EXCAVATIONS IN EGYPT
There came to the camp of a certain professor, who was engaged in
excavating the ruins of an ancient Egyptian city, a young and
faultlessly-attired Englishman, whose thirst for dramatic adventure had
led him to offer his services as an unpaid assistant digger. This
immaculate personage had read in novels and tales many an account of the
wonders which the spade of the excavator could reveal, and he firmly
believed that it was only necessary to set a “nigger” to dig a little
hole in the ground to open the way to the treasuries of the Pharaohs.
Gold, silver, and precious stones gleamed before him, in his
imagination, as he hurried along subterranean passages to the vaults of
long-dead kings. He expected to slide upon the seat of his very
well-made breeches down the staircase of the ruined palace which he had
entered by way of the skylight, and to find himself, at the bottom, in
the presence of the bejewelled dead. In the intervals between such
experiences he was of opinion that a little quiet gazelle shooting would
agreeably fill in the swiftly passing hours; and at the end of the
season’s work he pictured himself returning to the bosom of his family
with such a tale to tell that every ear would be opened to him.
On his arrival at the camp he was conducted to the site of his future
labours; and his horrified gaze was directed over a large area of
mud-pie, knee-deep in which a few bedraggled natives slushed their way
downwards. After three weeks’ work on this distressing site, the
professor announced that he had managed to trace through the mud the
outline of the palace walls, once the feature of the city, and that the
work here might now be regarded as finished. He was then conducted to a
desolate spot in the desert, and until the day on which he fled back to
England he was kept to the monotonous task of superintending a gang of
natives whose sole business it was to dig a very large hole in the sand,
day after day and week after week.
It is, however, sometimes the fortune of the excavator to make a
discovery which almost rivals in dramatic interest the tales of his
youth. Such an experience fell to the lot of Emil Brugsch Pasha when he
was lowered into an ancient tomb and found himself face to face with a
score of the Pharaohs of Egypt, each lying in his coffin; or when Howard
Carter and Lord Carnarvon climbed into the tomb of Tutankhamen, and saw
before them the glorious funeral paraphernalia of the Pharaoh; or again,
when Monsieur de Morgan discovered the great mass of royal jewels in one
of the pyramids at Dachour. But such finds can be counted on the
fingers, and more often an excavation is a fruitless drudgery. Moreover,
the life of a digger is not always a pleasant one.
It will perhaps be of interest to the reader of romances to illustrate
the above remarks by the narration of some of my own experiences; but
there are only a few interesting and unusual episodes in which I have
had the peculiarly good fortune to be an actor. There will probably be
some drama to be felt in the account of the more important discoveries
(for there certainly is to the antiquarian himself); but it should be
pointed out that the interest of these rare finds pales before the
description which many of us have heard, of how the archæologists of a
past century discovered the body of Charlemagne clad in his royal robes
and seated upon his throne--which, by the way, is quite untrue. In spite
of all that is said to the contrary, truth is seldom stranger than
fiction; and the reader who desires to be told of the discovery of
buried cities whose streets are paved with gold should take warning in
time and return at once to his novels.
If the dawning interest of the reader has now been thoroughly cooled by
these words, it may be presumed that it will be utterly annihilated by
the following narration of my first fruitless excavation; and thus one
will be able to continue the story with the relieved consciousness that
nobody is attending.
In the capacity of assistant to Professor Flinders Petrie, I was set,
many years ago, to the task of excavating a supposed royal cemetery in
the desert behind the ancient city of Abydos, in Upper Egypt. Two mounds
were first attacked; and after many weeks of work in digging through the
sand, the superstructure of two great tombs was bared. In the case of
the first of these several fine passages of good masonry were cleared,
and at last the burial chamber was reached. In the huge sarcophagus
which was there found great hopes were entertained that the body and
funeral-offerings of the dead prince would be discovered; but when at
last the interior was laid bare the solitary article found was a copy of
a French newspaper left behind by the last, and equally disgusted,
excavator. The second tomb defied the most ardent exploration, and
failed to show any traces of a burial. The mystery was at last solved by
Professor Petrie, who, with his usual keen perception, soon came to the
conclusion that the whole tomb was a dummy, built solely to hide an
enormous mass of rock chippings, the presence of which had been a puzzle
for some time. These mason’s chippings were evidently the output from
some large cutting in the rock, and it became apparent that there must
be a great rock tomb in the neighbourhood. Trial trenches in the
vicinity presently revealed the existence of a long wall, which, being
followed in either direction, proved to be the boundary of a vast court
or enclosure built upon the desert at the foot of a conspicuous cliff. A
ramp led up to the entrance; but as it was slightly askew and pointed to
the southern end of the enclosure, it was supposed that the rock tomb,
which presumably ran into the cliff from somewhere inside this area, was
situated at that end. The next few weeks were occupied in the tedious
task of probing the sand hereabouts, and at length in clearing it away
altogether down to the surface of the underlying rock. Nothing was
found, however; and sadly we turned to the exact middle of the court,
and began to work slowly to the foot of the cliff. Here, in the very
middle of the back wall, a pillared chamber was found, and it seemed
certain that the entrance to the tomb would now be discovered.
