. A trip to the Orient; the story of a Mediterranean cruise. tiful doors inlaid with mother of pearl,and handsome furniture inlaid with inscriptions of silver,and thence proceeded to a marble pavihon in which, asguests of the absent Sultan, we partook of refreshments, consisting of Turkish coffee in tinycups and Turkish preserves on small plates, werebrought to us by the servants of the Sultan. We stoodawhile on the portico in the rear of the pavihon andadmired the magnificent view of the harbor with itsshipping, and the surrounding shores covered withbuildings. Leaving the
. A trip to the Orient; the story of a Mediterranean cruise. tiful doors inlaid with mother of pearl,and handsome furniture inlaid with inscriptions of silver,and thence proceeded to a marble pavihon in which, asguests of the absent Sultan, we partook of refreshments, consisting of Turkish coffee in tinycups and Turkish preserves on small plates, werebrought to us by the servants of the Sultan. We stoodawhile on the portico in the rear of the pavihon andadmired the magnificent view of the harbor with itsshipping, and the surrounding shores covered withbuildings. Leaving the portico and its panoramic view with re-gret, we turned to the Museum of Antiquities, intendingto inspect hastily the rehcs of ancient times which itcontains. The collection, however, proved to be muchmore interesting than we had expected, so, instead ofhurriedly passing through the building, we lingeredaround the sarcophagi and studied the hunting andbattle scenes which were exquisitely carved on thepohshed marble of the exteriors of the old stone Q w QI w pa o c w< (167) 168 A TRIP TO THE ORIENT. The most beautiful of these sarcophagi, twenty-one innumber, have been discovered within the past thirtyor forty years at Sidon in Syria. The tireless archae-ologists, eager in pursuit of knowledge of the past,found and opened the graves in which the dead kingsof Sidon had quietly rested for thousands of years; thendisinterring the heav\^ stone caskets they brought themto Constantinople to be placed on exhibition. These sarcophagi are stone caskets of great size andweight composed of tw^o pieces, the chest and lid. Thechest is hewn out of one solid block of marble and thelid of another. The sarcophagi range from ten to twelvefeet in length, from five to six feet in width, and fromsix to eight feet in height. One of the stone coffins, madeof black Egyptian marble and named the Tabnith, con-tained, when found, the dried up mummy of an ancientking, Tabnith, who lived four ce
Size: 1233px × 2026px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpublisherphiladelphiathejcw
