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THE ROMANCE OF EXCAVATION
[Illustration: SOME OE THE ROMANCE OF EXCAVATION IS BROUGHT OUT BY
THIS BUSY SCENE AT THEBES SHOWING A SMALL ARMY OF NATIVES DIGGING
AMID THE RUINS OF A TEMPLE]
THE ROMANCE
OF EXCAVATION
A RECORD OF THE AMAZING
DISCOVERIES IN EGYPT,
ASSYRIA, TROY, CRETE, ETC.
WITH TWENTY-NINE ILLUSTRATIONS
BY DAVID MASTERS
LONDON
JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LIMITED
_First Published in 1923_
MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY MORRISON AND GIBB LTD., EDINBURGH
TO
A. A.
WHO SAVED MY LIFE
FOREWORD
Now and again the world is stirred by a discovery such as that of
the Tomb of Tutankhamen by Mr. Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon. In
the following pages I have sought to reveal some of the romance of
excavation, to tell the fascinating story of the men who have gone
out into the desert places and dug up long-lost cities and the fabled
treasure of ancient kings. Brilliant men, who have played their part
in unearthing the glories of the past, have written many volumes on
the subject which is nearest their hearts, and if, after closing
this book, the reader and student feel a desire to seek them out,
I shall be content. In conclusion, I wish to thank Major Kenneth
Mason, M.C., R.E., The British School at Athens, and The Trustees of
the British Museum, for their kindness in allowing me to use various
illustrations in this volume.
DAVID MASTERS.
1923.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
The Story of the Rosetta Stone—How it was found by
the French and passed into possession of Great
Britain—The puzzling picture writing of the ancient
Egyptians which no one could read—The English
medical man, Dr. T. Young, who began to tear the
secret from the Rosetta Stone, and the astounding
work of François Champollion, who built up the
first hieroglyphic dictionary 1
CHAPTER II
The Ruins of Egypt—Men who are using their eyes to
bring back to us the glories of the past—Papyrus, the
paper of olden times, and how it was made—Bits of
pottery worth their weight in gold; how they act as
calendars—The cleverness of native thieves 12
CHAPTER III
Shifting 70,000 tons of rubble to find the tomb of Tutankhamen—The
dreadful monotony of digging in vain—A
lucky decision which led to the discovery of
Tutankhamen’s dazzling treasure—The genius of
Professor Flinders Petrie, and his great finds at
Abydos which the French overlooked—The mystery
of a Cretan pot 22
CHAPTER IV
Signs which tell men where to dig—Egypt’s wonderful
climate, which preserves things almost for ever—Why
the Nile was worshipped—The annual floods and how
they were watched by the people of old—The strange
adventures of Cleopatra’s Needle—Pagans who
anticipated Christian teachings 32
CHAPTER V
Graves which make history—The great age of Egyptian
civilization—Mud that tells a story—The first king
of Egypt—The romance of the tombs—The Book of
the Dead which contains some Christian commandments—The
sleight of hand of ancient scribes 42
CHAPTER VI
Wonders of the Pyramids—The mystery surrounding
them and a simple explanation—How the Pyramids
were built—Amazing accuracy of architects who lived
6000 years ago—The secret entrance found at last by
thieves—Why the Pyramids were one of the plagues
of Egypt—The problem of the Great Sphinx—The
Colossi of Memnon that guard a vanished temple 54
CHAPTER VII
Thebes, the one-time capital of Egypt, then and now—Armies
to transport stones—Handling the gigantic
obelisks—Controlling the floods thousands of years
ago—An endless battle of wits between the Pharaohs
and the tomb robbers—The greatest discovery of
Royal mummies ever made—Romantic lives of two
famous men—The appalling desolation of the Valley
of the Tombs of the Kings 71
CHAPTER VIII
A despised statue that realised £10,000—Some American
discoveries—Finding treasure valued at £3,000,000—How
chance led Professor Flinders Petrie to a long-lost
city—His weird adventure with a mummy—The
tablets of Tell-el-Amarna—Dramatic moments at the
opening of Tutankhamen’s tomb—The mummy that
vanished—How relics are preserved—Ancient ladies
who painted their faces in modern fashion—A marvellous
knife made of stone 91
CHAPTER IX
The mystery of cuneiform writing—A young English
soldier who solved an age-old puzzle—Rawlinson’s
work on the Rock at Behistun—Perched on the
verge of a precipice—His thrilling escape from death—How
he read the unknown Persian writing that
revealed the civilizations of Babylonia and Assyria 105
CHAPTER X
Hills which are buried cities—Romance of Sir Austin
Henry Layard—The young English lawyer who went
into the desert and dug up Nineveh of old—The
