chambers and the inclosing wall of the temple can be traced; while on
the right hand, in the middle distance, is a heap of limestone blocks,
already collected by Rameses II. for the completion or enlargement of
the temple. The excavations were photographed for M. Naville, by Herr
Emil Brugsch, of the Boulak Museum, and our illustrations are taken from
these photographs, supplemented by sketches.--_S.L.P., in Illustrated
London News_.

* * * * *




THE MOABITE MANUSCRIPTS.


The surprises of archaeology are magnificent and apparently
inexhaustible. It is continually bringing forth things new and old, and
often it happens that the newest are the oldest of all. Whether this
or the exact converse is the case in regard to the latest discovery of
Biblical archaeology is a question not to be determined offhand; but the
interest and importance of the question can hardly be overrated. There
are now deposited in the British Museum fifteen leather slips, on the
forty folds of which are written portions of the Book of Deuteronomy
in a recension entirely different from that of the received text. The
character employed in the manuscript is similar to that of the famous
Moabite stone and of the Siloam inscription, and, therefore, the mere
palaeographical indication should give the probable date of the slips as
the ninth century B. C., or sixteen centuries earlier than any other
clearly authenticated manuscript of any portion of the Old Testament.