The romance of ancient Egypt is not nearly told. Hundreds of volumes
have been written about it; hundreds more are still to write. Day
by day something is being turned up under the spade to increase our
knowledge of those far-off times, and though we know more than the
people of a century ago, our present knowledge will probably prove
trifling compared with the knowledge of a century hence.
For years the French, favoured by important digging concessions, made
many fine discoveries, among them those of Mariette who, going up
to Thebes, saw a few columns sticking out of the sand at Karnak and
began to excavate the site. Most men would have quailed before the
gigantic task, but Mariette set his diggers to work, and slowly but
surely rescued from the clutches of the desert all that remained of
one of the most remarkable temples in the world. Mountains of sand
and broken rock were shifted, not by mammoth machines that dug out
a truck-load of sand at once, but by natives who shovelled it into
baskets and ran off with it, seven pounds at a time!
When Mariette returned to Egypt with Louis Napoleon some years later,
the Egyptologist was as keen on the work as ever. He again began to
excavate, and among other things found a statue representing the god
Ammon, in whose honour the temple at Karnak was originally built.
Standing by the knee of the god was a headless figure, said to be
that of Tutankhamen in his boyhood.
Mariette, well knowing the value of the group, showed his regard
for Prince Napoleon by making him a present of the statue, and the
Prince, fired by what he saw in Egypt, and no doubt by Mariette’s
enthusiasm, started to collect things Egyptian.
The time came when Prince Napoleon made up his mind to sell his
Egyptian treasures. He sold many things, but no one would look at
the statue, so it was bought in at the sale for £20. For long it
remained in the Prince’s château, until a dealer eventually acquired
it for a trifling sum. Quickly assuring himself of the antiquity of
the statue, the dealer went to the Louvre to offer the piece to the
nation.
The authorities inquired the price.
“I have been offered 300,000 francs by an American, but I would
rather let France have it for 250,000 francs,” was the reply.
It was true. An American had offered £12,000 for the despised statue,
which no one would buy at the original sale, the same statue which
the Louvre gladly acquired for £10,000.
Museums will pay almost anything for fine specimens that throw some
light on past ages. They will willingly fit out special expeditions
to various parts of the world. Often museums cooperate in working
a site, as in the case of the Temple of the Moon God at Ur, in
Mesopotamia, which has been worked by the University Museum of
Philadelphia and the British Museum. The Americans are indeed taking
an increasing interest in digging up the past, and they have many
fine discoveries to their credit, not least among them being the
finding of the famous Nippur tablets in Mesopotamia, tablets which
now grace the museum at Philadelphia. Theodore Davis, too, has done
splendid work in the Nile Valley, and found several important tombs,
among them that of Thothmes IV.
Yet, since men began to dig in Egypt, no tomb has revealed so many
treasures as that of Tutankhamen. The value of the contents of the
tomb, with its lion-couches and chariots and alabaster statues and
vases, is computed at £3,000,000. It is indeed impossible to fix the
monetary worth of such things. All that can be said is that their
value to science is incalculable.
This is by no means the first big find to be made by Mr. Howard
Carter, for years ago he revealed the tomb of Queen Hatshepsut, whose
temple is one of the sights of the Valley of the Kings. The entrance
to her tomb, high up on the face of the rocky hillside, led to a
gallery winding round and round like a corkscrew. The builders of
the tomb must have had a terrible time, for they unluckily selected
a very bad spot, where the rock was soft, and so they were driven to
go down and down, until they hit on a place where the rock was hard
enough to serve for the burial chamber. Here the chamber was hewn
out of the rock, and here it was found by Mr. Howard Carter several
thousand years later, after the usual thieves had plundered it. The
stench and heat were almost overpowering.
Mr. Howard Carter is more familiar with Thebes than most Londoners
are with London. At one time he was Inspector-General of Antiquities
there, so it will be realized that his knowledge of the Valley of the
Tombs of the Kings is quite exceptional, and that it was something
more than good luck which led him to his greatest find of all.
