EGYPTOLOGISTS
IT would not, perhaps, be out of place to make some special reference to
the men who are doing so much to throw light upon the thoughts and lives
of the old Egyptians; but here is need to tread as warily as may be, for
these are a race apart. Charming companions they are, delightful hosts,
brilliant guests, generous and painstaking to a degree when once you
have presented your card and asked to be shown around. So clever are
they that after a time one learns wisdom, and refrains from advancing
theories in their presence as to how the old Egyptians cut and worked
their diorite, granite, and other hard stones: what lights they used
when making and painting the tombs in the Valley of the Kings: or what
system of mechanics they employed in raising blocks of stone weighing
many tons to the tops of the Pyramids, 480 feet up: if it was an
inclined plane, cradles, or levers, or what it was? These men have seen
many workmen hard put to it to pull a small granite statue weighing
three or four tons up an inclined plane of less than 45 degrees. And yet
what wonderful patience and courtesy most of these experts show to
well-meaning but ignorant questioners, even when they are perhaps
burning to be free to turn back more pages of hidden history.
There is something about them which seems strange to new-comers.
Perhaps, indeed probably, it is the inhalation and absorption of the
desiccated and pulverised remains of the ancient Egyptians which
influences them. Every one knows that the dust from tombs produces
irritation of the air passages, and possibly this also accounts for the
divergence of opinion among them; for never yet have I known two
Egyptologists agree absolutely upon a given subject. I have heard a
story that two savants read an inscription, the one beginning from right
to left, and the other from left to right, and both made sense of it.
[Illustration: PLATE XV. BEADS AND MUMMY CLOTH. 1. Forged Roman beads.
2. Egyptian blue beads. 3. Genuine mummy cloth recently painted. 4.
Sacred cats, with genuine mummy beads.]
I was somewhat surprised recently by the remarks of a learned friend to
me.
“You are getting more and more like an Egyptian. I notice the change
every time I see you,” he said. It may be so, although the idea is
startling. We know that Continents produce types, of which fact a good
example is America. Then add to this the daily dose of ancient Egyptian
remains, and the mystery is one no longer, but the effect becomes
possible if not probable. Among the savants some of the old
characteristics reappear to-day. Listen to the speech of Amenemhat to
his son, Sesostris, during the twelfth dynasty.
“Hearken to that which I say to thee,
That thou mayest be King of the earth,
That thou mayest be ruler of the lands,
That thou mayest increase good.
Harden thyself against all subordinates;
The people give heed to him who terrorises them;
Approach them not alone.
Fill not thy heart with a brother;
Know not a friend,
Nor make for thyself intimates,
Wherein there is no end.
When thou sleepest, guard for thyself thine own heart,
For a man has no people
In the day of evil.
I gave to the beggar;
I nourished the orphan;
I admitted the insignificant,
As well as him who was of great account.
But he who ate my food made insurrection;
He to whom I gave my hand aroused fear therein.” (_Breasted._)
The spirit of these sayings creeps into the work, and excavators may be
trusted to keep their own counsel. They will take immense trouble and
pains in their explanations, and endeavour to render into popular
language the hieroglyphics, and the meanings of the dead past; but let
the ignorant only intrude upon a piece of their sacred earth, and “ice
is not in it with them.” Once, while going through some excavations, a
friend pointed out a small blue bead lying on the top of one of the low
mud walls which separate tomb from tomb. “Shall I steal it?” he asked.
Knowing the ways of excavators, I whispered a warning, “Better not.” A
few steps further on the excavator turned round and explained pointedly,
“Every article found in the diggings is taken note of; even a small
bead” (here he paused, and we felt uncomfortable) “is placed on the top
of the wall near where it was found, and is catalogued in its turn.”
After this little admonition upon righteousness, we walked thoughtfully
along, and my friend edged up to me. “Good job I did not steal it,” he
whispered. “I am perfectly certain he” (indicating the excavator) “did
not hear what I said to you, unless he has ears as well as eyes in the
back of his head.”
Excavators are, as a rule, extremely good judges of humanity. They know
that an ancient predatory instinct is present in most people of the
Anglo-Saxon race, and who knows how many short lectures on honesty that
one small blue bead gave rise to. But even excavators, or perhaps it is
more correct to say some of them, have their failings. They are apt to
look down from an immense height upon an amateur digger as something too
ignorant for words; and a pained look comes over their faces when you
mention the work done by So-and-so, and the conclusions to which he has
come. “What is the country coming to?” their expression seems to say.