The best men were placed to dig out this chamber, and the excavator--it
was many years ago--went about his work with the weight of fame upon his
shoulders and an expression of intense mystery upon his sorely
sun-scorched face. How clearly memory recalls the letter home that
week, “We are on the eve of a great discovery”; and how vividly rises
the picture of the baking desert sand into which the sweating workmen
were slowly digging their way! But our hopes were short-lived, for it
very soon became apparent that there was no tomb entrance in this part
of the enclosure. There remained the north end of the area, and on to
this all the available men were turned. Deeper and deeper they dug their
way, until the mounds of sand thrown out formed, as it were, the lip of
a great crater. At last, some forty or fifty feet down, the underlying
rock was struck, and presently the mouth of a great shaft was exposed
leading down into the bowels of the earth. The royal tomb had at last
been discovered, and it only remained to effect an entrance. The days
were now filled with excitement, and, the thoughts being concentrated on
the question of the identity of the royal occupant of the tomb, it was
soon fixed in our minds that we were about to enter the burial-place of
no less a personage than the great Pharaoh Senusert III. (Sesostris),
the same king whose jewels were found at Dachour.
One evening, just after I had left the work, the men came down to the
distant camp to say that the last barrier was now reached and that an
entrance could be effected at once. In the pale light of the moon,
therefore, I hastened back to the desert with a few trusted men. As we
walked along, one of these natives very cheerfully remarked that we
should all probably get our throats cut, as the brigands of the
neighbourhood had got wind of the discovery, and were sure to attempt to
enter the tomb that night. With this pleasing prospect before us we
walked with some caution over the silent desert. Reaching the mound of
sand which surrounded our excavation, we crept to the top and peeped
over into the crater. At once we observed a dim light below us, and
almost immediately an agitated but polite voice from the opposite mound
called out in Arabic, “Go away, mister. We have all got guns.” This
remark was followed by a shot which whistled past me; and therewith I
slid down the hill once more, and heartily wished myself safe in my bed.
Our party then spread round the crater, and at a given word we proposed
to rush the place. But the enemy was too quick for us, and after the
briefest scrimmage, and the exchanging of a harmless shot or two, we
found ourselves in possession of the tomb, and were able to pretend that
we were not a bit frightened.
Then into the dark depths of the shaft we descended, and ascertained
that the robbers had not effected an entrance. A long night watch
followed, and the next day we had the satisfaction of arresting some of
the criminals. The tomb was found to penetrate several hundred feet into
the cliff, and at the end of the long and beautifully worked passage the
great royal sarcophagus was found--empty! So ended a very strenuous
season’s work.
If the experiences of a digger in Professor Petrie’s camp are to be
regarded as typical, they will probably serve to damp the ardour of
eager young gentlemen in search of ancient Egyptian treasure. One lives
in a bare little hut constructed of mud, and roofed with cornstalks or
corrugated iron; and if by chance there happens to be a rain storm, as
there was when I was a member of the community, one may watch the frail
building gently subside in a liquid stream upon one’s bed and books. For
seven days in the week one’s work continues, and it is only to the real
enthusiast that that work is not monotonous and tiresome.
A few years later it fell to my lot to excavate for the Government the
funeral temple of Thutmosis III. at Thebes, and a fairly large sum was
spent upon the undertaking. Although the site was most promising in
appearance, a couple of months’ work brought to light hardly a single
object of importance, whereas exactly similar sites in the same
neighbourhood had produced inscriptions of the greatest value. Many
years ago Lord Carnarvon began his work upon a site of my own selection,
the net result of which, after six weeks’ labour, was one mummified cat!
To sit over the work day after day, as did that patient excavator, then
new to this sort of adventure, with the flies buzzing around his face
and the sun blazing down upon him from a relentless sky, was hardly a
pleasurable task; and to watch the clouds of dust go up from the
tip-heap, where tons of unprofitable rubbish rolled down the hillside
all day long was an occupation for the damned. Yet that is excavating as
it is usually found to be.