Arab who laughed at the men who hunted broken
bricks, and the remarkable result 119
CHAPTER XI
How Layard, with £60, uncovered a lost civilization—A
wild boar hunt which was not quite what it seemed—Finding
the great winged bull—Deserts that were
once the Garden of Eden—Hardships and adventures
among the Arabs—Mining a way into Nineveh—Difficulty
of transporting the mighty Assyrian
statues—Ancient letters like modern puppy biscuits—The
clever Sumerian canal builders—Rise and fall of
Babylon, and the doom of Nineveh 129
CHAPTER XII
A mussel shell which proved that scientists were wrong—The
forerunner of modern Manchester in the heart
of ancient Mesopotamia—Finding the treasure of
the Moon God at Ur—The Tower of Babel—When
Nebuchadnezzar reigned in Babylon and Daniel saw
the writing on the wall—The Code of Hammurabi
and the Ten Commandments 149
CHAPTER XIII
Discovery of Troy by Heinrich Schliemann—His amazing
life—The grocer’s boy who wept over Homer, starved
himself to buy books, and eventually made a fortune
to carry out his boyish dream of finding the city of
which Homer sang—How scientists laughed at him—The
astounding treasure of Troy and the wealth of
Mycenæ 161
CHAPTER XIV
Schliemann vindicated and honoured—His 100,000 relics
from Troy—The Greek sculpture of Apollo—Glories
of ancient Greece—When Phidias, the world’s greatest
sculptor, carved the most beautiful statues ever seen—Turks
who smashed them for sport—Romance
of the Elgin Marbles—Lord Elgin’s fight for the
matchless relics 176
CHAPTER XV
Did ancient Crete dominate the world like modern
Britain?—The Mediterranean civilization—Brilliant
discoveries of Sir Arthur Evans—The Throne Room
at Knossos—Some Cretan cameos—The problem of
the unknown writing of Minoa and what we may
learn from it 183
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Excavating at Thebes _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
The Rosetta Stone 4
Temple of Karnak 12
The Tomb of Tutankhamen 24
Temple of Luxor 26
The Avenue of Sphinxes at Karnak 36
A Scene from the Book of the Dead 50
The Pyramids of Gizeh 56
The Colossi of Memnon 69
A partly-hewn Obelisk in a Quarry 73
The Noble Ruins of Philæ 77
Temple of Queen Hatshepsut at Thebes 88
Two Marvellous Coffins 100
The Cuneiform Inscriptions at Behistun 105
The Sculptures of Darius the Great 117
Nineveh in Desolation 124
Excavating at Knossos 124
A Winged Lion from an Assyrian Palace 134
A Quaint Spelling Book of Clay 146
A Clay Letter and Envelope 146
Babylon To-day 156
Ruins of Troy 170
Where the Treasure of Mycenæ was found 174
A Digger’s Camp in Crete 183
The Palace of Knossos 184
Giant Store Jars of Minoa 189
THE ROMANCE OF EXCAVATION
THE
ROMANCE OF EXCAVATION
CHAPTER I
A scientist stood in the British Museum gazing at a piece of rock.
Many people passed to and fro, but never one halted to see what held
his attention, never one save a little boy, who wondered what the
grown-up was looking at. Those who glanced in that direction merely
saw a shattered stone, and passed on unheeding.
Had the fragment of stone been the Cullinan diamond or a glowing
ruby, everybody would have clustered round to gaze at it. As it was
neither one nor the other, everybody walked on. Yet that fragment of
stone was, and is, much more wonderful than the finest diamond or
ruby ever dug out of the earth.
The fragment over which the scientist dreamed was the Rosetta Stone.
It is merely a piece of black basalt 28½ inches wide and 45 inches
in length. The top left corner has disappeared in the dust of
centuries, and both corners on the right side have been smashed off.
The remainder is one of the world’s greatest treasures, for it has
given us the clue to the past, unfolded for us the romance of ancient
Egypt, and enabled us to glimpse the Pharaohs in all their glory.
The Rosetta Stone is divided into three sections, each of which
is covered with writing cut into the surface. The top section is
composed of hieroglyphics, the curious picture-writing of ancient
Egypt, the middle section is in the everyday writing of the ordinary
people of ancient Egypt, known as demotic characters, and the bottom
section is in Greek.
This famous stone has travelled far from its original resting-place
in the Nile delta, where it may have lain for close on two thousand
years. Had Napoleon not made up his mind to conquer Egypt it might
never have been recovered. By chance, Napoleon managed to escape
Nelson, who was searching the Mediterranean for him, and landed his
expedition at Alexandria. Sweeping everything before him, Bonaparte
soon dominated the country and despoiled the conquered people of the
relics of the past.
