THEBAN THIEVES
Thebes was the ancient capital of Egypt, and its ruins are the most
extensive in the Nile Valley. On the east bank of the river, at the
modern towns of Luxor and Karnak, there are the remains of mighty
temples; and on the west bank, in the neighbourhood of the village of
Gurneh, tombs, mortuary chapels, and temples literally cover the ground.
The inhabitants of these three places have for generations augmented
their incomes by a traffic in antiquities, and the peasants of Gurneh
have, more especially, become famous as the most hardy pilferers of the
tombs of their ancestors in all Egypt. In conducting this lucrative
business they have lately had the misfortune to be recognised as thieves
and robbers by the Government, and it used to be one of my duties to
point this out to them. As a matter of fact they are no more thieves
than you or I. It is as natural for them to scratch in the sand for
antiquities as it is for us to pick flowers by the roadside;
antiquities, like flowers, are the product of soil, and it is largely
because the one is more rare than the other that its promiscuous
appropriation has been constituted an offence. The native who is
sometimes child enough to put his eyes out rather than serve in the
army, who will often suffer all manner of wrongs rather than carry his
case to the local courts, and who will hide his money under his bed
rather than trust it to the safest bank, is not likely to be intelligent
enough to realise that, on scientific grounds, he is committing a crime
in digging for scarabs. He is beginning to understand that in the eyes
of the law he is a criminal, but he has not yet learnt so to regard
himself. I here name him thief, for officially that is his designation;
but there is no sting in the word, nor is any insult intended. By all
cultured persons the robbery of antiquities must be regarded as a grave
offence, and one which has to be checked. But the point is ethical; and
what has the Theban to do with ethics?
The robbery of antiquities is carried out in many different ways and
from many different motives. Sometimes it is romantic treasure hunting
that the official has to deal with; sometimes it is adventurous robbery
with violence; sometimes it is the taking advantage of chance
discoveries; sometimes it is the pilfering of objects found in
authorised excavations; and sometimes it is the stealing of fragments
smashed from the walls of ancient monuments. All these forms of robbery,
except the last, may call for the sympathy of every reader of these
lines who happens not to have cultivated that vaguely defined
“archæological sense” which is, practically, the product of this present
generation alone; and in the instances which are here to be given the
point of view of the “Theban thief” will be readily appreciated.
Treasure hunting is a relic of childhood that remains, like all other
forms of romance and adventure, a permanently youthful feature in our
worn old hearts. It has been drilled into us by the tales of our
boyhood, and, in later life, it has become part of that universal
desire to get something for nothing which lies behind our most honest
efforts to obtain the goods of this world. Who has not desired the
hidden wealth of the late Captain Kidd, or coveted the lost treasure of
the Incas? I once wrote an article which was entitled “Excavations in
Egypt,” but the editor of the magazine in which it appeared hastily
altered these words to “Treasure Hunting in Egypt,” and thereby
commanded the attention of twice the number of readers. Can we wonder,
then, that this form of adventure is so often met with in Egypt, the
land of hidden treasure? The Department of Antiquities has published a
collection of mediæval traditions with regard to this subject, which is
known as the Book of the Pearl. In it one is told the exact places where
excavations should be made in order to lay bare the wealth of the
ancients. “Go to such and such a spot,” says this curious book, “and dig
to the depth of so many cubits, and you will find a trapdoor; descend
through this and you will find a chamber wherein are forty jars filled
with gold. Take what you want, and give thanks to God.” Many of the
sites referred to have been literally hacked out of all recognition by
the picks and spades of thousands of gold-seekers; and it may be that
sometimes their efforts have been rewarded, since a certain amount of
genuine information is embodied in the traditions. The late Sir Gaston
Maspero, Director-General of the Cairo Museum, used to tell a story of
how a native came to him asking permission to excavate at a certain spot
where he believed treasure to be hidden. Sir Gaston accompanied him to
the place, and a tunnel was bored into what appeared to be virgin sand
and rock. At the end of the first day’s work the futility of his
labours was pointed out to the man, but he was not to be daunted. For
two more days he stood watching the work from morn to nightfall with
hope burning in his eyes, and on the following morning his reward came.