Now let us consider the other side of the story. In the Valley of the
Tombs of the Kings at Thebes excavations were conducted for some years
at the expense of Mr. Theodore M. Davis, of Newport, Rhode Island, by
special arrangement with the Department of Antiquities of the Egyptian
Government; and as the representative of that Department I had to
supervise the work. The finding of the tomb of Yuaa and Tuau during
these excavations was an event only eclipsed by Lord Carnarvon’s recent
discovery, and one which came somewhere near to the standard of romance
set by the novelists. Yuaa and Tuau were the parents of Queen Tiy, the
discovery of whose tomb is recorded in the next chapter. When the
entrance of their tomb was cleared, a flight of steps was exposed,
leading down to a passage blocked by a wall of loose stones. In the top
right hand corner a small hole, large enough to admit a man, had been
made in ancient times, and through this we could look down into a dark
passage. As it was too late in the day to enter at once, we postponed
that exciting experience until the morrow, and some police were sent for
to guard the entrance during the night. I had slept the previous night
over the mouth, and there was now no possibility of leaving the place
for several more nights, so a rough camp was formed on the spot.
Here I settled myself down for the long watch, and speculated on the
events of the next morning, when Mr. Davis and one or two well-known
Egyptologists were to come to the valley to be present at the opening of
the sepulchre. Presently, in the silent darkness, a slight noise was
heard on the hillside, and immediately the challenge of the sentry rang
out. This was answered by a distant call, and after some moments of
alertness on our part we observed two figures approaching us. These, to
my surprise, proved to be a well-known American artist and his wife,[3]
who had obviously come on the expectation that trouble was ahead; but
though in this they were destined to suffer disappointment, still, out
of respect for the absolute unconcern of both visitors, it may be
mentioned that the mouth of a lonely tomb already said by native rumour
to contain incalculable wealth is not perhaps the safest place in the
world. Here, then, on a level patch of rock we three lay down and slept
fitfully until the dawn. Soon after breakfast the wall at the mouth of
the tomb was pulled down, and the party passed into the low passage
which sloped down to the burial chamber. At the bottom of this passage
there was a second wall blocking the way; but when a few layers had been
taken off the top we were able to climb, one by one, into the chamber.
Imagine entering a town house which had been closed for the summer;
imagine the stuffy room, the stiff, silent appearance of the furniture,
the feeling that some ghostly occupants of the vacant chairs have just
been disturbed, the desire to throw open the windows to let life into
the room once more. That was perhaps the first sensation as we stood,
really dumbfounded, and stared around at the relics of the life of over
three thousand years ago, all of which were as new almost as when they
graced the palace of Prince Yuaa. Three arm-chairs were perhaps the
first objects to attract the attention: beautiful carved wooden chairs,
decorated with gold. Belonging to one of these was a pillow made of down
and covered with linen. It was so perfectly preserved that one might
have sat upon it or tossed it from this chair to that without doing it
injury. Here were fine alabaster vases, and in one of these we were
startled to find a liquid, like honey or syrup, still unsolidified by
time. Boxes of exquisite workmanship stood in various parts of the room,
some resting on delicately wrought legs. Now the eye was directed to a
wicker trunk fitted with trays and partitions, and ventilated with
little apertures, since the scents were doubtless strong. Two most
comfortable beds were to be observed, fitted with springy string
mattresses and
[Illustration: Excavating the Osireion at Abydos. A chain of boys
handing up baskets of sand to the surface
Photograph by the Author]
decorated with charming designs in gold. There in the far corner, placed
upon the top of a number of large white jars, stood the light chariot
which Yuaa had owned in his lifetime. In all directions stood objects
gleaming with gold undulled by a speck of dust, and one looked from one
article to another with the feeling that the entire human conception of
Time was wrong. These were the things of yesterday, of a year or so ago.
Why, here were meats prepared for the feasts in the Underworld; here
were Yuaa’s favourite joints, each neatly placed in a wooden box as
though for a journey. Here was his staff, and here were his sandals--a
new pair and an old. In another corner there stood the magical figures
by the power of which the prince was to make his way through Hades. The
words of the mystical “Chapter of the Flame” and of the “Chapter of the
Magical Figure of the North Wall” were inscribed upon them; and upon a
great roll of papyrus twenty-two yards in length other efficacious
prayers were written.
But though the eyes passed from object to object, they ever returned to
the two lidless gilded coffins in which the owners of this room of the
dead lay as though peacefully sleeping. First above Yuaa and then above
his wife the electric lamps were held, and as one looked down into their
quiet faces (from which the bandages had been removed by some ancient
robber), there was almost the feeling that they would presently open
their eyes and blink at the light. The stern features of the old man
commanded one’s attention, and again and again our gaze was turned from
this mass of wealth to this sleeping figure in whose honour it had been
placed here.
