THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN man from Basle, O. Georgi, a painter from Leipzig, H. Abeken, a Counsellor of Legation, Franke the formatore, J. Bonomi, an artist, and J. Wild, an architect. The members of the expedition met at Alexandria on September i8th, 1842; Lepsius' examination of the antiquities of the Sudan began on January 8th, 1844.

He crossed the desert between Korosko and Abu Hamed, and proceeded to the village of -Bagrawiya, close to which lie the pyramids of the Island of Meroe ; from the Pyramids he went to Shendi, and having examined the remains of Nagaa and Masawwarat, he passed on to Khartum. From Khartum Lepsius sailed up the Blue Nile and visited Soba and Sennaar, and whilst he was thus occupied the other members of the expedition returned to Bagrawiya, where they were joined by Lepsius and Abeken on April 5th. When all the drawings, plans, &c., had been made, the party left the pyramids, and marched by the desert of Gilif to Gebel Barkal in six days. From Gebel Barkal they descended the Nile, stopping at Dongola, Arkd, Tombos, Sesebi, Soleb (Sulb), Saddenga, the Island of Sai, Amara, Semna, and, of course, all the ancient sites which lay on each side of the Nile between Wadi Haifa and Aswn. The sketches, drawings, plans, copies of inscriptions, &c., which were made by the members of the expedition, were published under the editorship of Lepsius in that magnificent work the " Denkmaler," in many large-folio volumes. The material collected by Lepsius is of the greatest importance, and it must form the base of all future work on the archaeology of the Sudan ; its value increases as time goes on, for many of the monuments with which it deals have either disappeared entirely, or are in imminent danger of being destroyed. In the course of his travels in the Sudtin Lepsius caused a number of stelae, &c., which he considered to be of special importance, to be dug out from the ruins of buildings and sent to the Royal Museum of Berlin ; similarly, under the rule of Mariette over the Bulak Museum, a limited number of monuments were brought from certain sites in Nubia, and placed among the National Collection of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo. Neither Lepsius nor Mariette carried out excavations on the sites of any of the ancient cities of the Sudan, and nothing was done towards solving the problem of the construction of the pyramids of the 62