THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN " every point of view I saw magnificent groups, pyramid rising "behind pyramid, while the dilapidated state of many did not " render them less interesting, though less beautiful as works of " art " (p. 68). Hoskins noted the existence of only three groups of pyramids, containing the remains of eighty monuments, and he appears not to have noticed the large group, in a terribly ruined state, it is true, which lies a little to the north of the village of Kabushia. His plans are very useful, and he rightly concluded that the orientation of the pyramids was the result of a " religious observance " ; that their builders had no astronomical object in view in making the pyramid shrines face the rising sun he considered certain from the variation in their directions, and from there being no attempt at mathematical precision. And he was certain that " the scientific object conceived by some ** to have been contemplated in the location of the pyramids ** of Memphis," could not be attributed to them. He concluded that the pyramids of Meroe were tombs, and that they were probably constructed over wells in which bodies were deposited, and he thought it highly improbable that any of them contained galleries or corridors. It must be noted that Hoskins stated that attempts had been made, either from motives of curiosity or avarice, to open many of the pyramids, a fact which 1 shall comment on later in the description of the site.

Having made plans of three groups of pyramids, and measurements of the sides at their bases of large numbers of pyramids, Hoskins moved on to Shendi, and two days later he reached the ruins called by the Arabs " Masawwarat-as-Sufra '' He describes their appearance as very imposing from their immense extent, and says that they were the " most curious and inexplicable " which he had yet seen in Ethiopia. " They consist of chambers, courts, " corridors, and temples, in an enclosure or parallelogram, 760 by " 660 feet ; but in more accurate numbers the entire circumference " is 2854 feet." The style and variety of the remains at this place puzzled Hoskins, and he found it difiicult to say for what purpose the buildings were intended. Cailliaud, as we have already seen, made up his mind that they formed a college, and Prof. Heeren believed that they represented the famous Ammonium, or the original seat of the oracle of Jupiter Ammon, " at whose command .56