But the excavators have their trials too. Sometimes a digger has been
working for weeks at some deep burial pit. Suppose now that “something”
has been found. Perhaps a door is about to be opened. At the critical
moment, some tourists appear on the scene. The unearthing or opening
must stop, for who knows what may be found, and the greatest care must
be taken to get full notes and photographic records, that nothing may be
lost. The afternoon passes, and night begins to come on. It is too late
now to open the find, it must wait, strongly guarded from thieves, till
to-morrow; and the excavator passes an uneasy night, pondering and
wondering what he will find, and saying evil things about those who
hindered him in his work.
I have been in the habit of showing my forged antiquities to
Egyptologists, not bumptiously, but humbly, and with a due knowledge of
my own colossal ignorance. The specimen would be passed across the table
in silence, accompanied by a magnifying glass. The expert would frown
heavily, but the specimen and the glass would, in the end, prove
irresistible. As I produced scarabs made more perfect, a certain
uneasiness would be shown, and the question asked me, “Is this genuine
or not?” To this I would never reply otherwise than to say, “I should be
glad to have your opinion on the matter.” A very careful examination of
the specimen would follow, and the reasons for considering it to be a
forgery would be explained in terse plain language.
There is a certain disadvantage in collecting spurious antiquities and
getting expressions of opinion upon them; for after a time your
association with these forgeries causes an inclination in the expert to
condemn off-hand any specimen you may submit to him. To meet this
occasionally I would hand over a genuine scarab, which would be
detected, and inquiry made as to “what I was up to now, or whether I had
really bought this as a fraudulent antiquity?” Occasionally remarks
would be pointed, and expressed in the bluff way which “hides a heart of
gold.” This I always accepted humbly, conscious of my own inferiority.
These experts were goodness itself, and would spend hours over a close
examination of a specimen submitted to them. On one occasion, when
showing the figure seen on page 54, the excavator demanded “where on
earth” I had obtained it? Filled with the spirit of mischief, I refused
to answer, but dropped vague hints about black granite statues, life
size; at which he turned round, saying crossly, “Really, I believe you
are in league with every disreputable person in the country.” Modestly I
disclaimed this, and pointed out that I was actuated simply and solely
by a zeal for science. I asked him if he would be kind enough to read
the inscription upon the tablet before him. This he was unable to do
himself, but he made a copy which he took away for a friend to read. Day
after day went past, and the translation did not arrive. After about a
week or ten days, I reminded him, but for some reason or other, the
translation was not forthcoming. Weeks after, I learnt that my friend
had been afraid to hand the inscription to the man whom he knew could
read it, lest it should be a further trick on my part, and should
contain nothing more than a message of thanks from a grateful patient.
On another occasion I made an experiment as to whether my association
with modern forged antiquities would be sufficient to bias an expert in
expressing his opinion as to the genuineness of articles of known
antiquity submitted to him.
I obtained four specimens (_see_ Plate XVI), of undoubted antiquity,
although even these are examples made in or for Nubia about 3500 years
ago of Egyptian Funerary objects of New Empire period (reign of Thothmes
III).
The largest scarab is of very poor workmanship. The head, which took the
unusual form of a sphinx, was badly made and proportioned, and was
turned slightly to one side. The workmanship of the smaller scarab was
also poor. The sacred eye was well made, of a beautiful blue, and looked
as if it had only just left the workshop. The monkey was one of the most
startling things I have ever seen found in an excavation in Egypt. The
glaze was modern and the whole thing looked as if it had recently come
out of a cheap bazaar. But there can be no question about the
authenticity of these things, for they were found and taken out of the
graves by the archæologists of the Nubian Survey.
[Illustration: PLATE XVI. EXAMPLES FOUND IN NUBIA. 1. & 6. A steatite
monkey made 3,500 years ago. 2. Cheap ornament made five years ago. 3.
Sacred eye of beautiful colour. 4. & 5. Scarabs.]
On the mantelpiece of a house in Egypt stood a cheap ornament. This
appears in No. 2, side by side with the monkey found in Nubia. The
ancient specimen is much the better work, but the likeness between the
two is so strong as to be absolutely bewildering.
