Whoever changed the lands of Tyre which are in the province of Idol and others. So whatever is in that changes for lentils and with the cutting of its people and animals.

If the army was from the direction of Syria, it did in those images which belonged to those who ruled for its direction what the army of Syria had done before, what it did and what we had done before it, so there occurs in that for the army effects on its people and animals with the prevention by those images.

Likewise, whoever came from the armies of the Maghreb and whoever came by sea from Rome and Syria and other lands, so it takes them for the kings and nations and groups, they were ashamed of their enemy and their kingdom was connected by the management of these chambers and their effects to build the expectation of the queen and her political rulings.

People have mocked from predecessors and successors in these specialties and secrets of nature that were in the lands of Egypt.

This is a report of what the old woman did, which is well-established among the Egyptians. It is not possible that anyone who came to Egypt from her time has remaining knowledge until this time, so they called them types of images, so when they were depicted in some things, they produced effects according to what they returned to and prevented for its sake according to their strength in food and blood.

Al-Mas’udi said: And more than one person in the lands of Ajam from the district of Egypt informed me about Abu al-Nafis Dhu al-Nun al-Misri al-Ajami the ascetic.

He was wise and had a brilliant method and a state that he sought. He was among those who informed about these structures and their traces.

He often drew in them images and writing.

He said: I saw in some of the structures writing that he mentioned.

Behold it was one of the ancient covenants and the renewed events and for the multiple covenants and the confused Arabized one.

he said: I saw in some of the structures writing that he mentioned, and behold it was one according to the number of the stored and the space by your limit, and he claimed that he saw writing at its end, so he attributed it to that first pen and found it:

‘It will be destroyed by the star and it is not by destruction, and the star inherited by justice what returns.’

This nation that built these structures was proficient in astrology, knowledgeable in the positions of the stars’ rulings on the knowledge of nature’s secrets, so they had what the star rulings indicated - that a flood would occur on earth.

But they did not determine about that flood what it was - whether it would be fire that burns the earth and destroys what is on it, or water that drowns it, or sword that destroys its people.

So they took precaution for the destruction of the world and its survival by the survival of its people.

So they built these structures and made them one by one.

They deposited in them their sciences of images, totals, and writing.

They made their construction from two types: clay and refined stone - what was built with clay, what was built with stone.

They said: If this flood was fire, what was built with clay would turn to stone and these sciences would remain.

If the coming flood was water, it would destroy what was built with clay and what was built with stones would remain.

If the flood was sword, both types would remain - what is with clay and others.

This is according to what was presented. God knows best whether it was before the flood or after it, or whether that was after the flood.

The flood they were expecting and they did not benefit - whether it was fire, water, or sword - was a calamity that befell all the people of Egypt from a nation of five, and thus it descended upon them by the destruction of its people.

Some of them saw that this flood was a plague that befell its people generally.

The evidence of that is what is found in the lands of Shams of the erected statues of people from Umayr and Mudammar and mentioned Rahuni like great ropes, and in the well-known [places] in the lands of Shams from the land of Egypt between Al-Akram, and what is found in the lands of Egypt and its temples of people clothed, some upon others in caves and Ghadabiran and Tawabous and many places on earth - it is not known from which nations.

The Christians reported about them that they are from their ancestors.

But the Jews do not claim that they are from their people, nor do the Muslims claim them from before, nor is there any history that speaks about their condition over their traces.

often what is found in those deserts and by those who came after them, and the deserts in the lands of Egypt have standing structures like the pyramid for taking in the lands of Ansana from the lands of Egypt.

It is one of the two places among them and the pyramid which is in the lands of Ajam and the pyramid which is in the lands of Sahdoud and others.

Those pyramids, their lengths are great and their construction is wondrous upon them are types of writings in the scripts of past nations, permanent kingdoms

it is not known what those writings are nor what is intended by them.

Whoever was concerned with examining their examination said that the circuit of their height in the air reaches about 400 cubits, rather more, and it has risen those who ascended that.

The Arabs put what we have placed upon them from the drawings that we mentioned, and that those are sciences of specialties and expertise and secrets of nature.

Aamong those writings is written: ‘We built them in our beginning of balancing in the kingdom or our reaching in the initiative and our culmination from the authority. So let them imitate them and let them complete their drawing for demolition is easier than construction. Destruction is easier than composition.’

