TUTANKHAMEN AND HIS SPLENDOURS
Wonderful as the results of the work of Mr. Davis and his assistants
had been, they were destined to be completely eclipsed by the most
remarkable discovery which has ever been made in all the long story
of Egyptological research. It may very well prove in the long run
that the importance of the find historically is less than that of
many less striking discoveries; but as a revelation of the sheer
wealth and artistic quality of the provision which was made three
thousand years ago for the journey through the Underworld of even a
comparatively obscure and unimportant Pharaoh, there has never been
anything to compare with the discovery the news of which was flashed
across the world on November 30, 1922. “This afternoon,” the message
ran, “Lord Carnarvon and Mr. Howard Carter revealed to a large company
what promises to be the most sensational Egyptological discovery of
the century. The find consists of, among other objects, the funeral
paraphernalia of the Egyptian King Tutankhamen, one of the famous
heretic kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty, who reverted to Amen worship.”
It is not often that newspaper reports err on the side of making too
little of their subject; but as the days and weeks passed on, and
what seemed to be an unending procession of marvels defiled from the
dark cave in the Valley of the Kings before the astonished eyes of
numberless tourists, it became manifest that the half had not been
told, and that Egyptology was faced with a wealth of material such as
had never before been dealt with, and such as will take many years
to appreciate and measure the full significance of. All that can be
attempted here is to give a summary account of the find itself, and
a brief provisional account of some of the more important of the
treasures which have so far been disclosed; for there can be no doubt
that what has been handled is but a fraction of the treasure which
still remains to be dealt with when the tomb is reopened and the actual
sarcophagus-chamber and its annexe are cleared as the outer chambers
have been.
[Illustration: 22. GRANITE HEAD OF TUTANKHAMEN, CAIRO MUSEUM.]
Some great Egyptological discoveries have been the result of a mere
happy chance, as was the case in 1887, when a fellah woman, grubbing
for phosphates among the rubbish heaps of Akhenaten’s ruined capital,
found that store of cuneiform tablets which have since become
world-famous as “The Tell el-Amarna Tablets,” and disposed of her
interest in the find to a friend for the sum of two shillings. Some,
as in the case of the Der el-Bahri _cache_, have resulted from the
watch kept on the illegitimate practitioners of research; and some,
as in the case of Belzoni’s discovery of the tomb of Sety I, have
been made with so little trouble that the wonder is that they were not
made long before. But the discovery made by Lord Carnarvon and Mr.
Howard Carter fell into none of these categories. It was the result
of long and persistent and systematic work, carried on under very
disappointing conditions, but with a clear appreciation of the object
in view. For sixteen years the two explorers had been working together
at Thebes, and already in 1912, they had published the results of their
work in _Five Years’ Exploration at Thebes_. Their work had not been
particularly fruitful, and when seven years ago they took over the
abandoned right to work in the Valley of the Kings, their first efforts
yielded no very brilliant success. “Mostly disappointments,” was Lord
Carnarvon’s summary of his previous finds. The explorers, however, were
proceeding on a plan which was bound to lead to success in the end, if
there was anything left to be found, and if their patience, or their
resources, held out long enough in the face of a continued monotony
of failure. Previous explorers, like Mr. Davis, had proceeded on the
method of _sondages_, or trial pits, sinking a pit here and another
there in spots which they judged likely. Such a method, obviously,
may lead to success very simply and easily; or, on the other hand, it
may result in your missing the very spot where the treasure lies. The
method adopted by Lord Carnarvon and Mr. Carter was much more thorough,
though also much more laborious and monotonous. They systematically
cleared the ground over a selected area down to the virgin rock. The
labour involved in such a method of work is, of course, enormous; it
is said that the two explorers moved 200,000 tons of rubbish in their
researches; but it is plain that there is no chance of missing your
object by a foot or two, as is quite possible with the other plan.
There may, of course, be nothing in your area at all; but if there is
anything, you are bound to get it.
So it proved at last in this case. On the fifth of November, Mr.
Carter, who was working on a spot which so far had been untouched
because it lay in front of the tomb of Ramses VI, which is one of the
regular electrically lighted show-tombs of the Valley, came upon a
rock-cut step, which seemed like the beginning of a flight leading to a
tomb. He cleared a few more steps, and then came to a door, or rather
to a cement-covered wall, blocking a doorway. On the cement of the wall
was visible the seal of the royal portion of the Theban necropolis,
consisting of a jackal couchant above nine captives in rows of three.
When the excavation had reached this stage, Mr. Carter cabled to Lord
Carnarvon to come out to Egypt at once, as a fine discovery had been
made, and the spot was covered up till his arrival.
The resumption of the excavation showed that in ancient days a thief
had broken into the tomb, which had been inspected and sealed by the
inspectors of Ramses IX subsequent to his entrance. On the undamaged
portion of the wall there could be seen the cartouche of the Pharaoh
Tutankhamen, son-in-law and successor to the famous Akhenaten. After
arrangements had been made for protecting the tomb and whatever
it might contain from the efforts of the modern successors of the
Ramesside thief, the entrance passage, about 8 metres long, was
cleared, and another sealed door was reached. It was uncertain whether
the explorers would find another staircase or passage behind this new
obstacle, or whether it would give access to one of the chambers of the
tomb. What followed may best be told in the words of Lord Carnarvon
himself:
“I asked Mr. Carter to take out a few stones and have a look in.
