ABSTRACT
THE text of the remarkable document of King l'iankhi, which describes his invasion and conquest of Egypt, is cut in hieroglyphics upon the front, tack, and side edges of a massive stele of grey granite, ·with a rounded top, which iR about 5 ft. 11 in. in height, 4 ft. 7-k in. in width, and 1 ft. G in. in thickness.1 Its weight is about two and a quarter tons. This stele was discovered with four others accidentally in 1862, by an Egyptian Officer who was on service in the Egyptian Sudan during the rule of Sa'id Pasha, the founder of the
BU.Htl~ Museum of Egyptian Antiquities. The name of the discoverer has, unfortunately, not been preserved. According to the prefatory notes to Mariette's Monnments Dive1'8 given by Maspero, this officer, who was probably descending the Nile, found himself obliged to
spend some days in one of the villages near Gebel Barkal, a fine, bold mountain, about 301 feet high, which lies on the east bank of the river a few miles from Kassingar, at the foot of the Fourth Cataract. Opposite this mountain, on the west bank of the Nile, the famous old Nubian town of Napt, the Napata of classical writers, was situated, and when the AngloEgyptian :Frontier FielU :Force was 1Juilding block houses near ~anam Abu Dom, in 1897, in digging the fomHlations ruins of temples and other buihlingfl were found at a l1epth of six feet below the sand. At the foot of the eastern end of the mountain is a large plain on which several Nubian kings, beginning probably with Piiinkhi, Luilt stone temples, and on a hill close by are several pyramids, which are most likely royal tomLs. All the temples built on this plain have probably been in :t state of absolute ruin for centuries. Those which were built close under the mountain ftppenr to haYe been wholly or partially destroyed lJy the falling of masses of rock, which split away longitudinally and crashed down on to their roofs. Those which were built on the plain itself were so badly built in the first in::;tance that patts of them, at least, must l!ave been in ruins soon after they were finished.