[When the ancient monkey vase was first found it was shown to an eminent
Egyptologist, not in the ordinary way as a valuable antiquity, but a few
matches were placed in it (_see_ No. 6), and it was put quietly upon the
table in front of him in the evening when the party were smoking.
However, he was not to be taken in, but at once recognised it as a
valuable antīca.]
Entering casually into conversation with my friend, I led up to the
subject of antiquities. He was expressing his views freely, and I waited
patiently. During a pause I slipped my hand into my pocket, brought out
one of the specimens and pushed it across the table towards him. A
scornful smile came over his face. “One of your forgeries, I suppose,”
he remarked. I said, “I should like to have your opinion on the object.”
He examined it carefully, and then laid it down. I passed another across
to him, and then the remaining two. One by one he discarded them, giving
it as his opinion that the large scarab was a forgery for the following
very sound reasons, bearing in mind the excellence of the old Egyptians’
work. The inscription, he said, was not very well done: the two holes on
the side were not usual in heart scarabs: the head was badly made and
turned to one side; the work on the feet was clumsy. The small scarab he
classed as imitation for the following reasons. The two antelopes are
supposed to be alike, but one is larger than the other, and has a larger
neck and ears. The branches of a tree over the back of the antelopes
were irregular in size, one being small and one large. A round eye
appears on the under surface of the scarab, which should have had a
duplicate on the opposite side. The back and head, he decided, were very
good.
The monkey, which was shown to him with a few matches placed in the
receptacle before it, was declared to be a shameless fraud, and he
wondered that I should take up my time in collecting such obvious
imitations. When he was shown the photograph which had been taken of a
common vase from the mantelpiece of a house, and compared it with the
specimen he was examining, he sarcastically inquired if I bought all my
antiquities in a cheap Jack’s booth at home. Meekly I produced the
sacred eye, which he would scarcely deign to look at, contemptuously
pushing it aside on account of a small white mark in the blue. “Have you
got any more?” he inquired. Modestly I said that I had not, when, with
some muttered remarks about the strangeness of the pursuits taken up by
people with more time on their hands than sense, he strode away.
There had gathered round us a little silent group of listeners who
seemed rather to sympathise with me, although, of course, thinking that
I had brought all this upon myself.
Presently one of these bystanders said: “Does not a monkey appear in
Plate 72, Vol. I., of the ‘Archæological Survey of Nubia?’” There was a
dead silence, and many inquiring eyes were turned upon me. I said, “That
is so.” Then another man said, “It is described as a steatite monkey
holding a kohl pot, for I remember reading it with great interest. And
the sacred eye is shown in Plate 79, Vol. I.” Now the interest became
intense, and smiles began to appear on the faces of the bystanders. It
was all true. The small scarab is shown in the second volume, and the
large scarab is illustrated in the second report of the “Archæological
Survey of Nubia.”
It was, perhaps, an unkind experiment to make, but yet it was necessary
to know whether one’s association with admitted forgeries were
sufficient to bias the mind of a clever man in giving his opinion on
specimens submitted to him.
Ten years ago, when discussing with an eminent excavator the excellence
of the fourth dynasty work, I said: “Here we have the climax, so to
speak, of Egyptian culture—the period of the Great Pyramid of Cheops,
which is so marvellous for the mathematical exactitude with which it is
built. But where are the evidences of the evolution which preceded this
period, the time when they were trying their dawning ideas? No architect
would have dared offer to build Cheops a pyramid, the base of which
should be thirteen acres in extent and 480 feet in height, were he not
absolutely certain of his ability to overcome those mathematical and
mechanical difficulties which would be met with in lifting heavy blocks
of stone 480 feet. And then the sides face due North and South, East and
West. Where is the period of evolution which preceded this excellence?”
The excavator’s reply was startling. “I do not believe that there was
one,” he said. “The demand was made and met: the same would be the case
to-day if a similar need arose.”
Perhaps this explains why Egyptians, without preliminary tuition in
sculpture or painting, are copying the old work in such a way that only
the most experienced are able to tell the real from the false.
Most excavators, however, have a sense of intuition which tells them if
a thing is false or not. Not that they depend in any way upon this, for
they weigh up the evidence in a strictly scientific manner, and give
their decision backed up by reasons which are difficult to dispute.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
REFERENCES
MASPERO, “New Light on Ancient Egypt.”