Suddenly the ground gave way before the picks of the workmen, and a hole
was seen leading into a forgotten cave. In this cave the implements of
some mediæval coiners were discovered, and an amount of metal, false and
true, was found which had been used by them in the process of their
business.
A short time ago a man applied for permission to perform a similar kind
of excavation at a place called Nag Hamadi, and in my absence permission
was given him. On my return the following report was submitted:
“ ...Having reached up the spot indicated the man started to blow the stones
by means of the Denamits. Also he slaught a lamb, thinking that there is
a treasure, and that when the lamb being slaught he will discover it at
once.” In plainer English, the man had blown up the rocks with dynamite,
and had attempted to further his efforts by sacrificing a lamb to the
_djin_ who guarded the treasure. The _djin_, however, was not thus to be
propitiated, and the gold of the Pharaohs was never found. More recently
the watchmen of the famous temple of Der el Bahri found themselves in
trouble owing to the discovery that part of the ancient pavement showed
signs of having been raised, stone by stone, in order that the ground
below might be searched for the treasure which a tradition, such as
those in the Book of the Pearl, had reported as lying hid there.
Almost as romantic and entertaining as treasure hunting is robbery with
violence. We all remember our boyhood’s fascination for piracy,
smuggling, and the profession of Dick Turpin; and to the Theban peasant,
who is essentially youthful in his ideas, this form of fortune hunting
has irresistible attractions. When a new tomb is discovered by
authorised archæologists, especially when it is situated in some remote
spot such as the Valley of the Kings, there is always some fear of an
armed raid; and the police guard the spot night and day until the
antiquities have been removed to Cairo. The workmen who have been
employed in the excavation return to their homes with wonderful tales of
the wealth which the tomb contains, and in the evening the discovery is
discussed by the women at the well where the water is drawn for the
village, with the result that it very soon assumes prodigious
proportions, inflaming the minds of all men with the greed of gold.
Visitors often ask why it is that the mummies of the Pharaohs are not
left to lie each in its own tomb; and it is argued that they look
neither congruous nor dignified in the glass cases of the museum. The
answer is obvious to all who know the country: put them back in their
tombs, and, without continuous police protection, they will be broken
into fragments by robbers, bolts and bars notwithstanding. The
experiment of leaving the mummy and some of the antiquities _in situ_
has only once been tried, and it has not been a complete success. It was
done in the case of the tomb of Amenophis II at Thebes, the mummy being
laid in its original sarcophagus; and a model boat, used in one of the
funeral ceremonies, was also left in the tomb. One night the six
watchmen who were in charge of the royal tombs stated that they had been
attacked by an armed force; and the tomb in question was seen to have
been entered, the iron doors having been forced. The mummy of the
Pharaoh was found lying on the floor of the burial-hall, its chest
smashed in; and the boat had disappeared, nor has it since been
recovered. The watchmen showed signs of having put up something of a
fight, their clothes being riddled with bullet-holes; but here and there
the cloth looked much as though it had been singed, which suggested, as
did other evidence, that they themselves had fired the guns and had
acted the struggle. The truth of the matter will never be known, but its
lesson is obvious. The mummy was put back into its sarcophagus, and
there it has remained secure ever since; but one never knows how soon it
will be dragged forth once more to be searched for the gold with which
every native thinks it is stuffed.
Some years ago an armed gang walked off with a complete series of
mortuary reliefs belonging to a tomb at Sakkârah. They came by night,
overpowered the watchmen, loaded the blocks of stone on to camels, and
disappeared into the darkness. Sometimes it is an entire cemetery that
is attacked; and, if it happens to be situated some miles from the
nearest police-station, a good deal of work can be done before the
authorities get wind of the affair. One winter six hundred men set to
work upon a patch of desert ground where a tomb had been accidently
found, and ere I received the news, they had robbed a score of little
graves, many of which must have contained objects purchasable by the
dealers in antiquities for quite large sums of money. At Abydos a tomb
which we had just discovered was raided by the villagers, and we only
regained possession of it after a rapid exchange of shots, one of which
came near ending my own gay career. But how amusing the adventure must
have been for the raiders!
