TAIL OF A SPHINX.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3599, 12 August 1912, Page 2

TAIL OF A SPHINX.

ALABASTER FIGURE WEICHINC 90 TONS DISCOVERED. PREHISTORIC RELICS. [INDEPENDENT PRESS CABLE.] Another sphinx, weighing ninety tons, and carved from a single Diocn. of alabaster, has been unearthed at a. point between the world-famed Colossi, on the 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. To-day it is half-ex-posed to view, and next- year it ;s to be raised to a vertical posit') 1 move the water-line (says the “Siandan! This newly found .-a,minx "a? betrated in its hiding-place ly its tab, wi -eli Mr. Mackay, one - f the students of the British & hool in Egypt, discovered about a year ago. This year, when the water on the plain subsided, the complete figure was excavated, and was found to measure 14ft in height and 2Gft. in length. Alabaster being a rock foreign to the neighborhood, the new sphinx ranks as the largest that has over been transported. The figure bears no inscription, but is considered by Professor Flinders Petrie, the director of tlie British School in Egypt, to have been carved about 1300 B.C. Many other remarkable discoveries, taking* the mind back as far as 5500 8.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 Ramoses 11. and the god Ptali, which will be sent direct to the Ny Oar Is berg 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. Amongst these are coffins made of basket work, reeds or withies,. 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 8.C.. and numerous pieces of timber, showing bv their formation the principles .of building construction that were in vogue nearly 6000 years B.C. Most of the relics come from Tarkhan , an extensive eometerv about thir-ty-five miles south of Cairo, which dates from the earliest historic age down to the Pyramid period. The site is the most'nortlierly upon which Professor Petrie lias conducted excavations, and the results have been most gratifying. In spite of the great antiquity of the graves, the objects found are in a. remarkable state of preservation. There are bedsteads with hoof-like foot, which, although nearly 6000 years old, look capable of sustaining a. fair weight to-day. and long rolls of soft linen cloth, 'also. 6000 years old, but as tough and pliable as any modern texture straight from the loom. One of the withy hampers, now in the Cairo museum, although of tin' same age, had the small leaf-buds of the withies still showing when it was found. 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 materialised- Consequently the relies from Tarkhan include head-rests (some of them carved out of trees trained specially into peculiar shapes], sandals, largo jars of food, and various vesols of gypsum and semi-trans-parent alabaster. Some of the vases bear the name of Mona, the earliest known Egyptian King. They .v.e considered) by some exports to be a tribute corresponding to the modern floral wreath.