At last we returned to the surface to allow the thoughts opportunity to
collect themselves and the pulses time to quiet down, for, even to the
most unemotional, a discovery of this kind, bringing one into the very
presence of the past, has really an unsteadying effect. Then once more
we descended, and made the preliminary arrangements for the cataloguing
of the antiquities. It was now that the real work began, and, once the
excitement was passed, there was a monotony of labour to be faced which
put a very considerable strain on the powers of all concerned. The hot
days when one sweated over the heavy packing-cases, and the bitterly
cold nights when one lay at the mouth of the tomb under the stars,
dragged on for many a week; and when at last the long train of boxes was
carried down to the Nile _en route_ for the Cairo Museum, it was with a
sigh of relief that I returned to my regular work.
This, of course, was a very exceptional discovery. We afterwards made
other great finds, but to me they did not equal in dramatic interest the
discovery just recorded. Even in this royal valley, however, there is
much drudgery to be faced, and for a large part of the season’s work it
is the excavator’s business to turn over endless masses of rock
chippings, and to dig huge holes which have no interest for the patient
digger. Sometimes the mouth of a tomb is bared, and is entered with the
profoundest hopes, which are at once dashed by the sudden abrupt ending
of the cutting a few yards from the surface. At other times a
tomb-chamber is reached and is found to be absolutely empty.
At another part of Thebes, the well-known Italian Egyptologist,
Professor Schiaparelli, had excavated for a number of years without
finding anything of much importance, when suddenly one fine day he
struck the mouth of a large tomb which was evidently intact. I was at
once informed of the discovery, and proceeded to the spot as quickly as
possible. The mouth of the tomb was approached down a flight of steep,
rough steps, still half-choked with _débris_. At the bottom of this the
entrance of a passage running into the hillside was blocked by a wall of
rough stones. After photographing and removing this, we found ourselves
in a long, low tunnel, blocked by a second wall a few yards ahead. Both
these walls were intact, and we realised that we were about to see what
probably no living man had ever seen before: the absolutely intact
remains of a rich Theban of the Imperial Age--_i.e._, about 1200 or 1300
B.C. When this second wall was taken down we passed into a carefully cut
passage high enough to permit of our standing upright.
At the end of this passage a plain wooden door barred our progress. The
wood retained the light colour of fresh deal, and looked for all the
world as though it had been set up but yesterday. A heavy wooden lock,
such as is used at the present day, held the door fast. A neat bronze
handle on the side of the door was connected by a string to a wooden
knob set in the masonry door-post; and this string was carefully sealed
with a small dab of stamped clay. The whole contrivance seemed so modern
that Professor Schiaparelli called to his servant for the key, who quite
seriously replied, “I don’t know where it is, sir.” He then thumped the
door with his hand to see whether it would be likely to give; and, as
the echoes reverberated through the tomb, one felt that the mummy, in
the darkness beyond, might well think that his resurrection call had
come. One almost expected him to rise, like the dead knights of Kildare
in the Irish legend, and to ask, “Is it time?” for the three thousand
years which his religion had told him was the duration of his life in
the tomb was already long past.
Meanwhile we turned our attention to the objects which stood in the
passage, having been placed there at the time of the funeral, owing to
the lack of room in the burial-chamber. Here a vase, rising upon a
delicately shaped stand, attracted the eye by its beauty of form; and
here a bedstead caused us to exclaim at its modern appearance. A
palm-leaf fan, used by the ancient Egyptians to keep the flies off their
wines and unguents, stood near a now empty jar; and near by a basket of
dried-up fruit was to be seen. This dried fruit gave the impression that
the tomb was perhaps a few months old, but there was nothing else to be
seen which suggested that the objects were even as much as a year old.
It was almost impossible to believe, and quite impossible to realise,
that we were standing where no man had stood for well over three
thousand years; and that we were actually breathing the air which had
remained sealed in the passage since the ancient priests had closed the
entrance thirteen hundred years before Christ.
Before we could proceed farther, many flashlight photographs had to be
taken, and drawings made of the doorway; and after this a panel of the
woodwork had to be removed with a fretsaw in order that the lock and
seal might not be damaged. At last, however, this was accomplished, and
the way into the tomb-chamber was open. Stepping through the frame of
the door, we found ourselves in an unencumbered portion of the floor,
while around us in all directions stood the funeral furniture, and on
our left the coffins of the deceased noble and his wife loomed large.
