Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

DURING 19 CENTURY: EGYPT 639
one of his greatest successes. Here the temple of the Sungod
Horus, constructed during the time of the Ptolemies,
was found to be completely covered with rubbish, and on
the roof of the sanctuary a whole Arab village had settled
itself. Marietta's first work there was to have the modern
houses cleared away and the village removed into the plain.
Then the courtyard and the chambers of the temple were
cleaned, and little by little there arose the magnificent sanctuary
with its columns, reliefs, and inscriptions almost intact.
It is now one of the finest temples in the Nile valley.
As long as Mariette lived, he guarded almost jealously
his privilege to excavate. It is true that he permitted
travelling scholars to study the monuments which had
been discovered by him or even any of those which had been
previously brought to light, but to no one was given the
permission to excavate on his own account, not even to
his greatest friend, the German scholar Heinrich Brugsch.
Conditions were not changed until after the death of Mariette.
Nevertheless the principal management of the Egyptian
antiquities and the state excavations remained in the
hands of the French, and Mariette's successors, G. Maspero,
E. Grebaut, J. de Morgan, and Victor Loret, continued in
this capacity the work of their genial predecessor. But
besides these, other nations and other French savants were
allowed to take part in the excavations, and in this way early
in the eighties a thorough examination of the different ruined
sites was set on foot, which has borne rich fruits
for science
and has furthermore developed the methods of excavation
in this scientific contest, which had been largely neglected by
Mariette, who was mostly concerned in obtaining fine specimens
for the Museum.
The sites chosen for the official
excavations of the Egyptian
government under French authority were especially
the wide pyramid fields of Memphis, where also Mariette
had worked, and the great temples of the old capital Thebes,