After a few minutes this was done. He pushed his head partly into
the aperture. With the help of a candle he could dimly discern what
was inside. A long silence followed, till I said, I fear in somewhat
trembling tones, ‘Well, what is it?’ ‘There are some wonderful objects
here,’ was the welcome reply. Having given up my place to my daughter,
I myself went to the hole, and I could with difficulty restrain my
excitement. At the first sight, with the inadequate light, all that one
could see was what appeared to be gold bars. On getting a little more
accustomed to the light it became apparent that there were colossal
gilt couches with extraordinary heads, boxes here and boxes there. We
enlarged the hole, and Mr. Carter managed to scramble in--the chamber
is sunk 2 feet below the bottom of the passage--and then, as he moved
around with a candle, we knew that we had found something absolutely
unique and unprecedented. Even with the poor light of the candle one
could see a marvellous collection of furniture and other objects in the
chamber. There were two life-sized statues of the king, beds, chariots,
boxes of all sizes and shapes--some with every sort of inlay, while
others were painted--walking sticks, marvellous alabaster vases, and
so on. After slightly enlarging the hole we went in, and this time we
realised in a fuller degree the extent of the discovery, for we had
managed to tap the electric light from the tomb above, which gave us
far better illumination for our examination.”
Inspection quickly proved that the first revelation was only the
beginning of marvels. Beneath one of the state couches a small opening
in the wall of the chamber showed where a second chamber opened off the
first. This room it was impossible even to enter, for it was crammed
to a height of 5 feet with articles of furniture of all descriptions,
packed close together in seemingly inextricable confusion. At the
one end of the first chamber stood two life-sized statues of the
king in bituminised wood with gold adornments, and between them was
the evidence that other chambers lay beyond; for this part of the
room had been closed with a wall on which the seals of the Ramesside
inspectors could still be seen, and in the centre of this wall, on the
floor level, there were traces of the fact that a break had once been
made in the wall, sufficiently large to admit a small man. This had
subsequently been sealed up again, probably by the inspectors of Ramses
IX.
Manifestly there was more to follow behind that sealed wall. In the
two chambers which had been seen there was no trace of any sarcophagus,
or any evidence whatever of any interment. It was obvious, therefore,
that, unless this wonderful mass of artistic craftsmanship was only
a _cache_ where robbers’ loot was gathered, or a gathering of costly
material drawn together for safety from robbers, both of which
alternatives seemed somewhat unlikely, the real tomb-chamber, with
what was in all probability the unimaginable wealth of the great nest
of coffins under its canopy, the coffers for the canopic vases, and
all the other funerary regalia of a Pharaoh of the Empire, lay beyond
the wall which closed the end of the first chamber. In that case,
the revelations which awaited the explorers might well be of a kind
which would make even the glories which had so far been disclosed
look dim and paltry. The explorers must have been sorely tempted to
pierce the wall at once, and so arrive at least at some conception of
the magnitude of their find; but prudence forbade this. The amount of
material already under their hands in the outer chambers was sufficient
to occupy all the time of the experts who had gathered to the scene
for many weeks. The fabrics concerned were all of them priceless, and
some of them were of almost inconceivable delicacy. All of them were
at least three thousand years old, and had during all that time been
shut up in the still air of a subterranean vault. Until they had been
carefully treated with preservatives, and insured, so far as possible,
from the risks of exposure to the air and the heat of the upper world,
it was impossible to do anything that would add to the task, already
one of great labour and difficulty, which lay upon the explorers and
their assistants. Accordingly curiosity was kept in check until the
results of the first discovery should be secured, and the opening of
what was hoped would prove the first intact royal tomb-chamber ever
found in Egypt was deferred for awhile. Meanwhile for weeks the Valley
of the Kings was beset, day after day, by throngs of tourists before
whose astonished eyes there passed a seemingly endless procession of
the marvels of ancient Egyptian craftsmanship of thirty centuries ago,
and who seemed to take it as a personal grievance when the articles
removed on any particular day were not sufficiently numerous or
gorgeous to satisfy their craving for sensation. Tutankhamen became
the fashion, and leaped at once into greater prominence than he ever
enjoyed during his short and not particularly glorious reign.
[Illustration: 23. DECORATION FROM A THEBAN TOMB.]
When the contents of the outer chamber had been placed in safety,
the time came for the breaking of the sealed wall which barred
the sarcophagus-chamber from view; and on February 16 this was at
last accomplished in the presence of a distinguished company of
Egyptologists, though the formal opening, at which the Queen of the
Belgians was present, did not take place till two days later. When
it was possible to see through the growing aperture into the inner
chamber, the sight revealed was one to take the breath away from the
most hardened treasure-hunter. Practically the whole chamber was
filled, from end to end, and side to side, by an object which no man
has seen intact for more than three millenniums--the funerary canopy
or shrine of an Egyptian Pharaoh of the New Empire, beneath which, it
might be hoped, lay the successive coffins, with all their wealth of
amulets and ushabtis, which guarded the mummy of the dead king. The
canopy itself was of the most extraordinary beauty and splendour. It
was of wood heavily gilded, carved with representations of the Buckle
of Isis and the Pillar of Osiris, and inlaid with panels of that
exquisite blue glaze of which the Egyptians were so justly fond. Its
upper edge was formed by the familiar Egyptian gorge-cornice, and its
roof was of the usual coved type, common in shrines of all sorts. So
completely did it fill the chamber, that there was scarcely room to
pass between it and the rock walls, which were rather poorly decorated
with painted figures. On the east side of the canopy were bronze-hinged
doors, and when these were opened, there appeared within a second
canopy, entirely gilt, and closed with doors on which the seals, with
their strings, were perfectly intact, a fact of great importance,
since it signifies that in all probability the inner shrine remains
absolutely as it was left on the day when the Pharaoh was laid to rest
amidst all his splendours. Between the two canopies there lay alabaster
vessels, amulets, scarabs of rare colour and fine material, and
precious stones. Between the outer canopy and the wall of the chamber
lay the paddles for the king’s barge on the waters of the Underworld.
On the same side of the sarcophagus-chamber as the doors of the
shrine, a large opening in the wall, which had never been closed, led
into an annexe. On guard near the entrance of this room was an ebony
and gold figure of the god Anubis as a jackal couchant on the top of
his shrine. Perhaps the most conspicuous thing in the room was a great
gilt coffer, standing over 5 feet high, and adorned along the top with
golden uræi, which in all likelihood is the shrine containing the
Canopic Jars in which the viscera of the royal mummy were deposited.