The appropriation of treasure-trove come upon by chance, or the digging
out of graves accidentally discovered, is a very natural form of robbery
for the natives to indulge in, and one which commends itself to the
sympathies of all those not actively concerned in its suppression. There
are very few persons even in western countries who would be willing to
hand over to the Government a hoard of gold discovered in their own back
garden. In Egypt the law used to be that the treasure-trove thus
discovered belonged to the owner of the property; and thus there was
always a certain amount of excavation going on behind the walls of the
houses. It is still the law that the peasants may carry away the
accumulated rubbish on the upper layers of ancient town sites, in order
to use it as a fertiliser for their crops, since it contains valuable
phosphates. The work is supervised by watchmen, but this does not
prevent the stealing of almost all the antiquities which are found. As
illegal excavators, these sebakhîn, or manure-diggers, are the worst
offenders for they search for the phosphates in all manner of places,
and are constantly coming upon tombs or ruins which they promptly clear
of their contents. One sees them driving their donkeys along the roads,
each laden with a sack of manure, and it is certain that some of these
sacks contain antiquities.
In Thebes many of the natives live inside the tombs of the ancient
nobles, these generally consisting of two or three rock-hewn halls from
which a tunnel leads down to the burial chamber. Generally this tunnel
is choked with _débris_, and the owner of the house will perhaps come
upon it by chance, and will dig it out, in the vain hope that earlier
plunderers have left some of the antiquities undisturbed. It recently
happened that an entire family was asphyxiated while attempting to
penetrate into a newly-discovered tunnel, each member entering to
ascertain the fate of the previous explorer, and each being overcome by
the gases. On one occasion I was asked by a native to accompany him down
a tunnel, the entrance of which was in his stable, in order to view a
sarcophagus which lay at the bottom. We each took a candle, and
crouching down to avoid the low roof, we descended the narrow, winding
rabbit-hole of a passage, the loose stones sliding beneath our feet. The
air was very foul; and below us there was a thunderous roar of thousands
of wings beating through the echoing passage--the wings of evil-smelling
bats. Presently we reached this uncomfortable zone. So thickly did the
bats hang from the ceiling that the rock itself seemed to be black; but
as we advanced, and the creatures took to their wings, this black
covering seemed to peel off the grey rock. During the entire descent
this curious spectacle of regularly receding blackness and advancing
grey was to be seen a yard or so in front of us. The roar of wings was
now deafening, for the space into which we were driving the bats was
very confined. My guide shouted to me that we must let them pass out of
the tomb over our heads. We therefore crouched down, and a few stones
were flung into the darkness ahead. Then, with a roar and a rush of air,
they came, bumping into us, entangling themselves in our clothes,
slapping our faces and hands with their unwholesome wings, and clinging
to our fingers. At last the thunder died away in the passage behind us,
and we were able to advance more easily, though the ground was alive
with the bats maimed in the frantic flight which had taken place,
floundering out of our way and squeaking shrilly. The sarcophagus proved
to be of no interest, so the encounter with the bats was to no purpose.
The pilfering of antiquities found during the course of authorised
excavations is one of the most common forms of robbery. The overseer
cannot always watch the workmen sufficiently closely to prevent them
pocketing the small objects which they find, and it is an easy matter to
carry off the stolen goods even though the men are searched at the end
of the day. A little girl minding her father’s sheep and goats in the
neighbourhood of the excavations, and apparently occupying her hands
with the spinning of flax, is perhaps the receiver of the objects. Thus
it is more profitable to dig for antiquities even in authorised
excavations than to work the water-hoist, which is one of the usual
occupations of the peasant. Pulling the hoisting-pole down, and swinging
it up again with its load of water many thousands of times in a day, is
monotonous work; whereas digging in the ground, with the eyes keenly
watching for the appearance of antiquities, is always interesting and
exciting. And why should the digger refrain from appropriating the
objects which his pick reveals? If he do not make use of his
opportunities and carry off the antiquities, the western director of the
works will take them to his own country and sell them for his own
profit. All natives believe that the archæologists work for the purpose
of making money. Speaking of Professor Flinders Petrie, a peasant said
to me once: “He has worked five-and-twenty years now; he must be _very_
rich.” He would never believe that the antiquities were given to museums
without any payment being made to the finder.
