HISTORY ETHNOGRAPHY NATURE WINE-MAKING SITE MAP
Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
 
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SALAMIS

SALAMIS IN THE ISLAND OF CYPRUS.
BY ALEXANDER PALMA DI CESNOLÀ, F.S.A.,
page 75

Within it were three chambers, in the uppermost of which Colonel Vyse discovered a mummy case, inscribed with the name of ' Menkaura'. From the floor of this chamber a descending passage led to the second chamber, in which was ' found a sarcophagus of basalt, of beautiful workmanship, and representing on its sides the elevation of a temple; while in the passage between the two chambers was picked up the wooden lid of the mummy-case. These three objects, together with some bones, were duly shipped for England; the vessel, however, was wrecked in the Mediterranean, near to Gibraltar, and the sarcophagus was lost, but the [mummy and] mummy case.
Below these are two seated figures of the Nile river, personified as Androgynous, with a bunch of three papyrus flowers on the head. These two figures are seated face to face, each one holding in the interior hand a vase of long and delicate proportions. 3-4ths inch long. White glazed steatite. (See fig. 145.)
2. Egyptian pierced scarabǽus. The figure of a ruler, seated, holding a whip or flail, neχeχ; behind him a crook, heq, emblem of rule, power, or dominion, distinctive of Osiris (fig. 146b).Overhead, in a cartouche, the word (fig. 147) Ra-men-cheper, the prǽnomen of Thothmes III, the illustrious monarch of the Eighteenth Dynasty.
That the value of this royal scarab was appreciated by the Cypriote owner from whose grave I obtained it, is shewn by the fact that it has been set in gold as a ring (fig. 146a), part of the eye for the swivel and all the bezel being still attached to the relic. 3-4ths inch long. White glazed steatite.
3. Egyptian scarabǽus, the name of Thothmes III, Ra-men-cheper, as above, in a cartouche; and other uncertain symbols. 3-4ths inch long, set in gold ring. Glazed steatite.
4. Egyptian pierced scarabǽus. On the face the hieroglyphics Amen-Ra Neb, " The Lord Amen-Ra." Amen-Ra was the principal deity of the Theban triad. A wooden lid, were saved through their buoyancy, and are now preserved in the British Museum," Col. Howard Vyse, in his Pyramids of Gizeh, says:— " With it were discovered part of a skeleton, consisting of ribs and vertebrae, and the bones of the legs and feet, enveloped in coarse woollen cloth of ayellow colour, to which a small quantity of resinous substance and gum were attached."A large number of scarabǽi areextant with the name of or with reference to the cult of the god. 3-4ths inch long, (Fig. 147.) White glazed steatite.
5. Egyptian pierced scarabǽus, engraved with a mythological subject. The sacred beetle, ór cheper, in his character as Creator, with four wings expanded, and represented by the artist as deeply barred or striated. The hind legs of the beetle are rolling forwards the Sun's Disk. To the lower wings are attached two symbols of life, the cross tau or ankh.

This is a somewhat rare subject of Egyptian art (fig. 148). It belongs to the fifth century B.c.

6. Egyptian scarabǽus of ancient style. On it a crocodile, sacred to, and emblem of, the god Sebak, or Souchis, one of the principal deities of the Egyptian Pantheon, especially venerated at Arsinoe, or Crocodilopolis. Many names were attached to this reptile, and in the Ritual of the Dead,1 chapter lxxxviii, it is one of the types assumed by the departed soul in the future state. In other chapters (xxxi, xxxii), the deceased turns back the crocodiles,2 who come to deprive him of his amulets or

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