On its four sides were figures of guardian goddesses, enfolding the
shrine with their arms, and wrought with the most wonderful delicacy of
modelling and realism of expression. They seemed, said one observer, to
be turning reproachful faces towards the intruders who were disturbing
the long peace of the tomb. The whole room was crowded with objects
of all sorts, coffers and boxes of splendid material and workmanship,
model boats for the king’s use in the Elysian Fields, ushabti figures
in gold and silver, and one exquisite and unique specimen, absolutely
complete, of the ostrich-feather fans which are so often depicted on
the reliefs of royal processions. The handle of this beautiful piece
of craftsmanship was of ivory, delicately carved and adorned with the
royal cartouche inlaid in coloured stones.
Such was something of the general impression which was left on the
minds of the fortunate few who were privileged to be present at the
most marvellous disclosure of the wealth and artistry of ancient Egypt
which has ever been given to the world. The impression was of the
briefest, for the explorers had reluctantly to come to the conclusion
that it was impossible to carry the work further this season. The heat
of the Egyptian spring in the sun-scorched valley was already growing
almost unbearable; the amount of precious material already collected
was such as would require months for its proper preservation and
arrangement, and it was impossible to add to it a far greater quantity
of still more priceless treasure without risking loss and damage.
Accordingly, after the tomb had been kept open for a few days longer,
it was decided to close it again until the autumn, when the conditions
for work would be more favourable. The gang of workmen was set to work
again, and by the end of February the tomb of Tutankhamen was once more
piled with many hundred tons of rubbish, and the king was left beneath
his gorgeous canopy to enjoy for a few months longer the sleep which
had been unbroken for 3300 years.
Strangely enough, the incident did not close without an event which
seemed to cast a dark shadow across all the splendour of the discovery.
Almost immediately after the triumph of the opening, and before the
freshness of its interest had faded from men’s minds, Lord Carnarvon
was stricken down with fever, and in the beginning of April he died
in Cairo, leaving his great work still incomplete. There is no need
to talk of the flood of superstitious drivel which was let loose over
the world by what seemed so tragic an ending to so great a success.
It is hard to say whether stupidity or cruelty were more conspicuous
in it, and it remains self-condemned in the eyes of all reasonable
people. There is, no doubt, an element of sadness in the thought that
he without whom these treasures of the past might never have been
disclosed did not live to see the completion of his work; but there
is surely also an element of satisfaction in the thought that he knew
that his long toil had not been in vain, and that he had accomplished
something unique in the story of the exploration of that ancient world
to which we owe so much. To leave the scene of triumph while the
splendour of accomplishment is still undimmed has ever been esteemed
the happiest of destinies. If it be so, then Lord Carnarvon was _felix
opportunitate mortis_.
Before we turn to the consideration of some of the chief treasures
which have so far been gathered from the outer chambers of the tomb,
let us devote a moment to the question of who the Pharaoh is whose
splendours have thus dazzled the world, and what is known of his reign
and his times. Not the least remarkable feature of the whole find is
that the man around whom all this magnificence was gathered is just
about one of the last of the Pharaohs whom one would have suspected
of creating a sensation in the world of Egyptology. His reign is one
of the shortest and least fully recorded in the roll of the XVIIIth
Dynasty; indeed the only kings of the Dynasty who seem yet more
insignificant than himself are his immediate predecessor Smenkhara, and
his immediate successor Ay. The circumstances of his reign, so far as
they are known, are briefly these. Tutankhamen began his career as one
of the courtiers of Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten), and one of his supporters
in the great revolution which he attempted to carry out on the religion
of Egypt; though, from his apparent youth at the time of his death, he
can scarcely have had any real share in the movement. Whether he was of
the blood royal or not is uncertain. On the lion from Gebel Barkal, now
in the British Museum, he calls Amenhotep III his father. If this means
direct relationship, then he must have been the son of Amenhotep III by
a secondary wife, and in that case he was a half-brother of Akhenaten,
whose son-in-law he afterwards became. On the other hand, the title
may be only one of respect applied to an indirect ancestor--really his
grandfather-in-law. In any case he must have been of such noble rank,
and of a family of such influence, that it was worth Akhenaten’s while
to secure his adhesion to the new cause, even when he was no more than
a boy, by marrying him to one of the young princesses. Accordingly
he was married to the third of Akhenaten’s daughters, the princess
Ankh. s. en. pa. aten, the first daughter, Meryt-aten, being married
to another noble of the court, Smenkhara, and the second, Makt-aten,
having died probably between her ninth and eleventh year; and at this
time, and till after his accession to the throne, he bears the name
Tutankhaten, the name of Amen being of course proscribed by the new
faith.
On the death of Akhenaten without male issue, Smenkhara, the husband
of the eldest princess, naturally, according to Egyptian custom,
succeeded to the throne, and reigned for a short and uncertain period;
then on his death or deposition, the succession fell to Tutankhaten.
For a time, apparently, he maintained himself in the new capital of
Akhetaten (Tell el-Amarna), but the reaction in favour of the old faith
of Amen proved too strong for him, and he was obliged to remove the
court to Thebes, and to conform to the worship of Amen. His name was
changed to Tutankhamen (Living Image of Amen), and that of his wife
to Ankh. s. en. Amen (Her Life is from Amen), and every trace of the
religious revolution was obliterated so far as possible. The duration
of his reign is uncertain, and probably it cannot have been longer than
nine years. It has been suggested, from the evidence of some of the
articles in his tomb, that he died before attaining maturity--at all
events he must have been still a young man at the time of his death.