It is astonishing how trifles sometimes lead to big discoveries.
For instance, when Professor Flinders Petrie was at Gizeh in the
’eighties, an Arab offered to sell him part of an alabaster
statuette. Instantly Petrie recognized it as a very early Greek work.
“Where did you get it?” he asked.
The Arab told him, and at the first opportunity the Egyptologist took
the train to the nearest point. For 20 miles he trudged over the
country, often going astray, but coming in the end to many mounds
in the desert. Countless fragments of early Greek pottery furnished
Petrie with all the evidence he needed. Quickly filling his pockets,
he started on his long walk back to the train.
The following year he returned to the mounds. His first task was to
find a shelter. He had barely done this when he noticed two stones
lying just outside. He stooped and turned one over, to find it was
a proclamation of the long-lost city of Naukratis carved in Greek
characters, a city which men had eagerly sought, a city the very
existence of which some men doubted. It was a sudden revelation, a
mighty discovery to spring from a little alabaster statue, and it
provides one more indication of the genius of its discoverer.
Perhaps the weirdest experience in all Egyptology was Petrie’s
discovery of the noble Horuta at Hawara down a well 40 feet deep.
Here in a flooded chamber, amid impenetrable blackness, he and his
labourers wrestled continually with mighty blocks, in order to get to
the stone sarcophagus which he suspected was there. They found it at
last, with the lid barely peeping above the surface of the icy water.
For days they strove to shift it, but it was immovable, so he decided
to cut the sarcophagus in halves in order to get at the inner coffin.
Weeks of fatiguing labour saw this gigantic task accomplished, and
there was another desperate fight, with men working up to their
chests in water, to get it out.
Instead of the coveted head-end of the sarcophagus, the foot-end
came to light. It was a terrible disappointment. The coffin still
remained in the other half, and was apparently as far off as ever.
The Egyptologist, groping in the murky water, fought with it, strove
to shift it with his hands, with his feet. It was firmly fixed.
Still he was not beaten. After a sustained effort lasting several
days, he and his workers managed to raise the lid of the other half
of the sarcophagus with wedges, until the inside of it was a few
inches above water-level. Then he wriggled inside, and for hours in
the darkness he sat astride the coffin and struggled to loosen it.
The top of his head touched the lid of the sarcophagus, he had hardly
room to move at all, the water came up to his mouth and compelled
him to breathe through his nose. More than once in the course of
his tremendous exertions he took in a mouthful of the nauseous
water. The sand clung to the coffin as though it were set in a bed
of cement. He tried scraping away the sand with his feet, he prised
at the coffin with crowbars. All his efforts failed to shift it a
fraction of an inch.
Few men would have continued under such hopeless conditions; most
would have acknowledged defeat and betaken themselves to an easier
task. But Flinders Petrie was possessed of a determination that
would not be denied. He set to work drilling holes in the coffin—a
most difficult feat. When this was done bolts were inserted, strong
ropes were attached, and the men went along the passage and hauled
away with all their strength. For a time it was like heaving at a
mountain, then the coffin stirred slightly, moved more and more.
Backs were bending under the strain, arms almost cracking as the men
taking part in that fantastic tug-of-war with a dead man finally
triumphed and dragged the water-blackened coffin out of the depths.
Breathlessly they opened it, found the mummy of Horuta, “wrapped in a
network of lapis lazuli, beryl, and silver.... Bit by bit the layers
of pitch and cloth were loosened, and row after row of magnificent
amulets were disclosed, just as they were laid on in the distant
past. The gold ring on his finger which bore his name and titles, the
exquisitely inlaid gold birds, the chased gold figures, the lazuli
statuettes, the polished lazuli and beryl and carnelian amulets
finely engraved.”
Forgotten were the herculean labours of the past months, forgotten
the icy water that froze their bodies, the blackness that blinded
them, swept away by the sight of the treasures disclosed to their
delighted eyes, the treasures for which they had endured so much and
fought so long. The recovery of the mummy of Horuta is one of the
epics of the Nile.
