Richard Francis Burton

“ But here, and indeed generally throughout Midian, the furious torrents, uncontrolled during long ages by the hand of man, have swept large gaps in the masses of homestead and public buildings. Again the ruins of this section are distributable into two kinds—the City of the Living, and the City of the Dead.
The former, of considerable extent, hugs the watercourse, and crowns all the natural spurs that buttress the bed. Beginning from the north lie two blocks of building considerable in extent: the southern, called by the Arabs El–Malká, is a broken parallelogram. ”

“ A bastion of well-built wall in three straight lines overhangs the perpendicular face of the eastern gorge: in two places there are signs of a similar defence to the south, but time and weather have eaten most of it away. The ground sounds hollow, and the feet sink in the crumbling heaps: evidently the whole building was of Rughám (gypsum) ; and in the process of decay it has become white as blocks of ice, here and there powdered with snow.
On the narrow, flat ledge, between the western base of this Safrá and the eastern side of the Bada’ valley, lie masses of ruin now become mere rubbish ”

“ The northernmost is known as Wady el-Khurayk, because it drains a height of that name: the others bear the generic term Wady el-Safrá, so called, like the hauteville hill, from the tawny-yellow colour of the rocks. The catacombs, fronting in all directions, because the makers were guided by convenience, not by ceremonial rule, are hollowed in the soft new sandstone underlying the snowy gypsum; and most of the façades show one or more horizontal lines of natural bead-work, rolled pebbles disposed parallelly by the natural action of water. ”

“ After receiving a network of Secondary valleys that enable it to flow a torrent, as in France, every ten to twelve years, it falls into the Mínat el-‘Ayánát, a little port for native craft, which will presently be visited. We left this Wady at a bend, some two hundred metres wide, called the “Broad of the Jujube,” from one of the splendid secular trees that characterize North Midian. Near the camping-ground we shall find another veteran Zizyphus, whose three huge stems, springing from a single base, argue a green old age. ”

“ At the south-eastern end of the outliers projected by the Jebel el-Safrá, where a gentle slope of red earth falls towards the valley-bank, is the only group of building of which any part is still standing. ”

“ Crossing the second dwarf gorge we find, on the right bank, a third large ruin of at least fourteen loculi; the hard upper reef, dipping at an angle of 30 degrees, and striking from north-west to southeast, fell in when the soft base was washed away by weather, and the anatomy of the graves is completely laid bare. Higher up the same Wady is a fourth Maghárah, also broken down: the stucco-coating still shows remnants of red paint; and the characters **—possibly Arab “Wasm,” or tribe-marks—are cut into an upright entrance-stone. ”

“ This isolated “Yellow Hill,” a “horse” in Icelandic parlance, rising about two hundred feet above the valley-sole, is separated by a deep, narrow gorge from the adjacent eastern range. The slopes, now water-torn and jagged, may formerly have declined in regular lines, and evidently all were built over to the crest like those of Syrian Safet. The foundations of walls and rock-cut steps are still found even on the far side of the eastern feature. The knifeback is covered with the foundations of what appears to be a fortified Laura or Palace ”

“ The door-jambs, which have hollowings for hinges and holes for bars, are much worn and often broken; they are rarely inclined inwards after the fashion of Egypt. A few have windows, or rather port-holes, flanking the single entrance. The peculiarities and the rare ornaments will be noticed when describing each receptacle; taken as a whole, they are evidently rude and barbarous forms of the artistic catacombs and tower-tombs that characterize Petra and Palmyra. ”

“ It then turns the west end of the Jebel el-Safrá, a mass of gypsum on the left bank, and it bends to the east of south, having thus formed a figure of Z. After escaping from the imprisoning hills, the Fiumara bed, now about three-quarters of a mile broad, is bisected longitudinally by a long and broken lump of chloritic or serpentine sandstone; and rises in steps towards the right bank, upon which the pilgrims camp. Reaching the plain, the Wady flares out wildly, containing a number of riverine islands, temporary, but sometimes of considerable size. ”

