The Century illustrated monthly magazine . leveled to the ground, and rebuilt of simi-lar materials. Thus each new house, being erectedon the debris of the former house, stands at a higherelevation — a process which in the course of manycenturies has raised the ancient towns of Egypt to aconsiderable height above the plain. 32{ BUBASTIS: AN HISTORICAL STUDY. An ancient Egyptian text thus describes afestival : The gods up in heaven are jubilant. And theancestors! rejoice. Men run gaily hither and thither,their heads dripping with perfumes. All are drunkenwith wine and crowned with garlands of f
The Century illustrated monthly magazine . leveled to the ground, and rebuilt of simi-lar materials. Thus each new house, being erectedon the debris of the former house, stands at a higherelevation — a process which in the course of manycenturies has raised the ancient towns of Egypt to aconsiderable height above the plain. 32{ BUBASTIS: AN HISTORICAL STUDY. An ancient Egyptian text thus describes afestival : The gods up in heaven are jubilant. And theancestors! rejoice. Men run gaily hither and thither,their heads dripping with perfumes. All are drunkenwith wine and crowned with garlands of flowers,and the little children sport from sunrise to sunsetin honor of the The vine, now so httle cultivated in Egypt,was then abundant, and wine was drunk inexcess at these pious saturnalia. The greatfestival of Hathor at Denderah was called the Festival of Drunkenness, and of the great fes-tival of Bast, Herodotus himself tells how more grape-wine was consumed at this seasonthan in all the rest of the year. It was by reason. VIEW ACROSS THE LARGE TRENCH. of these excesses, and their social consequences,that Egypt had already become a byword anda reproach. Then Jeremiah prophesied the 1 The ancestors; /. e., the Manes. 2 This text is found at Denderah, and is descriptiveof the annual festival of Hathor; but it applies withequal truth to the annual festival of Bast. •^ Zoan (Tanis). 4 Aven (On, Heliopolis). 5 Pi-Beseth (Bubastis). 6 The bronze cats and kittens of Bubastis have neverbeen excelled for truth and suppleness of for the cat-headed Basts, so admirably is the headof the intelligent Egyptian tabby adapted to the grace-ful proportions of the goddess, that we lose our per-ception of the incongruity, and find the combinationperfectly natural. The name of the cat in the ancientEgyptian language is man — a name evidently ono-matopoetic, and so affording no clue to the originalnationality of the animal, which was certainly unknownto the Egyptians o
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