Australian troops visiting one of the tombs at Saqqara, Egypt 1915.
[Courtesy of Australian War Memorial - J02174]
Sunday 7th March
Capt Waite and Lieut Ellis left camp with me at
7.15AM to visit Sakkara and Memphis, about 3 ½ hours from Camp.
At Sakkara we inspected four tombs. Tomb of Ti,
Serapeum or Tomb of the Sacred Bulls, Ptahkotep, and Mera. We found
them intensely interesting, the carvings on the walls and the effective
colouring being particularly good. The book "The Tombs of Sakkara" by
A.A. Quibell gives all details so I will not enter them here. After inspecting
these tombs we rode on to the ruins of the Ancient City of Memphis. Very little
remains to be seen here, but we saw the two Statues of the Rameses (the great
and the 2nd) also a good specimen of Sphinx, and the granite ruins of an
Ancient Temple, which must have been very fine in its day. We returned to Camp
at 6.PM. An officer of Infantry this evening informed me my old 5"
Howitzers were on the way from Australia. Just as I write a man passing my tent
said something about a sycamore tree, reminding me that today we saw several
fine specimens, doubtless the same species as was climbed by our old friend
Zaccheus of Bible history.
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