As to the events of his reign, we are much in the dark. The brilliance
of his funerary equipment has led to the rather hasty conclusion that
the reign was marked by a great renaissance of Egyptian art and power,
and an attempt to regain the Empire which had been largely lost during
the pacifist reign of Akhenaten; but this theory rests on very slight
foundations, and, as we shall see, there is another and much more
likely explanation of the splendour of the tomb. The only evidences of
foreign enterprise during the reign are found in the inscriptions in
the tombs of two of the great nobles of the period, Huy and Horemheb,
the latter of whom usurped the throne after the death or deposition of
Tutankhamen’s successor, Ay. In the tomb of Huy there are records of
tribute from Syria and the Soudan, so that it is evident that Egyptian
influence was not altogether gone in these two quarters; and one of
the statements in the tomb of Horemheb seems to point to military
operations in Syria under Tutankhamen. In this inscription, from a
fragment in the Cairo Museum, Horemheb describes himself as “King’s
follower on his expeditions in the south and north country,” and
“Companion of the feet of his lord upon the battlefield on that day of
slaying the Asiatics.”
Beyond this, there is really no evidence as to any events of importance
during the reign, whose significance is not in itself, but in the fact
that it marks the triumph of the forces of reaction and the reversion
to the ancient customs and faith of the land. The early death of
Tutankhamen left his wife, Ankh. s. en. Amen, in a very difficult
position. She was the only representative in the direct line of the
great XVIIIth Dynasty; but in all probability her own tenure of the
throne was very uncertain, and almost impossible.
For a woman to rule the land was a thing not unheard of, for Hatshepsut
had ruled with vigour and success; but it was an unusual thing, though
a woman could give to her husband a legitimate title to the royal
dignity. Further, there was a point which rendered the reign of Ankh.
s. en. Amen virtually an impossibility. She was deeply stained, in
the eyes of the dominant priesthood of Amen, by the fact that she was
the daughter of “that criminal of Akhetaten,” as her father was now
called. Her husband had saved his throne, and probably his life, by
his conformity to the old faith, and her conversion had accompanied
his; but the daughter of Akhenaten can never have been _persona grata_
to the priests of Amen, and when her husband was gone she must have
felt that her tenure of the crown, and her very life, hung by a very
frail thread. Accordingly she took steps to place herself in a position
of greater security. Curiously enough, there has come to light from
Boghaz-Kyoi, the Hittite capital, a letter from one of the Hittite
kings, probably Mursil II, telling of some of the events of the reign
of his father Shubbiluliuma, which gives us our last glimpse of the
poor widowed queen struggling in desperation to escape from the net of
deadly danger which was drawing closer and closer around her.
[Illustration: 24. DECORATION FROM A THEBAN TOMB--SOWING, REAPING, THE
VINTAGE.]
“Then their ruler,” says the Hittite king, “namely Bib-khuru-riyas [the
Hittite version of Neb. kheperu-Ra, the Solar name of Tutankhamen],
just at that moment died; now the Queen of Egypt was Dakhamun [the
Hittite version of Ankh. s. en. Amen]. She sent an ambassador to my
father; she said thus to him: ‘My husband is dead; I have no children;
your sons are said to be grown up; if to me one of your sons you
will give, and if he will be my husband, he will be a help; send
him accordingly, and thereafter I will make him my husband. I send
bridal gifts.’” The negotiations thus frankly opened by the queen
apparently proceeded, not without some hitches, to the point when the
bridegroom was selected from among the Hittite princes; for Mursil’s
statement closes thus: “And then the lady soon fulfilled her words
and selected one of the sons.” Something, however, must have hindered
the completion of the marriage. What it was we may guess, but with no
assurance that we are right. The Hittites were old enemies of Egypt,
and while Ramses II, a century later, might safely wed a Hittite
princess, it was quite another thing for a woman, very insecurely
established on the throne, to propose to give Egypt a Hittite king.
In itself the plan was likely to be most unpopular with poor Ankh. s.
en. Amen’s subjects. Even more fatal to it would be the opposition of
the priesthood. They, no doubt, had no desire to see the line of their
great enemy established on the throne with a new lease of power, and
backed by the might of the formidable Hittite Confederacy. It would
be an easy thing for them to play on the native prejudice against the
attempt to bring in a Hittite consort for their queen. The probability
is that the very step which Ankh. s. en. Amen took to secure herself
actually hastened, or at least made inevitable, her downfall. At all
events the unlucky young widow disappears, with this letter, from the
page of history; nor is it difficult to imagine the manner of her
disappearance. The journey from the palace to the tomb has never been a
long one for an unpopular sovereign in the East, whether in ancient or
modern days.
Such, then, is the story of Tutankhamen’s reign, so far as we know it.
It may be that when all the secrets of his tomb are disclosed we may
learn a little more of the man and his times, though that is rather
more than unlikely, for the papyri which may be found in the great
shrine of the sarcophagus-chamber will probably be, not historical,
but purely religious. Meantime, at all events, we know no more, and
the little that is known only seems to underline the contrast between
the insignificance of the king and the splendour of the tomb which
has dazzled all the world. The pathos of the whole thing can scarcely
fail to appeal to the imagination. Here you have a dead monarch laid
to rest with such pomp and magnificence that a mere glimpse of the
glitter of his equipment has left the world bewildered and gaping; and
when you try to conceive the actual facts of the lives behind all this
gorgeousness, what you dimly discern, so far as you can see anything,
is a poor young couple of children, for Tutankhamen and his wife were
scarcely more than that, striving for a little to keep their heads
above the dark flood of poisonous priestly hatred and intrigue which
surged around them on every side, and sinking one after the other
beneath their doom.
“The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things.”
