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It is possible that they may be a survival of the archaistic movement of the XXVIth Dynasty, to which we have already referred. These are not the latest Egyptian monuments in the Sudan, nor are the temples of Naga and Mesawwarat the most ancient, though they belong to the Roman period and are decidedly barbarian as to their style and, especially, as to their decoration.
The monuments of this Nubian kingdom, the temples of Jebel Barkal, the pyramids of Nure close by, the pyramids of Bagarawiya, the temples of Wadi Ben Naga, Mesawwarat en-Naga, and Mesawwarat es-Sufra ("Mesawwarat" proper), were originally investigated by Cailliaud and afterwards by Lepsius. During the last few years they and the pyramids excavated by Dr. E. A. Wallis-Budge, of the British Museum, for the Sudan government, have been again explored. As the results of his work are not yet fully published, it is possible at present only to quote the following description from Cook's Handbook for Egypt and the Sudan (by Dr. Budge), p. 6, of work on the pyramids of Jebel Barkal: "the writer excavated the shafts of one of the pyramids here in 1897, and at the depth of about twenty-five cubits found a group of three chambers, in one of which were a number of bones of the sheep which was sacrificed there about two thousand years ago, and also portions of a broken amphora which had held Rho-dian wine. A second shaft, which led to the mummy-chamber, was partly emptied, but at a further depth of twenty cubits water was found. The high-water mark of the reservoir when full is and, as there were no visible means for pumping it out, the mummy-chamber could not be entered." With regard to the Bagarawîya pyramids, Dr. Budge writes, on p. 700 of the same work,
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