The stealing of fragments broken out of the walls of “show” monuments is
almost the only form of robbery which will receive general condemnation.
That this vandalism is also distasteful to the natives themselves is
shown by the fact that several better-class Egyptians living in the
neighbourhood of Thebes subscribed, at my invitation, the sum of £50 for
the protection of certain beautiful tombs. When they were shown the
works undertaken with their money, they expressed themselves in a letter
to me as being “pleased with the delicate inscriptions in the tombs, but
very awfully angry at the damage which the devils of ignorant people had
made.” A native of moderate intelligence can quite appreciate the
argument that whereas the continuous warfare between the agents of the
Department of Antiquities and the illegal excavators of small graves is
what might be called an honourable game, the smashing of public
monuments cannot be called fair-play from whatever point of view the
matter is approached. Often revenge or spite is the cause of this
damage. It is sometimes necessary to act with severity to the peasants
who infringe the rules of the Department, but a serious danger lies in
such action, for it is the nature of the Thebans to revenge themselves
not on the official directly but on the monuments which he is known to
love. Two years ago a native illegally built himself a house on
Government ground, and I was obliged to go through the formality of
pulling it down, which I did by obliging him to remove a few layers of
brickwork around the walls. A short time afterwards a famous tomb was
broken into and a part of the paintings destroyed; and there was enough
evidence to show that the owner of this house was the culprit, though
unfortunately he could not be convicted. One man actually had the
audacity to warn me that any severity on my part would be met by
destruction of monuments. Under these circumstances an official finds
himself in a dilemma. If he maintains the dignity and prestige of his
Department by punishing any offences against it, he endangers the very
objects for the care of which he is responsible; and it is hard to say
whether under a lax or a severe administration the more damage would be
done.
The produce of these various forms of robbery is easily disposed of.
When once the antiquities have passed into the hands of the dealers
there is little chance of further trouble. The dealer can always say
that he came into possession of an object years ago, before the
antiquity laws were made, and it is almost impossible to prove that he
did not. You may have the body of a statue and he the head: he can
always damage the line of breakage, and say that the head does not
belong to that statue, or, if the connection is too obvious, he can say
that he found the head while excavating twenty years ago on the site
where now you have found the body. Nor is it desirable to bring an
action against the man in a case of this kind, for it might go against
the official. Dealing in antiquities is regarded as a perfectly
honourable business. The official, crawling about the desert on his
stomach in the bitter cold of a winter’s night in order to hold up a
convoy of stolen antiquities, may use hard language in regard to the
trade, but he can see that in the eyes of the natives there is not much
against it. One of the Theban dealers led so holy a life that he will
assuredly be regarded as a saint by future generations.
The sale of small antiquities to tourists was prohibited by me on the
public roads, except at certain places; but of course it could be done
with impunity by the exercise of a little care. Men and boys and even
little girls as they pass will stare at you with studying eyes, and if
you seem to be a likely purchaser, they will draw from the folds of
their garments some little object which they will offer for sale. Along
the road in the glory of the setting sun there will come as fine a young
man as you will see on a day’s march. Surely he is bent on some noble
mission: what lofty thoughts are occupying his mind, you wonder. But, as
you pass, out comes the scarab from his pocket, and he shouts, “Wanty
scarab, mister?--two shillin’,” while you ride on your way a greater
cynic than before.
Some years ago a large inscribed stone was stolen from a certain temple,
and was promptly sold to a man who sometimes traded in such objects.
This man carried the stone, hidden in a sack of grain, to the house of a
friend, and having deposited it in a place of hiding, tramped home, with
his stick across his shoulders, in an attitude of deep unconcern. An
enemy of his, however, had watched him, and promptly gave information.