Obviously the time has not yet come for the discussion of the results
of the discovery as these affect our ideas of Egyptian art and
craftsmanship. It will be many months, perhaps years, before all the
material is before the world in the shape of colour reproductions of
the various articles, and until this work is completed comparisons
with already known work cannot be made. Much that has been said with
regard to the revolution in our ideas of Egyptian art which is to be
brought about by the revelations of Tutankhamen’s tomb may have to
be qualified or withdrawn in the light of fuller and more leisurely
study, and certain things which were for the moment acclaimed as
masterpieces will beyond doubt be deposed from an eminence which they
would never have attained save under the influence of the enthusiasm of
the moment. Still, even when all deductions have been made, there will
remain an amount of material of the very highest quality, such as has
never before been gathered together for the study of one of the most
interesting periods of Egyptian history and art.
Already it is manifest that some of the articles are quite without
parallel in any existing collection of Egyptian antiquities. Parallels
to most of them, probably to all, doubtless existed, and we can well
imagine that even the finest things may have been far surpassed by the
magnificence of a really great Pharaoh, such as Amenhotep III; but
these splendours of the culminating period of the Empire no longer
exist, or at least have not yet come to light, and we were obliged to
form our conception of them from reliefs and paintings, and to fill in
the details of their magnificence from our knowledge of the grandeur
of the monarch for whose use they were made. Now for the first time
we can see the actual creations themselves, and even if they belong,
not to one of the greatest of the Pharaohs, but to a comparatively
undistinguished monarch, still they represent the art of a period not
far removed from the historic culmination of Egypt’s greatness, and it
is quite within the bounds of possibility, as we shall see, that some
of the most striking of them do indeed belong to the greater age of
Tutankhamen’s ancestors, rather than to his own.
Of all the articles so far removed from the tomb, the one which has
attracted the most attention, and excited the most admiration, has
been the Royal Throne, or Chair of State, which was found in the outer
chamber. “It is one of the wonders of the world,” was the comment of
Professor Breasted on his first view of it, and there seems to be
little doubt that this enthusiastic praise is well deserved. Within
the last quarter of a century, two of the royal thrones of two of the
greatest empires of the ancient world have been brought to light, and
the simple dignity of the Throne of Minos, discovered by Sir Arthur
Evans in the Palace of Knossos, forms a most effective contrast and
foil to the gorgeousness of the Throne of Tutankhamen of Thebes, from
which it may be separated in date by not much more than a century, the
Cretan throne being the earlier, and indeed the earliest royal throne
known to exist.
The Throne of Tutankhamen is of wood, covered with a thin plating of
gold and adorned with finely carved lions’ heads. The arms of the
chair are of modelled wood also overlaid with gold, and beneath them,
on either side, is a sacred uræus, partly wrought in glaze, with the
crown of Egypt in silver. On the back of the throne is a panel of
beautiful workmanship, on which the king is represented seated, with
his legs crossed, and giving his hand to the Queen, who is standing--a
motive which in its unconventionality speaks distinctly of the
realistic art of Tell el-Amarna, and suggests comparisons with the
famous Berlin relief in which Akhenaten leans on his staff, while his
Queen Nefertiti holds out a lotus bloom for him to sniff. The exposed
flesh of the faces and other parts of the body is beautifully modelled
in semi-opaque reddish glaze, while the King’s costume is rendered in
painting overlaid with crystal. The queen’s dress is wrought in silver,
and beside her, on a table, there stands a charming bouquet formed
of semi-precious stones inlaid. The seat of the throne is patterned
with blue, white, and gold mosaic squares, set in diagonal lines. The
whole effect is gorgeous in the extreme, and the description of the
workmanship takes one’s mind back at once to the King’s Gaming Board
of the Palace of Knossos, with its blaze of blue and gold and crystal
on ivory. Whether we are to infer Cretan influence in the Egyptian
splendour, or whether Crete derived from earlier Egyptian work, is a
question which may prove of interest in the future. At any rate, we
know that the two great cultures were for many centuries in the closest
touch, and that each borrowed from the other, adapting the foreign
ideas to its own tastes.
One of the features of the throne is highly suggestive of the
conditions of Tutankhamen’s reign. On the gold plating of the chair,
the royal cartouche has been altered, and shows the name which the
king adopted after his conversion to orthodoxy. At the side of the
arms, however, the cartouche, wrought in inlay of semi-precious stones
and glass, remains unaltered, and still shows the old heretical form
Tutankhaten. The manifest reason for the difference is that while it
was comparatively easy to alter a cartouche wrought in gold plate, it
was very much the opposite with one wrought in inlay. Tutankhamen,
spite of his royal dignity, had, like Mrs. Gilpin, a frugal mind, and
could see no sense in discarding his old Tell el-Amarna throne, even
though it could not be perfectly adapted to his change of circumstances
and of faith.
So the throne survives to tell us, not only of the wonderful artistic
skill of the Egyptian craftsman of 3300 years ago, but also of the
difficulties and inconsistencies of such a period of transition as
that in which Tutankhamen’s lot was cast. On the stele which he set
up at Karnak, and which is now in the Cairo Museum, the king has
described the miserable state of the kingdom on his accession. “When
His Majesty became King of the South, the whole country was in a state
of chaos, similar to that in which it had been in primeval times.
From Elephantine to the Swamps of the Delta the properties of the
temples of the gods and goddesses had been destroyed, their shrines
were in a state of ruin, and their estates had become a desert. Weeds
grew in the courts of the temples.” He tells us of the wonders of
restoration which he accomplished when “Egypt and the Red Land came
under his supervision, and every land greeted his will with bowings of
submission.”
But Horemheb’s Coronation Inscription suggests a somewhat different
state of affairs from the picture of restored prosperity which
Tutankhamen presents, and the hatred with which the later monarch
pursued the memory of his predecessor hints that the reign of the
half-heretic king was but reluctantly accepted, as a stage on the way
to the full restoration of the ancient state of affairs--a stage whose
fitting emblem is the throne with its symbols of the old faith and the
new intermingled.
