p1

^ Ghayat Al-Hakim
^
the eagle in the center of it and covered the place with silk.
He bowed to it and incensed it and sacrificed for it till the
spirit talked to him and he started to worship the eagle
and made the people worship it too. After a while the
eagle ordered Awna to build a citv and dedicated to him,
which would also be a fortress and a shelter to him. So he
ordered his builders to build it in a location in west of
Egvpt were it was an easy and breezy place between
rugged mountains that no one can get through. Awna
went with his magicians, his men and his builders with
their heavy equipment and food on wheeled carts, the
routes of these wheels can be seen on the ground even
today. They decided to build the city in an area of two
leagues by two leagues. They dug a well and they put in
the will a statue of a pig made of copper and they made
the face of the pig face east and Saturn is on a straight line
with it and that is to keep it safe from any harm, as long as
it is in the presence of Saturn Then they sacrificed a pig,
smeared Awna's face with the blood and they censed his
hair. They took from the pig's hair, bones, blood, meat and
gallbladder and they put it in the copper pig's statue and
they also put some of the gallbladder in the pig statues
ears. Then thev burned the rest of the pig and the put the
ash in a copper far between the hands of the statue pig and
they drew the spirit of Saturn. They made a door with a
copper dome and around the dome they built statues of
knights made of copper holding spears in their hands and
they made the base of the city built of black marble with
°?d and yellow on the top. They also made on the top of
the city a great castle with lots of doors, on each door they
had a huge eagle statues decorated with valuable stones
and a knight holding a spear and facing the outside of the
^ty. They brought water to the eastern side of the citv.
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