Acting on this the police set out to search the house. When we reached
the entrance we were met by the owner, and a warrant was shown to him. A
heated argument followed, at the end of which the infuriated man waved
us in with a magnificent and most dramatic gesture. There were some
twenty rooms in the house, and the stifling heat of a July noon made the
task none too enjoyable. The police inspector was extremely thorough in
his work, and an hour had passed before three rooms had been searched.
He looked into the cupboards, went down on his knees to peer into the
ovens, stood on tiptoe to search the fragile wooden shelves (it was a
heavy stone which we were looking for), hunted under the mats, and even
peeped into a little tobacco-tin. In one of the rooms there were three
or four beds arranged along the middle of the floor. The inspector
pulled off the mattresses, and out from under each there leapt a dozen
rats, which, if I may be believed, made for the walls and ran straight
up them, disappearing in the rafter-holes at the top. The sight of
countless rats hurrying up perpendicular walls may be familiar to some
people, but, being abstemious, I venture to call it an amazing
spectacle, worthy of record. Then came the opening of one or two
travelling-trunks. The inspector ran his hand through the clothes which
lay therein, and out jumped a few more rats, which likewise went up the
walls. The searching of the remaining rooms carried us well through the
afternoon; and at last, hot and weary, we decided to abandon the hunt.
Two nights later a man was seen walking away from the house with a heavy
sack on his back; and the stone is now, no doubt, in the Western
hemisphere.
I must here relate the story of a very remarkable “deal” in which I
became involved, and which caused quite a sensation in Cairo in the
winter of 1912-13.
One of my native inspectors came to me in Cairo one day, and reported
that strange events were taking place by night at a certain point upon
the Suez Canal. Some Bedouin were camped in the desert upon the far side
of the Canal, and were said to be in possession of some fine antique
bronzes which were believed to have come from Turkey or Syria; and a
certain Bulgarian dealer, named Nikola Yamani, was endeavouring to
purchase these and to bring them secretly into Egypt for sale. I
therefore gave the inspector the necessary instructions, with the result
that as soon as Nikola had made his purchase he was asked to bring the
objects to the nearest office of the Department of Antiquities, which
happened to be at the town of Zagazig, and there to give me the
opportunity of buying them from him for the Cairo museum. Now it so
happened that one of the Diplomatic Secretaries at the British Agency
was anxious to finance some excavations amongst the ruins of the ancient
Bubastis, near Zagazig; and when I went down by train a few days later
to look at these bronzes, he came with me to look at the site of his
proposed excavations.
This simple fact caused all the trouble which I am about to relate; for
destiny moved in the following manner. The coming of the Diplomatic
Secretary, shining in the reflected glory of his chief, Lord Kitchener,
was telegraphed to the Egyptian provincial Governor, who lived at
Zagazig; the Governor met us and took us in semi-state to lunch with
him; Nikola Yamani saw the procession, thought the whole might of the
British Empire had come to seize his antiquities, dashed off to the
Inspector’s office, bribed the native clerk in charge to hide the one
and only fine piece in the collection, and then sat down to await our
arrival, satisfied that, even if we seized all the pieces, he would
still be in possession of the important bronze statuette which now was
hidden under a couch in an adjoining room.
Later, when we came to the office, I decided at once that the bronzes
which were shown to me were not worth purchasing for the nation; and,
when we returned to Cairo, I described them to the head of the Museum,
Sir Gaston Maspero, and we officially rejected them. Their owner,
therefore, went to the office to claim them; and his rage may be
imagined when the rogue of a clerk, whom he had bribed to hide the best
piece, looked him in the face and told him that he must have been
bewitched, for no bronze had ever been hidden at all. A lie of this
kind, which sounds so blatant to our ears, can easily pass muster in
Egypt by the introduction of this suggestion that the victim has been
bewitched; for it is common knowledge there that persons who have fallen
into the power of the _djins_ often believe themselves possessed of
imaginary wealth.