Everything looked new and undecayed, and even the order in which the
objects were arranged suggested a tidying-up done that very morning. The
gravel on the floor was neatly smoothed, and not a speck of dust was
anywhere to be observed. Over the large outer coffin a pall of fine
linen was laid, not rotting and falling to pieces like the cloth of
mediæval times we see in our museums, but soft and strong like the
sheets of our beds. In the clear space before the coffin stood a wooden
pedestal in the form of a miniature lotus column. On the top of this,
resting on three wooden prongs, was a small copper dish, in which were
the ashes of incense, and the little stick used for stirring them. One
asked oneself in bewilderment whether the ashes here, seemingly not
cold, had truly ceased to glow at a time when Rome and Greece were
undreamt of, when Assyria did not exist, and when the Exodus of the
Children of Israel was yet unaccomplished.
On low tables round cakes of bread were laid out, not cracked and
shrivelled, but smooth and brown, with a kind of white-of-egg glaze upon
them. Onions and fruit were also spread out; and the fruit of the _dôm_
palm was to be seen in plenty. In various parts of the chamber there
were numerous bronze vessels of different shapes, intended for the
holding of milk or wine.
Well supplied with food and drink, the senses of the dead man were
soothed by a profusion of flowers, which lay withered but not decayed
beside the coffin, and which at the time of the funeral must have
filled the chamber with their sweetness. Near the doorway stood an
upright wooden chest closed with a lid. Opening this, we found it to
contain the great ceremonial wig of the deceased man, which was
suspended from a rail passing across the top of the chest, and hung free
of the sides and bottom. The black hair was plaited into hundreds of
little tails, but in size the wig was not unlike those of the early
eighteenth century in Europe. Chairs, beds, and other pieces of
furniture were arranged around the room, and at one side there were a
number of small chests and boxes piled up against the wall. We opened
one or two of these, and found them to contain delicate little vases of
glass, stone and metal, wrapped round with rags to prevent them
breaking. These, like everything else in the tomb, were new and fresh,
and showed no trace of the passing of the years.
The coffins, of course, were hidden by the great casing in which each
rested, and which itself was partly hidden by the linen pall. Nothing
could be touched for many days until photographs had been taken and
records made; and we therefore returned through the long passage to the
light of the day.
There must have been a large number of intact tombs to be found when the
first modern interest in Egyptian antiquities developed; but the market
thus created had to be supplied, and gangs of illicit diggers made short
work of the most accessible tombs. This illegal excavation, of course,
continues to some extent at the present day, in spite of all
precautions, but the results are becoming less and less proportionate to
the labour expended and risk taken. A native likes best to do a little
quiet digging in his own back yard and to admit nobody else into the
business. To illustrate this, I may mention a tragedy which was brought
to my notice a few years ago. A certain native discovered the entrance
of a tomb in the floor of his stable, and at once proceeded to worm his
way down the tunnel. That was the end of the native. His wife, finding
that he had not returned two hours or so later, went down the newly
found tunnel after him. That was the end of her also. In turn, three
other members of the family went down into the darkness, and that was
the end of them. A native official was then called, and, lighting his
way with a candle, penetrated down the winding passage. The air was so
foul that he was soon obliged to retreat, but he stated that he was just
able to see in the distance ahead the bodies of the unfortunate
peasants, all of whom had been overcome by what he quaintly described as
“the evil lighting and bad climate.” Various attempts at the rescue of
the dead bodies during the day and the night having failed, I gave
orders that this tomb should be regarded as their sepulchre, and that
its mouth should be sealed up. According to the natives, there was
evidently a vast hoard of wealth stored at the bottom of this tomb, and
the would-be robbers had met their death at the hands of the demon in
charge of it, who had seized each man by the throat as he came down the
tunnel and had strangled him.
The Egyptian peasants have a very strong belief in the power of such
creatures of the spirit world. A native who was attempting recently to
discover hidden treasure in a certain part of the desert, sacrificed a
lamb each night above the spot where he believed the treasure to lie, in
order to propitiate the _djin_ who guarded it. On the other hand,
however, they have no superstition as regards the sanctity of the
ancient dead, and they do not hesitate on that ground to rifle the
tombs. Thousands of graves have been desecrated by these seekers after
treasure, and it is very largely the result of this that scientific
excavation is often so fruitless nowadays. When an excavator states that
he has discovered a tomb, one takes it for granted that he means a
_plundered_ tomb, unless he definitely says that it was intact, in which
case one calls him a lucky fellow and regards him with green envy.
And thus we come back to my remarks at the beginning of this chapter,
that there is a painful disillusionment awaiting the man who comes to
dig in Egypt in the hope of finding the golden cities of the Pharaohs or
the bejewelled bodies of their dead.