Future Travellers May Visit The
Spot Under The Protection Of An Armed Force; The Inhabitants Will Become
More Accustomed To The Researches Of Strangers; And The Antiquities Of
[P.422] Wady Mousa will then be found to rank amongst the most curious
remains of ancient art.
At the point where the valley becomes narrow is a large sepulchral
vault, with a handsome door hewn in the rock on the slope of the hill
which rises from the right bank of the torrent: on the same side of the
rivulet, a little farther on, I saw some other sepulchres with singular
ornaments. Here a mass of rock has been insulated from the mountain by
an excavation, which leaves a passage five or six paces in breadth
between it and the mountain. It forms nearly a cube of sixteen feet, the
top being a little narrower than the base; the lower part is hollowed
into a small sepulchral cave with a low door; but the upper part of the
mass is solid. There are three of these mausolea at a short distance
from each other. A few paces lower, on the left side of the stream, is a
larger mausoleum similarly formed, which appears from its decayed state,
and the style of its architecture, to be of more ancient date than the
others. Over its entrance are four obelisks, about ten feet in height,
cut out of the same piece of rock; below is a projecting ornament, but
so much defaced by time that I was unable to discover what it had
originally represented; it had, however, nothing of the Egyptian style.
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