The city of Boston, Mass., received a colossal Hathor-head capital of red granite, part of a colossal figure of a king, an immense lotus-bud capital from the Hypo-style Hall of the temple, a bas-relief in red granite from the Hall of Osorken II., and two bas-reliefs of limestone from the temple of Hathor, taken from the ancient Termuther.

[Illustration:  347.jpg THE LOTUS FLOWER NYMPHAEA LOTUS]

Specimens recovered from here date from the fourth to the twenty-second dynasties, and the relics from Termuther are from the last period of the Ptolemies.

Early in 1891, Professor Petrie made his exhaustive examination of the pyramid of Me-dum, which he declared to be the earliest of all dated Egyptian pyramids, and probably the oldest dated building in the world.  Its builder was Snofrui of the third dynasty; and, joined with it, and in a perfect state of preservation, was the pyramid temple built at the same period.  From forty to sixty feet of rubbish had accumulated around the buildings, and had to be removed.  The front of the temple was thirty feet wide and nine feet high, and a door was discovered at the south end.  A wide doorway leads to the open court built on the side of the pyramid.  In the centre of the court stands the altar of offerings, where there is also an inscribed obelisk thirteen feet high.  The walls of the temple are all marked with graffiti of visitors who belonged to the twelfth and eighteenth dynasties.  A statuette was found dedicated to the gods of the town by a woman.

The tombs at this place had been rifled in ancient times, but many skeletons of people, who had been buried in a crouching attitude, were discovered, and Petrie considered that these belonged to a different race from that which was accustomed to bury the dead recumbent.  A quantity of pottery was also unearthed, dating from the fourth century.  The method by which the plan of a pyramid was laid out by the ancient Egyptians was discovered in this excavation, and the designs show considerable mechanical ingenuity in their execution, and afford a perfect system for maintaining the symmetry of the building itself, no matter how uneven the ground on which it was to be built.

In the spring of 1891, M. Naville started an excavation on the site of the ancient Heracleopolis Magna at a place now named Hanassieh.  He found here many Roman and Koptic remains, and further discovered the vestibule of an ancient Egyptian temple.  There were six columns, on which Ramses II. was represented as offering gifts.  The name of Menephtah was also noticed, and the architraves above the columns were seen to be cut with cartouches of Usirtasen II. of the twelfth dynasty.  This temple was probably one of those to the service of which Ramses II. donated some slaves, as is described in one of the papyri of the Harris collection.

A stone was discovered by Mr. Wilborn at Luxor, recording a period of seven years’ successive failure of the Nile to overflow, and the efforts made by a certain sorcerer named Chit Net to remove the calamity.