The world-famous tablets of Tell el Amarna were accidentally
discovered by an Arab woman, who happened on them while searching
the ruins for trifles to sell to tourists. The tablets were letters
sent by the King of Babylon to the King of Egypt, written in the
usual cuneiform characters on slabs of clay, and they disclose much
concerning the life of that time. A remarkable thing is that in one
of the letters, the King of Babylon mentions that he is sending a
present of some couches to the King of Egypt, and the discovery of
the tomb of Tutankhamen has brought to light what appear to be the
very couches which were presented to the King of Egypt nearly four
thousand years ago.
Professor Petrie has little doubt that the strange lion-couches are
of Babylonian origin, and that these are the couches referred to
in the Tell el Amarna letters. The couches found in Tutankhamen’s
tomb are secured with bronze clasps. The Babylonians secured their
furniture in this way, but the Egyptians never did, for in the
Nile valley the furniture was held together with wooden pegs; so
the evidence distinctly favours the view that these are indeed the
Babylonian couches mentioned.
Lord Carnarvon, in a lecture at the Central Hall, Westminster, gave
a vivid account of the opening of the tomb, telling how they cleared
the passage leading to the first chamber, how they broke a hole
through the sealed wall just large enough to see through, how Mr.
Howard Carter held up his candle and peered into the tomb, uttering
no word. All the time Lord Carnarvon was on tenterhooks, wondering
what was behind the wall. A moment later he peered through, and saw
one of the most wonderful sights that has ever greeted an excavator.
To come on such a wealth of treasure is actually a grave
responsibility. Before now men have seen statues suddenly collapse
into dust before their amazed eyes, have watched brilliantly
decorated mummy cases crumble without warning into heaps of powder.
A most dramatic incident occurred after the unique discovery of all
the royal mummies in 1881. Exercising the utmost care, Maspero slowly
unwrapped one of the mummies in order to gaze on the actual features
of the dead monarch. A camera was focused, the plate exposed, and
even as the photograph was taken the face vanished into nothingness.
Maspero was terribly upset at the loss of the mummy, so upset that he
refused to allow the mummy of Rameses the Great to be unwrapped, for
fear it, too, should vanish.
For things cannot last for ever, even in the dry air of Egypt. They
cannot spend thousands of years in tombs without becoming fragile.
Their preservation is therefore imperative. Everything must be
photographed from many angles, in order to provide a complete record
in pictures. In the case of the treasures of Tutankhamen, electric
lamps of 2000 candle-power were installed in the tomb, for the use of
the photographer. Paraffin wax, dissolved celluloid, sheets of glass,
various acids, are used to prevent decay.
Even when all precautions are taken, things have to be very carefully
handled. They literally need wrapping in cotton wool, and one of Lord
Carnarvon’s first purchases, when he saw the extent of his discovery,
was a mile and a half of cotton wool to wrap round the treasures.
[Illustration:
_By courtesy of the British Museum_
THESE MARVELLOUS COFFINS, FOUND AT THEBES, ARE DECORATED WITH SCENES
FROM THE BOOK OF THE DEAD. THE REPRODUCTIONS GIVE ONLY A FAINT IDEA
OF THE WONDERFUL BEAUTY OF THE ORIGINALS, WHICH ARE ALL PAINTED IN
THE MOST GORGEOUS COLOURS AND IN SOME CASES HEAVILY OVERLAID WITH
GOLD. THEY ARE FINE EXAMPLES OF THE REMARKABLE SKILL OF THE EGYPTIAN
ARTISTS. THAT OF HU-EN-AMEN ON THE LEFT IS ABOUT 2,700 YEARS OLD, AND
THE OTHER OF ATHA-NEB IS ABOUT 2,400 YEARS OLD]
As far back as 1888, Flinders Petrie was confronted by the problem
of preserving a coffin from which the stucco was peeling. After much
consideration, he dropped melted paraffin wax on the weak spots,
and thought he had solved the difficulty. To his dismay the wax made
matters worse. The outer margins of the wax contracted in cooling,
and formed saucer-like depressions which pulled the stucco away from
the wood.
