The capitals of two columns were discovered. One hundred expert diggers spent three months in excavation, with surprising results. A great hall of columns was unearthed, and from the description received, it mußt have been one of the glories of Egypt. In spite of the wreck of time, of sieges and other destructions, enough survives to show that it was a magnilicent place. A large inscription indicates that it may possibly be the Temple of Seti 1., although at first it was supposed to be a temple erected by Menephtah, son of Rameses 11. INSCRIPTIONS NOT YET READ. There are many inscriptions on the walls, the columns, and the architraves, which are yet to be deciphered. The discovery of the great temple, to students of history, is highly valuable, bearing out the chronicles of Herodotus in his descriptions of the glories of ancient Egypt, and is one more refutation for later historians, who accused him of inserting myths in his writings.