Nikola, angry and perplexed, at length decided to come to me in Cairo
and to confess the truth; and he arrived, a very tragic figure, with
tears pouring from his eyes. “I listened to that wicked clerk,” he said,
“who told me that Lord Kitchener’s Secretary would certainly seize the
one good bronze for England, or you would seize it for Cairo; and now my
deceit has turned upon myself.” He paced about the room, wringing his
hands, as he spoke; and I could but forgive him his deception, which had
been due to a very natural fear, and promise to do my best to recover
the bronze for him, since he had lost it while it had been at the office
of my Department.
As a result of the steps which I took, the clerk was arrested, but
denied all knowledge of the stolen antiquity; Nikola, meanwhile, more or
less burgled the house of the clerk, and was chased out by the inmates
at the point of a revolver; and at length, after strange adventures in
the native underworld, we traced the bronze to a well-known Arab dealer,
who, of course, declared that he knew nothing of the matter.
I then invited the above-mentioned Diplomatic Secretary, and a
well-known colleague of his at the British Agency to help me, my idea
being that the fear of the redoubtable Lord Kitchener, which had been
the cause of the trouble, might now be employed to some purpose; and
these two good friends readily joined in the hunt. Space will not allow
me to describe the exciting events which followed, and which might have
formed the plot of a Sherlock Holmes adventure--our trapping the Arab
dealer and holding him prisoner while a certain hiding-place of his was
searched; the false scents which he caused us to follow up; our final
exasperation with him, and the giving of a time-limit in which he was to
confess if he wished to save himself from the deepest and darkest
dungeon in Cairo. Suffice it to say that, one minute before the
time-limit expired, the man confessed that he had bought the missing
bronze from the Zagazig clerk, and had sold it to a well-known Italian
dealer.
We then approached this latter dealer, telling him that the object which
he had bought had been stolen from Nikola, and must be returned; and,
after further adventures, the bronze was at last handed back to its
owner, who came to me and, with tears of gratitude, blessed me and my
posterity unto the end of the world.
Up to this point I had not seen the object in question; but now my two
friends saw it and described it to me, and again I discussed with Sir
Gaston Maspero the desirability of purchasing it for the Museum. He
objected, however, to spend public money on an antiquity found outside
Egypt; and he therefore gave Nikola permission to dispose of it as he
pleased. The man promptly offered it to one of these two friends of
mine, who as promptly bought it; and I then saw it for the first time.
It represented a boy dressed in the ancient costume of Armenia or Media,
and wearing the royal crown of Armenia such as that seen on the coins of
Tigranes; and it evidently dated from Roman times. It was more
interesting than beautiful; but it was certainly immensely valuable;
and, having suggested to its new owner that he should give some big
museum the opportunity of purchasing it, I introduced him to the
representative of the Metropolitan Museum of New York, who, however, did
not take the matter up.
My friend later explained to his colleague and myself that he could not
think of claiming sole possession of this statuette, since we three
together had rescued it and brought it back to its original owner, and
that, if it were sold, he would wish us to have a share of the profits.
He then placed the figure in the hands of a well-known dealer, and at
length it was sold for a rather disappointing sum.
Such was my only personal adventure into commerce; and even this,
accidental as it was, would not have been permissible had the bronze
been Egyptian, or found in Egypt, or had it been an object which the
Cairo Museum ought to have acquired.
The attempt to regain a lost antiquity is seldom
[Illustration: Gold cups and armlet of about B.C. 1000, found
accidentally by a native in a mound by a roadside in Lower Egypt.
Now in Cairo Museum.]
crowned with success. It is so extremely difficult to obtain reliable
information; and as soon as a man is suspected his enemies will rush in
with false accusations. Thirty-eight separate accusations were sent in
against a certain head-watchman during the first days after the fact had
leaked out that he was under suspicion. Not one of them could be shown
to be true. Sometimes one man will bring a charge against another for
the betterment of his own interests. Here is a letter from a watchman
who had resigned, but wished to rejoin. “To his Exec. Chief Director of
the tembels. I have honour to inform that I am your servant X, watchman
on the tembels before this time. Sir from one year ago I work in the
Santruple (?) as a watchman about four years ago. And I not make
anything wrong and your Exec. know me. Now I want to work in my place in
the tembel, because the man which in it be not attintive to His, but
always in the coffee.... He also steal the scribed stones. Please give
your order to point me again. Your servant, X.” “The coffee” is, of
course, the _café_ which adjoins the temple.