He was so gravely concerned that for days he racked his brains to
find a remedy. At last, he took a brazier full of glowing charcoal,
and held it near the waxen saucers. To his joy he saw the wax melting
into the cracks and under the stucco, cementing it firmly to the wood
again.
Nowhere else on this earth are the past and present so intermixed
as at Thebes. Here extreme antiquity may be seen side by side
with modern science, motor-cars passing asses, and electricity
illuminating the ancient tombs. The mummy of Seti II lies with
an electric light above his head, so that visitors may have no
difficulty in gazing on his features!
The remarkable paintings in the tombs are executed so skilfully, the
outlines are drawn and coloured so correctly, that the possibility
of doing such work in the darkness of an underground chamber has
often been questioned. More than once it has been said that the light
of torches or candles would be quite inadequate, and it has been
suggested that the Egyptians may have anticipated modern science by
using electric light thousands of years ago.
That the Egyptians were clever is beyond all doubt, that they may
have known things of which we to-day are ignorant is more than
possible, but the decorations of the tombs are no evidence that they
were conversant with the use of electricity. The ancient methods of
lighting the tombs so that the artists could see to work were after
all quite simple. The artists worked by the light of the sun. The sun
might be perhaps a hundred feet or more away along a passage, yet a
white garment would serve excellently for reflecting the light into
the tomb.
Professor Flinders Petrie has worked wonders with the lid of a
biscuit box, and in bygone days a man might often have been seen
holding a tin lid at the mouth of a tunnel leading into a tomb,
deflecting the ray of light right into the tomb, to enable the
Egyptologist to take photographs. If the lid of a biscuit box
happened to be missing, then a turkish towel was made to serve the
same purpose. The actinic qualities of the sun in the Nile valley are
indeed remarkable.
Many things have turned up under the spade in Egypt, wonderful stone
vases, jars with faint traces of perfume still pervading them, slate
palettes on which the people mixed the paints with which they touched
up their eyes and faces. While the Ancient Britons were painting
themselves with woad, the Egyptian ladies were sitting at their
dressing-tables making up their eyes in quite the modern fashion, the
Egyptian children were playing with toys such as the children play
with to-day. The Egyptian forerunner of Pepys carved his diary on a
piece of ebony, one page to a whole year!
Glass was in use in Egypt thousands of years before it was heard of
in Europe; Egypt taught the world the use of bronze; and the flint
implements found on the banks of the Nile are finer than any others
so far discovered in the world. Some of the knives of the best period
are simply marvellous and disclose extraordinary skill on the part
of the Egyptian flint workers. There are stone knives in the British
Museum with teeth as regular and as fine as those of a modern,
machine-cut fret saw, teeth so minute as to be almost invisible to
the naked eye. One masterpiece of a flint knife, cleverly flaked
in the most remarkable manner, has about fifty tiny teeth to the
inch, and it is astounding to think that such amazing hand work was
performed by the Egyptians of the Stone Age. Probably there is not a
living man who could duplicate such work.
Now the treasures of Tutankhamen grip the imagination and dazzle the
eye. Tutankhamen made a priceless, a magnificent gift to posterity,
yet it is to Ptolemy v. that we owe the greatest gift of all. The
gift is merely that broken stone in the British Museum, the stone
which was dug out of the ruins of Fort St. Julian in 1798. In causing
that stone to be carved, Ptolemy presented us with the key to the
knowledge of ancient Egypt.
[Illustration:
_By courtesy of the British Museum_
THE FAMOUS INSCRIPTION OF KING DARIUS AT BEHISTUN, IN PERSIA, FROM
WHICH SIR HENRY RAWLINSON WRESTED THE LONG-LOST SECRET OF CUNEIFORM
WRITING. AT THE EDGE OF THE NARROW LEDGE ON WHICH THE ARAB STANDS,
THE ROCK DROPS SHEER FOR 300 FEET TO THE BOULDER-STREWN FOOT OF THE
CLIFFS]