One of the most interesting among the finds of the outer chamber is
that of the boxes containing royal robes, both of the King and the
Queen. Whether it may be found possible to preserve permanently these
exquisitely dainty fabrics remains to be seen; meanwhile it may be said
that what has been seen of them enhances our respect for the skill of
the weavers of the XVIIIth Dynasty who wrought such superlatively fine
stuffs. Incidentally, the Queen’s robes give us a curious link with the
Egypt of a day far earlier than even that of Tutankhamen.
In the Westcar Papyrus we are told how King Seneferu, the last king of
the IIIrd Dynasty, about seventeen hundred years before the time of
Tutankhamen, feeling bored one day, called to him the wizard Zazamankh,
and demanded a cure for his ennui, and how the wizard prescribed a sail
in the royal barge manned by twenty of the most beautiful maidens
of the royal harem. “Bring me twenty oars of ebony inlaid with gold,
with blades of light wood, inlaid with electrum; and bring me twenty
maidens, fair in their limbs, their bosoms and their hair, all virgins;
and bring me twenty fishing-nets, and give these nets unto the maidens
for their garments.” Now the Queen’s robes, found in the tomb, “are
made of the daintiest diaphanous bead net material.” Evidently the
taste which inspired the novel prescription of the IIIrd Dynasty wizard
persisted in the Egyptian Court. We should have inferred as much from
the reliefs and paintings which have come down to us, but the robes
from the Tutankhamen tomb are the solitary specimens of the royal dress
of ancient Egypt which have survived to the present day.
[Illustration: 25. HEAD OF THE HATHOR-COW, DER EL-BAHRI.]
Along with these robes may be grouped the so-called coat of mail,
which is one of the wonders of the ceremonial art of the time. The
general type of this wonderful garment is familiar from Wilkinson’s
representation of the corselet pictured in the tomb of Ramses III, with
its overlapping scales of metal. In the case of Tutankhamen’s corselet,
however, the scales, instead of being of bronze on leather, are
pear-shaped links of faience laid on gold and backed with linen, which,
of course, has almost entirely perished, rendering the reconstitution
of the coat a matter of great difficulty. The collar shows a rich
pattern of concentric rings and rectangular plaques of faience in deep
turquoise blue, and red and yellow. Below the collar, and wrought into
the breast of this superb piece of mail, is a brilliant design
stretching right across the chest, representing the hawk-headed Horus
introducing Tutankhamen to Amen. Should it be possible to complete
the restoration of this beautiful piece of design, we shall be in
possession of a unique specimen of the Egyptian armourer’s art, though,
of course, it is such a piece of armour as was never destined to be
worn on active service, but only on ceremonial occasions. Indeed, it
is probable that the ceremonial occasion for which it was designed was
that of the King’s funeral; for we know from the Rainer Papyrus that
such corselets formed, at least in later days, an essential portion of
the royal funerary furnishing--so much so that the funeral could not be
completed without them.
Between six and seven hundred years after the time of Tutankhamen, the
funeral of Eiorhoreru, prince of Heliopolis, could not be completed
because Ka. amenhotep, prince of Mendes, had stolen his funerary
breastplate. Pimay, the son of the dead prince, has to win the corselet
back in a tournament before he can get his father buried with the
proper ceremonies. A matter of seven hundred years is nothing in the
life of an Egyptian custom; and there can be little doubt that the
corselet of Tutankhamen is just such a ceremonial breastplate as that
for whose possession Pimay and his allies fought in tourney against
Ka. amenhotep and his friends, with Pedubast of Tanis, overlord of the
Delta, as judge of the passage of arms.
Among the other articles of royal wearing apparel were the magnificent
sandals with their decoration of golden ducks’ heads and gold
roundels. The leather of the sandals had almost entirely perished with
the lapse of time, being turned into a substance more like glue; but
it retained sufficient tenacity to hold the decorative work together,
and to let us see how magnificently a Pharaoh of the Empire was shod
and how gorgeous were the feet before which the vassal kings of Syria
and the Soudan bowed down, “seven times and seven times.” Interesting
too, in their own way, were the child’s linen glove, and the child’s
tippet, of linen with sequin decoration. Speculation has framed, on the
basis of the small size of these and other articles, the theory that
the king died in early youth, in fact when he had scarcely emerged from
childhood. We know nothing, however, of the reason for the presence of
these articles in the tomb; and the foundation for such speculations
is far too slight to bear the weight of inference which it is sought
to rear upon it. From other and more satisfactory reasons it has
been inferred that Tutankhamen died in early maturity; but that is a
different matter.
Nothing is more fitted to reconcile us to the destiny which has
decreed that we should live in the drab and unpicturesque twentieth
century than the contemplation of the inconveniences with which the
kings and great folk of the bygone ages had to put up in the midst
of the glittering splendours which dazzle our imagination. One of
these is hinted at by the presence in the tomb of the candlesticks
which bore the light of Tutankhamen’s days. They are small bronze
articles, shaped in the form of the Ankh, and carrying fastened to
them linen wicks, which were, no doubt, soaked in oil. As small
pieces of decorative workmanship, they are pretty enough; but it is
impossible to imagine anything much less satisfactory in the way of
lighting than they would seem to be. No doubt there were other and
bigger candlesticks than these, and we cannot imagine that a luxurious
court like that of Thebes would not have something corresponding to
the great stone standard lamps which flared and sputtered in the halls
and corridors of the contemporary palace of Minos at Knossos; but even
so, the lighting of an Egyptian palace must have been what we should
think miserably inefficient, and Pharaoh must have been sorely put to
it to find occupation for his evenings, when all the glitter of his
gorgeousness grew dim and shabby in the light of the miserable smoking
and flickering lamps which at best can have done little more than to
make darkness visible.
A prominent feature among the heaps of wonderful things in the tomb
was the group of elaborately carved alabaster vases which has been so
often figured and so much be-praised since the discovery was made.
Of the interest attaching to these extraordinary vases there can be
no question; but when we are told that they are “the most beautiful
alabaster vases in the world,” it is time to enter a protest. They are
nothing of the sort.
