ning the Portus Magnus, we must admit that a canal passed through the eastern portion of the town.

This is true, moreover, for, the Byzantine period, as we learn from a papyrus discovered in Upper Egypt and published by J. Maspero (See Pap. Byz., II, 2, p. 132).

A canal starting from Schedia, or at any rate a branch of the ancient canal, enlarged and improved, must have been continued to the Eunostos or the Kibotos about the 40th year of the Emperor Augustus. Two identical inscriptions dated A. D. 10 and 11 tell us that Augustus « Flumen Se

baston a Schedia induxit ut per se toto oppido flueret ». One of these two inscriptions is engraved on a nummilitic limestone column discovered in digging the foundations for the Native Tribunal in Boctori Street, close to the ancient Kibotos.

The course that Alexandria's principal canal followed in the outskirts of the town, and particularly the branch which connected the town with Canopus, was celebrated for its charm. There were beautiful gardens along its two banks, (inter vi. ridia ab utroque latere); each garden was surrounded by a wall and the rich Alexandrian owners had their family tombs there also. The Canopic branch

Fig. 28.

must have separated from the main canal at about the site of the present Hagar-el-Nawatieh (the sailors' stone), corresponding no doubt to the IIέroa or Petrae of the ancients.

All the neighbourhood of Alexandria was traversed by secondary canals which divided the country into numerous small

islands; villages existed whose names have been disclosed to us either by the papyri of Abousir-el-Melek or by inscriptions, such as village of Arsinoé; village of Berenice; village of the Syrians; village of the Antiochians.

The cisterns.

The drinking-water used by the town was drawn almost entirely from the Canal and stored up in numberless underground-ground cisterns. The inscription of the

40th

Fig. 29.

year of Augustus, spoken of above, informs us that this Emperor ordered works to be carried out to provide the whole town with fresh water, but we also know that in Caesar's time cisterns were very numerous in Alexandria. (Alexandria est fere tota suffossa specusque habet ad Nilum pertinentes, quibus aqua in privatus domus inducitur).

These cisterns were fed by underground canals connected with the branch of the river. There were also numerous isolated cisterns. These were filled by means of machines mounted over large wells, connected with the nearest branch of an under-ground canal. Others might also have been supplied with rain water in the winter.

At the Arab epoch their number had so much increased that,

according to Makrizi, the buildings of Alexandria rested on vaults forming arched passages down which horsemen carrying lances could pass easily and make the tour of the town underground. The number, capacity, and magnificence of these reservoirs is something quite remarkable; they are superb porticos placed one above another and as elegantly designed as they are solidly built .

At the time of the French expedition there were still 308 cisterns in use. Mahmoud El-Falaki knew of 700 in 1872,

many of which had two or three storeys supported by arches resting on red granite or marble columns.

Today, on account of the innumerable constructions of the modern town the greater number of these cisterns have been demolished, but many still exist, and the Antiquities Department has been able to rescue one with three storeys. This cistern el-Nabih, open to the public, is found in the eastern part of the gardens of the Boulevard Sultan Hussein (fig. 28-30). It is possible to reckon the approximate age of a cistern by the materials used in its construction. If, for example, capitals of pillars with Christian symbols are found, we may be sure that the cistern is later than the Roman epoch, and that it was probably rebuilt or repaired at the Arab epoch. In their present condition, although their origin may be of much earlier

date, the cisterns of Alexandria are classed amongst the antiquities of Arab Art.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. BERNARD H., Notice sur Alexandrie souterraine, in Bull. Int. Egypt., 21 Mars 1873; SAINT-GENIS, o. c.; MAHMOUD EL-FALAKI, o. c., p. 29 sqq; BOTTI, Les citernes d'Alex., in Bull. Soc. Arch. d'Alex., 4, P. 15 sqq; STRZYGOWSKI, Die Zisternen von Alex, in Byz. Zeitschrift, IV, p. 92; HERZ MAX, Les citernes d'Alex., in Monuments de l'Art Arabe, 1898, p. 81-86, pl. V-VII.

The Cemeteries. Owing to the configuration of the ground on which Alexandria was built the cemeteries must inevitably have lain to the eastward and westward of the town. Strabo speaks of a single city of the dead, the western suburb, the vexoóлolis, a word which now-a-days designates any huge hypogeum, any vast cemetery, but which originally was a special name for the collection of cemeteries situated to the west of Alexandria. However, excavations undertaken since the middle of the XIX century in the eastern suburbs have brought to light numerous and extensive cemeteries dating from the earliest Ptolemaic period. Probably the eastern cemeteries were rather deserted at the end of the first century B. C. and Strabo was struck by the mummification which must have been used exclusively in the western cemetery. To sum up I think we can draw the following conclusions:

1) Since the foundation of Alexandria, vast cemeteries were formed, both to the eastward and to the westward of the town. 2) In the Ptolemaic period, they buried in the eastern cemetery, almost exclusively, the Greeks and foreigners; in the western a few Greeks and foreigners, but chiefly Egyptians.

3) At the close of the Ptolemaic and in the Roman period, the dead were still buried in the eastern suburbs, but in much smaller numbers than in the western.

4) Mummification was used exclusively in the western cemetery.

The cemeteries discovered in Alexandria fall into two classes: cemeteries open to the sky, and underground cemeteries. The first consisted of a portion of land covered with graves dug on the surface of the soil; these graves are surmounted either by a small monument in stone, or by a mound (tumulus) of earth and sand. A stele, painted, or carved in relief, sometimes with an inscription, enabled the corpses to be identified. The underground cemeteries, like Kom-el-Shugafa for example, were composed of a whole series of passages, rooms, and niches carved out of the rock. The plan of these was more or less complicated (they might consist of as many as

was

three storeys, one above another) according as the tomb intended for a single person, a whole family, or a corporation. The house of the living was reproduced in its plan and the elements of its construction in the house of the dead. The underground tomb at Chatby is very instructive in this respect. As for the method of disposing of the corpse, the natives still preferred mummification, the Greeks and foreigners used indiscriminately interment or cremation. The Christians until the close of the IV century did not consider mummification contrary to the new religion, but from the time of the Emperor Theodosius they always buried their dead.

Whether the body was mummified or buried, it was laid

either in a grave in the open air, or on a funeral couch, or in a sarcophagus in the form of a couch, or in a real sarcophagus (fig. 31) made of marble, granite, terra cotta, lead, or wood, or in a small horizontal cell hollowed out of the wall of the tomb. This cell was the origin of the loculus, which was somewhat smaller and square in section. The loculi were hollowed out side by side, in several rows one above another. A door with an inscription giving the name of the dead, or just a simple inscription was painted in red, blue and black on the surface of the slab which closed up the cell or loculus.

When the dead were cremated, the ashes were preserved in an urn which had usually the from of a hydria (a vase with three handles, nearly always about 40 cm. high) (fig. 32). The hydria was sometimes deposited by the side of an inter. red body, or more often in a small niche ad hoc.