BREASTED, “History of Egypt.”
WILKINSON, “Ancient Egypt.”
WEIGALL, “Treasury of Egypt.”
BRODRICK and MORTON, “A Concise Dictionary of Egyptian Archæology.”
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INDEX
Alabaster, attempt to reproduce the features of Mykerinos in, 98
forgeries made on a lathe, 95
head in, 96
irregularities in old pots, 96
jars, 95
pots, 96
Amulets, 78
Ancient pigments, 92
Answerers, 35
Antiquities, laws regarding, 6
licence necessary for excavating and selling, 7
forged, makers and sellers of, 125
Beads made of glass, 116
Roman, 116
Bes, 41
Blue, old Egyptian, 61
Blue bowl, 27
Bone figures, 53
Bronze statue from Khargeh, 65
Canopic jar, 102
Chinese bottles, 106
Co-operation of sellers, 68
Cuneiform tablets, 123
Earthenware blue bowl, 27
Egyptologists, 135
Fourth Dynasty work, excellence of, 148
Frauds on buyers seldom made public, 9
Funerary chamber, model of, 37
figures, 35, 41, 42
Glazing, methods of, 103
Goddess Taurt, 101, 112
Gold bracelets, 20, 23
bottles, detection of fraudulent, 24
necklace from Algiers, 22
of genuine carnelian beads and spurious bottles, 22
ornaments, 11
price paid for, 12
relics, fraud discovered by date on coins, 17
ring, spurious, 23
scarab, 21
worker in, 25
Granite bowls, fraudulent, 108
price paid for, 108
way of making, 110
Hawk’s head, 102
Horus hawk, 40
sons of, 53, 105
Ibis, model of, 106
Imitations, excellence of, 10
Iridescent glass, 32
Jewish collector and the Arab, story of, 55
Lapis Lazuli imitations, 27, 29, 31, 32
Figure, Plate X, No. 4
Laws regarding antiquities, 6
Licence necessary to excavate antiquities, 7
Makers and sellers of forged antiquities, 125
Mummy and mummy cases, 114
Mummy, story of “predynastic,” 117
cloth, 115
figures, 41
Nubia, examples of Egyptian objects found in, 143
Nubian figure, 42
Opinion as to genuineness of scarabs not given by Cairo Museum
Authorities, 67
method of obtaining expert, 4
Pigments, ancient, 92
Porcelain, 99
bottle, 100
bowl, 101
examples of blue, 101, 102
figures known as forgeries, 102
jug, with a piece of mummy cloth in the mouth, 105
lotus cup and bowl, 104
paper-weights, 54
price of forgeries, 103
sacred eyes, 106
winged scarab, 104
Prussian blue, use of, 41
Reeds used as brushes, 44
Scagliola, use of, introduced, 51
Scarab, the Abou Roash, 81
bearing story of Khaf-ra, 73
the story of the circumnavigation of Africa, 70
Weigall’s story of a, 82
winged, and the four Genii, 94
Scarabs, 69, 84
exported to the Soudan, 83
made in Europe, 80
maker of spurious, 76
recutting, 76
remoulding, 75
Sculpture, ancient, produced in conformity with a canon, 48
Seals, 91
Serpentine, jar made in, 108
statue in, 48
Slate, crocodile in, 54
Speech of Amenemhat, 137
Statues of Isis and Horus, 62, 65
Steatite bottle, 47
Stone figures, 45
price of, 50
forgeries, maker of, 51
heads, 46
imitation of, 47-49
kneeling figure and tablet, 54, 55
statue, bronze, from Khargeh, 65
Tale of Jewish collector and an Arab, 55
of spurious gold articles found in the Delta, 12
of two Arabs, 57
of the “predynastic mummy,” 117
of the Scarab of Khaf-ra, 73
Taurt, Goddess, 101, 112
Tomb, a forged, 119
“Triple divorce.” _Talak-bi-Talata_, 14, 19
Ushebti figures, 35, 47
composition of, 47, 49
Woman, figure of a, 48
Wood, figures in, 35
forgeries in, ways of detecting, 36-40
makers of, 43
Wooden figure of Anubis, 37
jars, 100
model of dove, 44
model of plough, 42
mummy figures, 4
paint boxes, 43
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● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
End of Project Gutenberg's Forged Egyptian Antiquities, by T. G. Wakeling