As specimens of workmanship they are wonderful enough; as specimens of
art they are flagrantly bad,--characteristic types of an art which has
passed its maturity and is on the downgrade. The over-elaboration and
the far too complicated character of their decoration are sufficient to
condemn them, and they are not to be compared for one moment, from the
point of artistic value, with the simple and graceful forms of earlier
work. Indeed, even in Tutankhamen’s tomb, and in the same chamber with
these over-praised and overdone pieces of pretentiousness, there were
vases far more worthy of praise for their artistic quality than the
ones whose noisy ornamentation has singled them out for a notice which
they do not deserve.
Of all the objects so far removed from the tomb, none has attracted
more attention, and none seems likely to create more controversy,
than the group of extraordinary gilt state couches, the Lion, Hathor,
and Typhon couches, as they came to be called. The thing which drew
attention to them was not their beauty, for anything more hideous it
is impossible to imagine; it was their strangeness. With Egyptian
couches and biers the world was pretty familiar before; but these were
widely different, with their quiet and shapely lines, from the barbaric
monstrosities of Tutankhamen’s tomb. The heads of the couches present,
indeed, some resemblances to familiar Egyptian types; but even so, the
suggestion which rises to the mind on viewing them is that these are
Egyptian types interpreted by an alien temperament and executed by
alien craftsmen. It seems almost impossible to believe that an Egyptian
craftsman, with his tradition of taste and restraint, would ever have
produced such abortions, calculated to produce nightmares instead of
slumber in those who tried to rest upon them.
Accordingly Professor Petrie has asserted that these couches are
not of Egyptian workmanship at all. No Egyptian workman, he says,
ever produced work assembled with bronze joints as these couches
are; they must have been produced in a distant country, and jointed
in this fashion for convenience of transport, being reassembled on
their arrival. Further, the decoration (trefoil) on one of them is
characteristically Babylonian. Therefore it seems probable that we
must look to Babylon for their origin; and Professor Petrie suggests
that these are the identical couches to which the Babylonian king
Kadashman-Enlil refers in one of the Tell el-Amarna letters, where he
says, writing to Amenhotep III, that he is sending to the Egyptian king
“a couch of _ushu_ wood, ivory and gold, three couches and six thrones
of _ushu_ and gold,” and other furniture.
There is nothing unlikely in the idea that couches of such
international importance, coming from one great monarch to another,
should have been preserved for the matter of forty years or so,
and buried as heirlooms in the tomb of the last of the line; and
the suggestion lends an added interest to the ugly things. Sir
E. A. W. Budge, however, rejects the idea, and asserts that the beast
represented on the most hideous of the couches is simply the composite
monster Ammit, “the Eater of the Dead,” so often represented in the
Judgment Scene in the vignettes of the _Book of the Dead_. “The
Mesopotamians knew of no such beast, and the couch or bier could only
have been made in Egypt, where the existence of Ammit was believed in
and the fear of her was great.” In support of his opinion he quotes
from the Papyrus of Hunefer--“Her forepart is crocodile,” and anyone
familiar with the Judgment Scene will remember that this certainly is
so. The trouble is that whatever the hideous monster of Tutankhamen’s
tomb may represent, “her forepart” certainly is _not_ crocodile. It
is ugly and sinister enough for anything; but no Egyptian craftsman
would have dreamed of trying to pass this clumsy monster off as a
representation of a crocodile--one of the most familiar of objects.
Especially in view of the methods of construction involved--a point
on which no man is better qualified than Petrie to pronounce an
opinion--Budge seems to have done nothing to invalidate the Babylonian
suggestion, which, for the rest, takes its place very naturally, as we
shall see, in the explanation of the extraordinary wealth of furniture
found in the tomb of one of the least famous Pharaohs of the XVIIIth
Dynasty. The couches seem, to an unprejudiced mind, just such work as
would be produced by a clever workman working on motives which were
quite foreign to his usual practice, and therefore producing results
which, while they have a distinct resemblance to the types which he was
imitating, yet show these as seen and interpreted by an outsider, and
not by one to whom they were parts of his normal training.
Of the statues found in the tomb, two, the life-sized ones of
bituminised wood adorned with gold, were fine specimens of the normal
type of tomb portrait; the third, the so-called “Mannikin,” was of a
different class. It was only a half-length, and lacked the arms; but
in other respects it was a careful and artistic piece of work and
obviously a faithfully studied portrait. The idea that its imperfect
condition is due to the fact that it was a sort of glorified tailor’s
dummy, on which the royal robes were fitted before being worn by the
Pharaoh, may probably be dismissed without ceremony. It is not obvious
why, in a period when court dress was of the most elaborate type,
with long robes of fine linen falling to the feet, and wide sleeves
coming almost to the elbow, the mannikin should have neither legs
nor arms, which one would have judged essential for the purpose of
trying the fall of the robe. Another view was that it was a portrait,
not of Tutankhamen, but of his wife, Ankh. s. en. Amen. There can be
no doubt about the quality of the portrait, though to talk of “the
strange pensive smile playing about the lips, recalling the baffling
smile of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa,” is to invite comparisons which are
scarcely fair to the older work of art; but it certainly is not the
portrait of a woman. It may be a head-portrait of the type not uncommon
in Old Kingdom tombs; or it may be part of the foundation of a copper
statue, like that of Pepy of the Old Kingdom, though in that case it is
difficult to see why it should have been so carefully coloured.
