THE SHRINE

OF

SAFT EL HENNER

AND THE

LAND OF GOSHEN

(1885).

THE SI-IRINE

01<'

SAFT

EL

HENNER

AND THE

LAND OF GOSHEN

(1885 )

BY

EDOUARD NAVILLE.

J1'U'TH MEMOIR OF

TH E EGYPT EXPLO RAT ION FU NO.

PUBL1SIlElJ BY OIWER OF l'HE COMM1'1'TEE.

LONDON:

MESSRS. TRUBNER & CO., 57 & 59, LUDGATE HILL, E.C.

1887.

PREFACE.

THE present Memoir embodies the results of my exploratory campaign during the winter season of 1885. Of these results, I have already had the honour to present a brief viva voce report, in the course of a lecture delivered at the Royal Institution during the month of October in the same year.

The Members of the Egypt Exploration Fund may probably ask how it is that they have not sooner received this work, and they may be justly surprised that a memoir so moderate in length should have been in preparation for nearly two years. I can only plead in reply the fact that I was under the necessity of first completing a very heavy task begun several years before, which task is now finished.

The greater part of this Memoir is devoted to the interpretation of a monument which has largely contributed to determine the position of the Land of Goshen; a subject especially within the domain of the Egypt Exploration Fund, in the service of which Society I have thrice had the honour to be engaged. Priceless objects of antiquity are daily disappearing in Egypt, and nowhere does the work of destruction go on so rapidly as in the Delta. While there is yet time-while still the kindly soil preserves some store of unrifled treasure-let us endeavour not only to rescue these invaluable relics, but to make use of them for the solution of those important geographical and historical problems which confront the Archreologist at every step. Burned in the lime-kiln of the fellah, or broken up and sold piecemeal to the passing tourist, the inscriptions which contain the materials necessary to our studies will ere long be wanting.

It may perhaps be said that there is not much in a name; and I admit that the shrine of Saft el Henneh presents fewer points of interest than the store-chambers and inscriptions of Pithom. I nevertheless venture to hope that this Memoir, which is the logical and historical sequel of the first, may receive some modest share of that favour with which" Pithom" has been honoured.

EDOUARD NAVILLE.

~fALAGNY, ]fay, 1887.

CON TE NT S.

PAGE
Saft el Henneh 1
The Thirtieth Dynasty 3
The Monuments discovered 5
Phaousa, Goshen, Ramses 14
Khataanah, Kantir 21
Tell Rotab 24
Appendix 26