Some of the kings of Islam began to demolish some of them. So when they left Egypt and other lands, they did not remain with their action, and they remained from the heat and the oscillation.

There is no contradiction between those with inspiration that in places on earth there are cities and we see that no stranger enters them, nor any snake, like the fortress of Ma’arra and Egypt and Antioch.

It used to be in the lands of Antioch that when a person extended his hand outside the wall, the leech would be placed upon it, but when he brought it inside, nothing of that would remain on his hand, until marble statues were broken in some of the places in it.

[There was] a statue set up in its preparation, truly made of brass, inside it remained a depicted figure of brass that moved, so the days did not control or over the birds from that until it became superior.

In our time, this is mostly from Durum, and this is the magnet stone that attracts iron.

I have seen in Egypt a depicted snake made of iron or brass placed on something. Its body contains magnet stone, so movement occurs in it that distances from it.

When the smell of garlic affects the magnet stone, its effect is nullified.

When brass is made or something of garlic juice touches it, it returns to its first effect of attracting iron.

The magnet has wondrous properties other than what we mentioned, like the most reduction of blood.

They can removing headache according to the measure of time and their need.

So do not make actions dependent on their caves and what gathers between things that increase by their gathering a meaning that is other than them, as was found with the water of action and the alum when gathering from the intensity of blackness, and the letters of the glass were united according to some of them between sand and magnet and the weight according to nature and the chain for that.

Likewise if one gathered between the water of the ghafl and the water of the berbik, which is the decrees

“Something emerges from mixing their temperaments like roses, white, so when snow water is mixed with vitriol water, there occurs from their mixing a red color like safflower.

They are combined in production between copper and hair, so it happens after - and if we incubate constantly over vessels to extract from it after extinguishing one with characteristics and fat called the Aidon.

The production that was in Upper Egypt about what leads to Abyssinia and what used to be produced from the Shabran over the Ayan and for India the solution of the Baghr and what was found from that of strange animals that neither reproduce nor procreate like the mule which is neither a beast nor… We mentioned the varieties of generations in types of animals and forests from their semen, shoots and offspring, and what is generated from tastes in sweetness in our book translated as ‘The Varieties and Experiments’ in types of treatments and others.

We mentioned the chapter on the properties of things and their knowledge and talismans and their properties. It is a great chapter, some of which was mentioned as an end about some of the glass with which he accompanies less oil and sarmana, by that indicating knowledge of alchemy.

By these containers and talismans and the exertion of the 2 workers in the world for movements that have meaning of repelling preventatives and repelling and attracting and acting in animals and others since expulsion and attraction.

Kaydil had wars with the kings of the Maghreb and was raided by the Abyssinians.

Nasir Marbiyan of the Maghreb was from the king of Persia, so he killed his men and the Abyssinian Nasir marched toward the Maghreb.

Al-Mas’udi said: Egypt had:

• 32 Pharaohs
• 5 Babylonian kinds who ruled Egypt
• 4 from the Persian kings from the Sasanians who passed to it from the lands of Syria
• 7 from the Akram
• 10 from the Greeks

That was before the appearance of the Messiah and the rule of people from the Persians under the Caesars.

So the total years of those who ruled Egypt from the Pharaohs, Romans, Amalekites, and Greeks was 300 years.

Al-Mas’udi said: I asked the Copts of Upper Egypt what is ‘Pharaoh’”

Tthen they informed me about the meaning of that, and there is no Muhammad in their language - it is possible, and God knows best, that this name was a title for the kings of those eras.

this language changed like the change of Pahlavi and in the first Persian to the second Persian, like Greek to Latin

the change of Himyaritic and other languages.

And we have precious reports from the treasuries and tombs and what is found in the treasuries of treasures of kings that the earth encompassed and others from the nations in the inhabitants of that land, and the seeker has reached this goal.

We have covered all of that in what preceded from our books on the wonders of their reports, what Ja’i ibn Bakr mentioned.

He said: ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ibn Marwan was a governor over Egypt for his brother ‘Abd al-Malik, so a man came claiming lineage to ‘Abd al-‘Aziz. He advised him, so he said in Coptic: ‘A great treasure.’ ‘Abd al-‘Aziz said"

“‘And what are the signs of that?’