Then Nelson, coming back to look for his foe, found the French fleet
in Aboukir Bay, and swept it for ever from the seas. Napoleon was
shaken, but hid his mortification, and in due course set off to
invade Syria. Gazah, of Biblical history, fell before him, Jaffa was
captured, but at Acre another British Admiral, Sir Sydney Smith,
intervened. The French ships sailing along the coast with stores for
Napoleon’s troops were captured, and the British sailor then threw
himself heart and soul into the defence of the city. Napoleon fought
desperately for weeks to capture Acre, but the Admiral was his match,
and the French forces were at last compelled to retreat.
About this time a sapper was digging away in the ruins of Fort St.
Julian when his pick struck against a rock. He drove the tool into
the soil to see if the rock were large or small, and whether it would
be difficult to remove. He quickly discovered that the rock was of no
great size, and in a few minutes it was lying clear at the bottom of
the trench.
Glancing idly at the stone, the Frenchman noticed it was covered with
strange characters. The soldier was quite interested in his find, so
interested that he cleaned the whole surface of the strange stone
he had unearthed. That the characters were some sort of writing was
obvious, but what it was all about was much more than he could tell.
Other men might have thrown the stone aside and covered it up again,
but fortunately the finder possessed intelligence and the curious
stone was added to the rest of the booty collected by the French.
That stone, unearthed in 1798, was the piece of black basalt which
is now to be seen at the British Museum in London. It became known
as the Rosetta Stone because it was found near Rosetta, the seaport
whence Napoleon eventually fled from Egypt, and when the French were
defeated it passed into our possession as one of the spoils of war.
It seems strange that two of the greatest figures in history, Nelson
and Napoleon, should be connected with the discovery of the Rosetta
Stone. Stranger still to think what might have happened had the
soldier who found the stone smashed it to pieces or tossed it out of
the way. These things might easily have occurred, as they have no
doubt occurred to many valuable relics in bygone times.
Had the Rosetta Stone not come to light, one of the vital links with
Egypt’s past would have been missing. We might still be groping
in the dark, wondering what all the quaint picture-writing of the
Egyptians meant, seeking for the clue that would tell us. Luckily the
man who found the stone saw that it was something more than a broken
piece of rock, and so preserved it for posterity.
[Illustration:
_By courtesy of the British Museum_
THE SHATTERED ROSETTA STONE WHICH PROVIDED THE CLUE TO THE PICTURE
WRITING OF THE EGYPTIANS]
Many people wondered what all the strange signs meant when they first
saw the stone. Men of science pored over it and racked their brains
in their efforts to solve the mystery. The Greek script was soon
translated, and proved to be a decree of Ptolemy V, dating about 196
B.C.
The fact that there were three inscriptions seemed to indicate that
it was one decree engraved in three different forms of writing in
order to appeal to as many people as possible. But this was by no
means certain. It might easily have been three different decrees,
though in such a case no purpose could have been served by inscribing
them all on one stone. It was, therefore, more than probable that the
three inscriptions were one decree, and that the known writing would
give a clue to the weird pictures to be found in the tombs and on the
monuments scattered about Egypt.
The hieroglyphics were a mystery of the past. No one could read
them. The strange pictures of men and birds and beasts might have
been merely decorative. They might have had no meaning at all, or no
more meaning than the pictures we place on our walls to decorate our
houses.
Other signs, however, in combination with the pictures, indicated
that the hieroglyphics were a form of writing. Some people think that
this picture-writing of the Egyptians is actually the oldest writing
in the world, and that all writings must have sprung from it. This
idea, however, is not quite accurate. A child of three years old
cannot draw wonderful portraits. Childish drawings of a house with
four straight lines for the house, a door in the centre, and a window
on each side of the door are well known.
Man in the beginning may be likened to the child, and his earliest
drawings must have been cruder than the childish drawings of our own
age, far cruder than anything that is preserved for us. The first
man to scratch a rough line or two on a rock was the forefather of
Raphael and Michael Angelo and Rembrandt, but untold ages elapsed
before the art of the first primitive artist developed into that of
these masters.
The Egyptian pictures in the picture-writing are cleverly drawn, and
indicate true artistic perceptions. It must have taken a long time
to reach the pitch of perfection that is shown. So it seems logical
to assume that the hieroglyphics were the outcome of another form
of writing. For years there were no proofs that this was the case,
but it is now definitely established by Professor Flinders Petrie
that crude signs were used in Egypt at a much earlier date than the
picture-writing, and the extraordinary thing is that some of these
signs may be traced in the alphabets of other countries.
