Manual of Egyptian archæology and guide to the study of antiquities in EgyptFor the use of students and travellers . dosinvaded the enclosure, filling it with their tombs tothe extent of depriving it of all strategic value. Asecond fortress, now called the Sim net cz Zebib, was 30 ARCHITECTURE —CIVIL AND MILITARY. built some hundred metres to the south-east aboutthe time of the Twelfth Dynasty, and replaced thestronghold of Kom es Sultan, but under the Rames-sides it narrowly escaped sharing its fate. It wasonly the sudden decline of the town that saved itfrom being equally choked with tombs a
Manual of Egyptian archæology and guide to the study of antiquities in EgyptFor the use of students and travellers . dosinvaded the enclosure, filling it with their tombs tothe extent of depriving it of all strategic value. Asecond fortress, now called the Sim net cz Zebib, was 30 ARCHITECTURE —CIVIL AND MILITARY. built some hundred metres to the south-east aboutthe time of the Twelfth Dynasty, and replaced thestronghold of Kom es Sultan, but under the Rames-sides it narrowly escaped sharing its fate. It wasonly the sudden decline of the town that saved itfrom being equally choked with tombs and funerarystela;. The Egyptians in early times possessed no engines. Fig. 29.—Plan of second fortress of Abydos, Eleventh or TwelfthDynasty. capable of breaking down massive walls. They hadonly three methods of forcing a stronghold ; byescalade, sapping, or forcing the gates. The planadopted by their engineers in building the secondfort is admirably adapted for protection against thesethree modes of attack (fig. 29). The walls are longand straight, without towers or projections of anykind ; they measure 430 feet in length on the eastand west sides, and 255 feet on the north and foundations rest directly on the sand, and no- THE SECOND FORTRESS OF ABVDOS. 31 where are they more than a foot below the wall (fig. 30) is of crude brick laid in horizontalcourses. It has a slight batter, is solid without loop-holes of any sort, and ispanelled outside with verticalangulatcd grooves similar tothose on buildings of theThinite period and Old King-dom. The present height is36 feet, and when perfect itcannot have exceeded 40 feet,a height wh
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