Once a young man came to me with an accusation against his own father,
who, he said, had stolen a statuette. The tale which he told was
circumstantial, but it was hotly denied by his infuriated parent. He
looked, however, a trifle more honest than his father, and when a
younger brother was brought in as witness, one felt that the guilt of
the old man would be the probable finding. The boy stared steadfastly at
the ground for some moments, however, and then launched out into an
elaborate explanation of the whole affair. He said that he asked his
father to lend him four pounds, but the father had refused. The son
insisted that that sum was due to him as his share in some transaction,
and pointed out that though he only asked for it as a loan, he had in
reality a claim to it. The old man refused to hand it over, and the son
therefore, waited his opportunity and stole it from his house, carrying
it off triumphantly to his own establishment. Here he gave it into the
charge of his young wife, and went about his business. The father,
however, guessed where the money had gone; and while his son was out,
invaded his house, beat his daughter-in-law on the soles of her feet
until she confessed where the money was hidden, and then, having
obtained it, returned to his home. When the son came back to his house
he learnt what had happened, and, out of spite, at once prepared the
accusation which he had brought to me. The story appeared to be true in
so far as the quarrel over the money was concerned, but that the
accusation was invented proved to be untrue.
Sometimes the peasants have such honest faces that it is difficult to
believe that they are guilty of deceit. A lady came to the camp of a
certain party of excavators at Thebes, holding in her hand a scarab. “Do
tell me,” she said to one of the archæologists, “whether this scarab is
genuine. I am sure it must be for I bought it from a boy who assured me
that he had stolen it from your excavations, and he looked such an
honest little fellow that I am sure he was speaking the truth.”
In order to check pilfering in a certain excavation in which I was
assisting we made a rule that the selected workmen should not be allowed
to put unselected substitutes in their place. One day I came upon a man
whose appearance did not seem familiar, although his back was turned to
me. I asked him who he was, whereupon he turned upon me a countenance
which might have served for the model of a painting of St. John, and in
a low sweet voice he told me of the illness of the real workman, and of
how he had taken over the work in order to obtain money for the purchase
of medicine for him, they being friends from their youth up. I sent him
away and told him to call for any medicine he might want that evening. I
did not see him again until about a week later, when I happened to meet
him in the village with a policeman on either side of him, from one of
whom I learned that he was a well-known thief. Thus is one deceived even
in the case of real criminals: how then can one expect to get at the
truth when the crime committed is so light an affair as the stealing of
an antiquity?
The following is a letter received from one of the greatest thieves in
Thebes, who, when I last heard of him, was serving a term of
imprisonment in the provincial gaol:--
“Sir General Inspector,--I offer this application stating that I am from
the natives of Gurneh, saying the following:--
“On Saturday last I came to your office and have been told that my
family using the sate to strengthen against the Department. The result
of this talking that all these things which somebody pretends are not
the fact. In fact I am taking great care of the antiquities for the
purpose of my living matter. Accordingly, I wish to be appointed in the
vacant of watching to the antiquities in my village and promise myself
that if anything happens I do hold myself responsible.”
I have no idea what “using the sate to strengthen” means.
It is sometimes said that the European excavators are committing an
offence against the sensibilities of the peasants by digging up the
bodies of their ancestors. Nobody will repeat this remark who has walked
over a cemetery plundered by the natives themselves. Here bodies may be
seen lying in all directions, torn limb from limb by the gold-seekers;
here beautiful vases may be smashed to atoms in order to make more rare
the specimens preserved. The peasant has no respect whatsoever for the
sanctity of the ancient dead, nor does any superstition in this regard
deter him in his work of destruction. Fortunately superstition sometimes
checks other forms of robbery. _Djins_ are believed to guard the hoards
of ancient wealth which some of the tombs are thought to contain, as,
for example, in the case of the tomb in which the family was
asphyxiated, where a fiend of this kind was thought to have throttled
the unfortunate explorers. Twin brothers are thought to have the power
of changing themselves into cats at will; and a certain Huseyn Osman, a
harmless individual enough, and a most expert digger, would often turn
himself into a cat at night-time, not only for the purpose of stealing
his brother Mohammed Osman’s dinner, but also in order to protect the
tombs which his patron was occupied in excavating. One of the overseers
in some recent excavations was said to have the power of detecting all
robberies on his works. The archæologist, however, is unfortunately
unable to rely upon this form of protection, and many are the schemes
for the prevention of pilfering which are tried.
