Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 69:276 (Oct 1912)
Article: Professor Petrie’s Excavations At Heliopolis, The Biblical On
Author: Melvin Grove Kyle

BSac 69:276 (Oct 1912) p. 553

Professor Petrie’s Excavations At Heliopolis, The Biblical On

Melvin Grove Kyle

Recently a one-time city engineer, a man of affairs in the business world, asked me, “What does a ruined city of Egypt look like? “Such a question from such a man revealed the general lack of information on the subject among even the most intelligent who have not been in Egypt — and, alas, not a few who have been there. No really intelligent conception of the work of exploration of a ruined Egyptian city can be gained until there is first some clear vision of the appearance of the city before the spade of the excavator touches it. So, what does the ruin at On look like? It is a desert, with a wall around it, and an oasis’ in the middle of it.

“The Dust Of Ages”

The desert here at On is “the dust of ages” still holding everything in its grasp. Descriptions of Egypt, and pictures of Egypt, have much to do with stone, — stone temples, stone statues, stone obelisks, gigantic stone structures of many kinds, even tombs cut in the solid rock. All this is magnificent,

BSac 69:276 (Oct 1912) p. 554

but it is not Egypt. Egypt is not stone: Egypt is mud. There is more of mud than of all other things combined. The ancient Egyptians honored their gods in temples of stone, their kings, who were little gods, in statues of stone, and their dead, who according to their theology became divine, in stone tombs and sarcophagi; but they themselves, the people, lived in mud. Cities were built almost wholly of mud. The poorer suburbs and towns were of houses made of corn-stalks plastered with mud; the better buildings of the city had walls of mud brick. In either case the mud was only sun-dried. They were “dust “mixed with water, molded, and dried and hardened in the sun. When the mud walls perished, they returned again to “dust.” “How long did they last?” That depended so much upon conditions that the question cannot be answered. Egypt is for the most part a rainless land; yet down north it rains in torrents, and up south it does sometimes rain most unexpectedly. Besides this, an unusually high Nile might catch the foundations of many houses in the waters of the inundation, and, by melting away the first few lower courses of mud brick, ruin a large portion of the city. No great loss ensued: it had cost but little to build the houses, it cost little to replace them. The walls were beaten down, and the place was leveled, and was considerably raised by the debris of the ruin. The new house was built upon this platform. Thus cities have literally risen, in Egypt, until they stood upon a mound. Every village and town of modern Egypt is thus lifted up above the plain. Thus this old city of On grew, and arose, if we may adapt Tennyson’...