THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN dates from the reign of Amen-hetep III., who appears to have dedicated it to his favourite wife Thi. It was built on an unusual plan, and was, I believe, intended to be rather a fortified place on the great caravan road from Egypt to the south than a house of worship. The blocks of stone used in its construction are large, and well shaped, but the work on the Hathor capitals of the two pillars is flat and poor. From the ruins we passed southwards over mounds of rubbish which must mark the site of the ancient city, and came to the remains of another small temple, which Hoskins says the natives call " Biban," i.e., " Gates." Among these we discovered a slab of black basalt, on the sides of which was sculptured the standard of a god " ; it had evidently been used as the pedestal for a figure of a god or sacred animal, and was the first specimen of the kind I had seen. The workmanship was good and certainly ancient Egyptian, and we made arrangements to bring this interesting object away with us. The remains of the temple, which may have been a restoration of the late Ptolemaic or Roman period, were neither important, nor interesting.

We returned to Suwarda in the early afternoon, and spent the remainder of the day in trying to obtain information as to the whereabouts of the antiquities which were there in 1898, but which had since disappeared. We could hear nothing of the granite sphinxes and the large stelae which were then near the village, and the only conclusion possible is that they have been used for building purposes or smashed. Several shekhs came and consulted the Inspector on all sorts of matters, and some of them were anxious to send their sons to Khartum to be educated. Everybody wanted something for nothing, and the Inspector's patience and forbearance were astonishing. The natives, who are a mixture of simplicity and cunning in about equal parts, delighted in having an official of the Government to talk to in this unceremonious manner, and visits paid to them in this unassuming fashion, by suitable officials, will, I am sure, increase the confidence of this suspicious people in the Government. The mind of the Sudani man is set on a different plane from that of most folk, and his mental attitude to things in general can only be learned by informal intercourse with him.

454