In the meantime it is impossible to say much about the treasures of the
sarcophagus-chamber and its annexe. Scarcely more than a glimpse has
been vouchsafed of these, no more than enough to whet curiosity and
expectation. But there can be little doubt that the splendour of the
two inner chambers will be in accordance with the preface to it which
the outer chambers have yielded. No one can doubt the magnificence of
the great canopy, which in itself would be a treasure beyond price;
and all observers are at one as to the marvellous beauty of the shrine
with the four goddesses. The motive of its decoration is, of course,
one perfectly familiar in Egyptian art, and is found in all ages. The
beautiful pink granite sarcophagus of Tutankhamen’s successor and enemy
Horemheb, for instance, has as part of its adornment another version
of the same idea of the protecting goddess. But the detail of the
Canopic Shrine, if it prove to be such, appears to be of a quality and
inspiration rare even in the finest Egyptian work. For the rest, we can
only wait and hope.
[Illustration: 26. COLOSSUS OF RAMSES II, LUXOR.]
A good deal has been said about the need of recasting our ideas of
Egyptian history in the light of the new information which has been
gained from the tomb of Tutankhamen, and some writers have hinted that
our whole conception of the close of the XVIIIth Dynasty is wrong, and
must be recast to square with the new facts. We are asked to discard
the idea of an Egypt beginning to decline from the lofty position which
she had held under Thothmes III and Amenhotep III, and to substitute
for this the picture of an Egypt waking with renewed strength from
the uneasy religious dreams of the reign of Akhenaten, and asserting
once more, and with greater vigour than ever, her dominion in the
realms of both politics and art.
All this is merely a vain imagination. Historically, no new facts have
emerged from the tomb of Tutankhamen. It is scarcely true to say, with
Budge, that “we know no more now about the reign of this king than we
did before Lord Carnarvon made his phenomenal discovery.” That would
only be the case on the narrow reading of the meaning of history
which would confine it to the mere recording of dates, conquests, and
legislation. The art of any period constitutes no small part of its
history, and for the history of far-past times it is one of our most
valuable sources of information; and we may surely look for a large
extension of our knowledge of the art of ancient Egypt in the reign of
Tutankhamen from the treasures of his tomb.
But so far as concerns the facts of what the king, and Egypt under his
leadership, accomplished in the matter of raising again the declining
prestige and power of the Empire, we know no more than we did before
the tomb was opened; nor is it likely that when the work is completed
we shall have gained much more information, if any, on this point.
For the likelihood is that if there are any papyri beneath the great
golden canopy, they will be of a purely religious type, versions of
one or other of the different forms of spiritual guide-book which the
devout Egyptian carried with him on his long journey through the dark
Underworld.
The artistic value of the find is another matter. There can be no
question but that this splendid collection of the finest work of the
craftsmen of the XVIIIth Dynasty, by far the greatest assemblage of
such work known to exist, will prove of the utmost importance in
shaping and correcting our ideas of Egyptian art at one of the most
interesting points of its long development. Never before has such a
mass of material of the highest class been available for study. Yet
even here it would be rash to assume that the result will be any
considerable modification of our views as to the period of culmination
of the art of the New Empire. At the most, and assuming that all the
art of the tomb is strictly of the time of the king with whose burial
it is associated, and that its quality is all of the supreme standard
which has been attributed to it, the net result would be the shifting
of the apex of the curve a matter of thirty or thirty-five years, a
small thing when we are dealing with an art whose history is written in
millenniums. But it seems likely that even this is more than we need
necessarily assume.
There is always the possibility that in the tomb of Tutankhamen we are
dealing, not only with the splendours of one king, but perhaps also
with many of the heirlooms of the royal house to which he belonged, in
which case we should be faced with specimens of the art, not of one
period of a few years’ duration, but with those of perhaps a whole
century, perhaps of a longer period still. The work of sifting out
the various sources and periods of the materials found in the tomb
will prove a most fascinating, if also a most difficult, task; when it
is accomplished--the work of years--we may be in a position to speak
more definitely about the change or the confirmation which the tomb
of Tutankhamen has brought to our previous theories of the growth and
decline of Egyptian art; meanwhile we must wait, with the assurance
that even in the extremest case, the discovery can scarcely commit us
to anything revolutionary of our previous conceptions.
The mention of the possibility of some of the articles found in the
tomb being family heirlooms of the XVIIIth Dynasty brings up the last
question with which it is necessary to deal in this short survey.
How does it come about that a Pharaoh of no great standing in the
long line of Egyptian monarchs--a mere stopgap king, a pigmy between
giants--was buried with surroundings whose splendour exceeds anything
known in all the story of royal magnificence? The discoveries of
Tutankhamen’s wonderful funerary equipment make us wonder what we may
have lost in the fact that his is the only royal tomb which has been
found practically unrifled. Had we found, for instance, the tomb of
a really great Pharaoh, such as Amenhotep III, as intact as that of
his descendant, we should have been in a better position to form a
judgment on the matter; but that unfortunately has been denied us.
One suggestion may be made, with the proviso that it is no more than
a suggestion, which may be confirmed or disproved by subsequent
investigation. It has already been suggested that some of the most
curious, if not the most beautiful, of the finds are relics, not of the
time of Tutankhamen, but of Amenhotep III, dating therefore from forty
years before the time when they were stored away in the Valley of the
Kings; and it has also been suggested that another very interesting
article, the footstool with figures of Asiatic captives inlaid upon
it, dates from an even earlier period, that of Amenhotep II, and is
therefore a century older than the time to which the burial belongs.
Tutankhamen, we know, was the last king of the direct line of the
XVIIIth Dynasty. His widow, Ankh. s. en. Amen, was left in a most
insecure position from which she made, as we know, a desperate and
unavailing effort to extricate herself. May it not be that, with the
consciousness that all the glories of her house were in danger of
passing to mere usurpers of undistinguished origin, such as the obscure
priest Ay, who succeeded Tutankhamen, or the commonplace soldier
Horemheb, who drove Ay from the throne, she secured at least some of
the most treasured heirlooms of the royal house from desecration by
hiding them in the tomb of her dead husband?
It is, of course, only an idea, which must stand or fall by the results
of future study; but it seems, at least in the meantime, to offer a
reasonable explanation of a point on which no other explanation is for
the present forthcoming.