Note 144 — Chapter III

This word, σύριγξ (flute), was employed by the Greeks to designate those long subterranean galleries cut in the rock of the necropolis at Thebes, in the valley called the Valley of the Kings; modern egyptologists apply it in a more general sense to all tombs cut deeply into the flanks of the mountain. For the reason which led the Greeks to adopt a term which now seems rather fantastic, see Pierret, Dictionnaire d'Archéologie égyptienne. The chief passages in ancient authors in which the term is applied either to the subterranean excavations of Egypt or to other galleries of the same kind, are brought together by Jomard in the third volume of the Description (Antiquités, vol. iii. pp. 12-14).