“ This rich king’s treasure-house has been found portrayed in the far-famed Temple of Medinat Habú: the mass of wealth, gold, silver, copper, and spices, is enormous; and, while the baser metals are in bars, the precious are stored in heaps, sacks, and vases. ”

“ The site may be old, but the present ruins are distinctly mediæval, dating probably from the days of the Egyptian “Mameluke” Sultans. Beginning from below and to the south-west is a Hauz, or “cistern,” measuring twenty-six by nineteen and a half metres, with a depth of nine to ten feet. The material is cut sandstone, cemented outside with mortar containing the normal brick-crumbs and pebbles, and inside mixed with mud. At the north-eastern and south-western corners are retaining buttresses in two steps, exactly like those in the inland fort of El–Wijh ”

“ Bedawi clans and sub-tribes always combine against stranger families; but when there is no foreign “war,” they amuse themselves with pilling and plundering, sabring and shooting one another. I believe that the palms were roasted to death by the ‘Imrán, although the Shaykhs assured me that the damage was done this year, by a careless Mas’údi when cooking his food. The tribe appears to be Egypto–Arab, like the Huwayta’t and the Ma’ázah, having congeners at Ghazzah (Gaze) and at Ras el-Wady, near Egyptian Tell el-Kebir. ”

“ Long leats and watercourses have been cut in the clay, and are still lined with the white-flowered “Rijlah,” whose nutritive green leaf is eaten, raw or boiled, by the Fellahs of Egypt: the wild growth, however, is mostly bitter. On both sides are little square plots fenced against sheep and goats by a rude abattis of stripped and dead boughs, Jujube and acacia. Young dates have been planted in pits; some are burnt and others are torn; for the Bedawi, mischievous and destructive as the Cynocephalus, will neither work nor allow others to work. ”

“ These are doubtless the “inscribed tablets on which the names of kings are engraved,” alluded to in the Jihan-numá of Haji Khahífah.43 Rounding the reef to the north, we found three catacombs in the worst condition: one of them showed holes drilled in the façade.
The southern outliers lie far down the Wady ‘Afál, facing east, and hewn in the left flank of a dwarf gulley which falls into the right bank not far from the site called by our men “the tavern.” The group numbers three, all cut in the normal sandstone, with the harder dykes which here stand up like ears. ”

“ The Bedawin of this country seem ever to prefer for their last homes the most ancient sites; they place the body in a pit, covered with a large slab or a heap of stones, but they never fill in the hollow, as is usual among Moslems, with earth. The arrangements suit equally well the hyena and the skull-collector; and thus I was able to make a fair collection of Bedawi crania. ”

“ Possibly the façades may once have been stuccoed and coloured; now they show the bare and pebble-banded sandstone.
The southernmost, which may be assumed as the type, has an upright door, flanked by a stone bench of three steps. Over the entrance is a defaced ornament which may have been the bust of a man: in Rüppell it is a kind of geometrical design. ”

“ On January 9th we left ‘Aynúnah by the Hajj-road, and passed along the Quarry Hill visited during my first journey: the crest has old cuttings and new cuttings, the latter still worked for Bedawi headstones. The dwarf pillar with the mysterious cup is reflected by the Nubians, who hollow out the upper part of the stela to a depth of eight or ten inches without adding any ornament. ”

“ These are—the northern outliers; the “Tombs of the Kings,” so called by ourselves because they distinguish themselves from all the others; the “buttressed caves” (two sets) ; and the southern outliers. The first mentioned begin with a ruin on the right jaw of the Khurayk gorge: it is dug in strata dipping, as usual, from north-west to south-east; it faces eastward, and the entrance declines to the south. ”

“ The breadth of this, the eastern settlement, varies with the extent of the ledge between the gypsum-hills and the sandy Wady; the length may be a kilometre. The best preserved traces of crowded building end with the south-eastern spur of the Jebel el-Safrá. Beyond them is a huge cemetery. The ancient graves are pits in the ground ”

“ It leads to the apex of the coralline formations, scattered over with fragments of gypsum, here amorphous, there crystalline or talc-like, and all dazzling white as powdered sugar. Signs of tent foundations and of buildings appear in impossible places ”