He said: ‘It is that there appears to us a courtyard of types of marble and stone when we dig a little from the earth, then the earth desires us to fill the door with gold, beneath it is a column of gold, on top of it a rooster of gold, its two eyes are two rubies equal to the tribute of the world, and its wings are separated by ruby and emerald, we see it on the gold plates on top of that column.’

So ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ordered the opening of the house from the dinars and others from the men’s treasures in that and worked on it, and there was a great hope there.

So they dug a great pit in the earth, and the interior for the coming mentioned the two of them from the marble and stone appeared. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz increased in eagerness for that and expanded in spending and employed more men. Then they reached in their digging the appearance of the head of the rooster.

So when it appeared, there was a great gleaming like flashing lightning due to what was in its eyes of ruby and the intensity of its light and the radiance of its brilliance, then it became clear”

Then she built its wings and established its foundations.

Around its columns appeared pillars made of various kinds of stones, marble, and diverse materials, layered over its multiple gates. Among them were idols, statues, figures, and likenesses of people made of gold and other precious substances. She engraved upon the stones inscriptions and symbols.

She further adorned it by covering it with plates of gold until ‘Abd al-‘Aziz rode upon it for twenty months, marveling at its splendor.

When the golden plating was removed, some of its ornaments were dismantled, and various precious items were placed upon steps and stairs. Whoever ascended would encounter wondrous marvels.

On the fourth step, for instance, stood an image of a man whose hands were extended. In one hand he held a spear, and in the other he bore a shield. His form was made of polished metal, and at times he would strike with the spear or defend with the shield.

Upon the fifth step was the form of a seated man with strange characteristics, beside whom lay a large serpent, a wild beast, and a bird perched atop a column. Nearby was a falcon and a small vulture, fashioned in astonishing likenesses.

Beyond that were chambers with marvelous women who played instruments and struck upon drums and tambourines.

When one reached the lower steps, something wondrous appeared: a group of men stationed beneath, who would suddenly emerge to seize anyone who tried to ascend further, binding him and striking him with clubs until he fell lifeless.

It is said that whoever passed beyond this point was never seen again.

This, al-Mas‘udi tells us, was one of the strangest marvels and most wondrous constructions, a repository of treasures, jewels, rare objects, talismans, and secrets, gathered by kings of old, priests, and sages of bygone ages.

The ancient writings say that in some of the old pyramids it was recorded that:

• the Nile would one day dry up
• the people would be afflicted with famine.

So they urged the reader to take heed and to store provisions in underground chambers.

It was also said that they should dig out treasures and preserve them carefully, lest they be lost.

So they carved out great subterranean chambers, where they placed stone chests and wooden boxes made from a type of wood resistant to decay.

Within these, they stored items of precious materials: red stones, yellow stones, images, statues, medicines, poisons, and talismans of various kinds.

They also placed within them different kinds of jewels, gems, and strange objects, along with herbs, roots, and other wondrous things.

When some of these chambers were opened, they were found to contain idols of gold, silver, and bronze, as well as images shaped in astonishing ways.

Among them were statues of people, each with inscriptions describing who they were and what their deeds had been.

They also found in these hidden chambers coffins of stone, inside which were embalmed bodies preserved by means of herbs, aromatic resins, and plaster mixed with other substances.

These exuded a powerful scent when exposed to air.

They also uncovered vessels filled with different types of remedies and mixtures, some known and some unknown.

There were also statues of wood, fashioned into lifelike images of people, some bearing the likeness of ancient rulers and sages, others of priests and common folk. Some were sculpted from stone, marble, or green porphyry, each carefully engraved.

Many of these statues were immense in size, constructed according to the knowledge and calculations of their builders.

Some were hollow, designed to contain hidden objects, while others were solid.

The walls of these underground chambers were inscribed with writings that recorded the names of kings, their reigns, and the marvels they accomplished, as well as the secrets of their sciences.

These people were neither Jews, nor Christians, nor Magians.

We have already mentioned some of these statues. This was In the year 828, Egypt was under the rule of one of the sons of Ṭūlūn and others who succeeded him, until this present time, which is the year 332.