An English medical man, Dr. Young, was the first to furnish a clue to
the mystery of the Rosetta Stone. Happening to take a keen interest
in dead languages as well as in living people, he saw among the
hieroglyphics two sets of signs with a line drawn round them, and as
the name of Ptolemy was twice mentioned in the Greek text he reasoned
that these signs stood for the name of the ruler who made the decree.
He reasoned correctly, and we learned in time that a king’s name
was always enclosed in a panel, which is now generally known as a
cartouche.
The deciphering of the king’s name was a happy discovery which
pointed to the general significance of the cartouche in connection
with royal names. But the deciphering of the rest of the
hieroglyphics bristled with difficulties. No one knew whether the
signs stood for sounds, letters, words or things.
Egyptians had painted these puzzling pictures, but there was not a
single man in all Egypt who knew what they meant. The oldest Egyptian
peasant was ignorant on the subject, the most learned Egyptian
scholar had not the faintest idea of their meaning. The Egyptians had
forgotten how to read the writing of their forefathers. It was the
writing of a dead age, of a vanished civilization.
Dr. Young threw himself enthusiastically into the task of
deciphering the signs. The difficulty seemed to add a zest to his
search. He pored over the copy of the writing on the Rosetta Stone
day after day. There was absolutely nothing to guide him. Everything
was sheer deduction at first, and then his deductions had to be
tested and verified.
So difficult was his task that the discovery of a single letter
was an event. Perhaps by great good fortune he would succeed in
deciphering two signs in a week, then for a month he might study the
copy until his brain reeled, and decipher nothing at all. It was a
heart-breaking undertaking. On one occasion he announced that he had
succeeded in translating a certain set of hieroglyphics into a word
of seven or eight letters. It was afterwards proved that he was right
in only one letter, and that the rest were hopelessly wrong.
He began on his project in 1814 and, after struggling with it for
four years, the sum total of his labours amounted to the deciphering
of just over ninety characters. His discovery thus averaged fewer
than twenty-five signs a year. It meant that he had to concentrate
all the power of his exceptional brain, and all his knowledge of
languages, for a whole month to decipher two characters. In doing
what he did, he accomplished an astounding feat. It is impossible to
praise Young too highly for his early work on the Rosetta Stone.
At the same time that Young was wrestling with hieroglyphics in
England, François Champollion was trying to solve the puzzle in
France. Champollion’s interest in hieroglyphics did not spring up
in a night; it was of slow growth, starting in his childhood when
Egypt bulked large in the imaginations of most French boys owing to
the stirring deeds of Napoleon against the Mamelukes. By the time
Champollion was eleven years old, he was already taking more than
an ordinary boyish interest in things Egyptian, and, as the years
passed, he slowly gathered books and material bearing on the subject
which he was to make peculiarly his own.
He was eager, anxious, to decipher hieroglyphics. It was the ambition
of his life, the thing for which he lived, of which he dreamed. He
collected every copy of the strange picture-writing that he could
find in order to study it, in the hope of deciphering one more
character. He was terribly handicapped by the small quantity of
material on which he could work, and while his brilliant contemporary
Young lay dying in England, in 1829, Champollion was leading an
expedition in Egypt, gathering material for France.
Champollion found the picture-writing even more complex than any one
anticipated. A single letter might be represented by seven or eight
quite different signs, and a sign might represent a whole word or
part of a word. A circle with lines radiating from it might represent
the sun god, or it might stand for the word “day.” A sign which
ordinarily stood for a letter might represent a god if a dot or some
other sign came after it.
The Egyptian hieroglyphics were indeed one of the greatest puzzles
of the ages. The discovery of other inscriptions helped to verify
Champollion’s work, and provide proof that he was deciphering the
signs accurately. It is, nevertheless, incredible that any human
being could read even a sign of this dead writing correctly. That
any one could do what Champollion ultimately did is almost a
miracle. He laboured at his self-appointed task with so much courage
and determination that he eventually succeeded in building up a
hieroglyphic dictionary—a marvellous feat.
Champollion himself did not long survive Young, for he so sapped
his strength over his Egyptian expedition that he fell ill and died
in 1832. He was comparatively a young man, only forty-two, yet he
crowded an enormous amount of work into these few years, and it may
truly be said that his love of Egyptology cost him his life.
By the aid of his dictionary, which grew directly out of the finding
of the Rosetta Stone, our scholars are now able to read without
much trouble the sacred writings of the ancient Egyptians. Thus
that fragment of black basalt in the British Museum, which is passed
unnoticed by so many people, is really one of the most interesting
stones in the world.