In some excavations a sum of money is given to the workman for every
antiquity found by him, and these sums are sufficiently high to prevent
any outbidding by the dealers. Work thus becomes very expensive for the
archæologist, who is sometimes called upon to pay £10 or £20 in a day.
The system has also another disadvantage, namely, that the workmen are
apt to bring antiquities from far and near to “discover” in their
diggings in order to obtain a good price for them. Nevertheless, it
would appear to be the most successful of the systems. In the Government
excavations it is usual to employ a number of overseers to watch for the
small finds, while for only the really valuable discoveries is a reward
given.
For finding the famous gold hawk’s head at Hieraconpolis a workman
received £14, and with this princely sum in his pocket he went to a
certain Englishman to ask advice as to the spending of it. He was
troubled, he said, to decide whether to buy a wife or a cow. He admitted
that he had already one wife, and that two of them would be sure to
introduce some friction into what was now a peaceful household; and he
quite realised that a cow would be less apt to quarrel with his first
wife. The Englishman, very properly, voted for the cow, and the peasant
returned home deep in thought. While pondering over the matter during
the next few weeks, he entertained his friends with some freedom, and
soon he found to his dismay that he had not enough money left to buy
either a wife or a cow. Thereupon he set to with a will, and soon spent
the remaining guineas in riotous living. When he was next seen by the
Englishman he was a beggar, and, what was worse, his taste for evil
living had had several weeks of cultivation.
The case of the fortunate finder of a certain great _cache_ of mummies
was different. He received a reward of £400, and this he buried in a
very secret place. When he died his possessions descended to his sons.
After the funeral they sat round the grave of the old man, and very
rightly discussed his virtues until the sun set. Then they returned to
the house and began to dig for the hidden money. For some days they
turned the sand of the floor over; but failing to find what they sought,
they commenced operations on a patch of desert under the shade of some
tamarisks where their father was wont to sit of an afternoon. It is said
that for twelve hours they worked like persons possessed, the men
hacking at the ground, and the boys carrying away the sand in baskets to
a convenient distance. But the money was never found.
It is not often that the finders of antiquities inform the authorities
of their good fortune, but when they do so an attempt is made to give
them a good reward. A letter from the finder of an inscribed statue, who
wished to claim his reward, read as follows: “With all delight I please
inform you that on 8th Jan. was found a headless temple of granite
sitting on a chair and printed on it.”
I will end this chapter as I began it, in the defence of the Theban
thieves. In a place where every yard of ground contains antiquities, and
where those antiquities may be so readily converted into golden guineas,
can one wonder that every man, woman, and child makes use of his
opportunities in this respect to better his fortune? The peasant does
not take any interest in the history of mankind, and he cannot be
expected to know that in digging out a grave and scattering its
contents, through the agency of dealers, over the face of the globe, he
loses for ever the facts which the archæologist is striving so hard to
obtain. The scientific excavator does not think the antiquities
themselves so valuable as the record of the exact arrangement in which
they were found. From such data alone can he obtain his knowledge of the
manners and customs of this wonderful people. When two objects are found
together, the date of one being known and that of the other unknown, the
archæological value of the find lies in the fact that the former will
place the latter in its correct chronological position. But if these two
objects are sold separately, the find may perhaps lose its entire
significance. The trained archæologist records every atom of information
with which he meets; the native records nothing. And hence, if there is
any value at all in the study of the history of mankind, illegal
excavation must be stopped.