Book: The Treasury of Ancient Egypt

A >> Arthur E. P. B. Weigall >> The Treasury of Ancient Egypt




"Fear not, little one," he said in his gentle voice; "fear not. Let not
thy face be dismayed. If thou hast come to me it is God who has let thee
live, who has brought thee to this phantom isle in which there is naught
that is lacking, but it is full of all good things. Behold, thou shalt
pass month for month until thou accomplish four months upon this island.
And a ship shall come from home, and sailors in it whom thou knowest,
and thou shalt go home with them, and shalt die in thine own city."

"How glad is he," exclaimed the old mariner as he related his adventures
to the prince, "how glad is he that recounts what he has experienced
when the calamity is passed!" The prince, no doubt, replied with a
melancholy grunt, and the thread of the story was once more taken up.

There was a particular reason why the serpent should be touched and
interested to hear how Providence had saved the Egyptian from death, for
he himself had survived a great calamity, and had been saved from an
equally terrible fate, as he now proceeded to relate.

"I will tell to thee the like thereof," he said, "which happened in this
island. I dwelt herein with my brothers, and my children were among
them. Seventy-two serpents we were, all told, with my offspring and my
brothers; nor have I yet mentioned to thee a little girl brought to me
by fortune. A star came down, and all these went up in the flames. And
it happened so that I was not together with them when they were
consumed; I was not in their midst. I could have died (of grief) for
them when I found them as a single pile of corpses."

It is clear from the story that this great serpent was intended to be
pictured as a sad and lonely, but most lovable, character. All alone
upon this ghostly isle, the last of his race, one is to imagine him
dreaming of the little girl who was taken from him, together with all
his family. Although fabulous himself, and half divine, he was yet the
victim of the gods, and was made to suffer real sorrows in his unreal
existence. Day by day he wandered over his limited domain, twisting his
golden body amidst the pumpkins, and rearing himself above the
fig-trees; thundering down to the beach to salute the passing dolphins,
or sunning himself, a golden blaze, upon the rocks. There remained
naught for him to do but to await the cessation of the phantasy of his
life; and yet, though his lot was hard, he was ready at once to
subordinate his sorrows to those of the shipwrecked sailor before him.
No more is said of his distress, but with his next words he seems to
have dismissed his own misfortunes, and to have attempted to comfort the
Egyptian.

"If thou art brave," he said, "and restrainest thy longing, thou shalt
press thy children to thy bosom and kiss thy wife, and behold thy
house--that is the best of all things. Thou shalt reach home, and shalt
dwell there amongst thy brothers."

"Thereat," said the mariner, "I cast me upon my stomach and touched the
ground before him, and I said to him: 'I will tell of thy might to the
Sovereign, I will cause him to be acquainted with thy greatness. I will
let bring to thee perfume and spices, myrrh and sweet-scented woods, and
incense of the sanctuaries wherewithal every god is propitiated. I will
recount all that has befallen me, and that which I have seen by his
might; and they shall praise thee in that city before the magistrates of
the entire land. I will slaughter to thee oxen as a burnt-offering,
geese will I pluck for thee, and I will let bring to thee vessels laden
with all the goodly things of Egypt, as may be (fitly) done to a god who
loves men in a distant land, a land unknown to men.'"

At these words the serpent opened his golden mouth and fell to laughing.
The thought that this little mortal, grovelling before him, could
believe himself able to repay the kindnesses received tickled him
immensely.

"Hast thou not much incense (here, then)?" he laughed. "Art not become a
lord of frankincense? And I, behold I am prince of Pount," the land of
perfumes, "and the incense, _that_ is my very own. As for the spices
which thou sayest shall be brought, they are the wealth of this island.
But it shall happen when thou hast left this place, never shalt thou see
this island more, for it shall be changed to waves."

The teller of the story does not relate in what manner he received this
well-merited reproof. The gentle monster, no doubt, was tolerant of his
presumptuousness, and soon put him at his ease again. During the whole
period of the Egyptian's residence on the island, in fact, the golden
serpent seems to have been invariably kind to him. The days passed by
like a happy dream, and the spell of the island's enchantment possessed
him so that, in after times, the details of the events of every day were
lost in the single illusion of the whole adventure.

At last the ship arrived, as it had been foretold, and the sailor
watched her passing over the hazy sea towards the mysterious shore. "I
went and got me up into a tall tree," he said, "and I recognised those
that were in it. And I went to report the matter (to the serpent), and I
found that he knew it."

Very tenderly the great monster addressed him. "Fare thee well, little
one," he said "Fare thee well to thy house. Mayest thou see thy children
and raise up a good name in thy city. Behold, such are my wishes for
thee."

"Then," continued the sailor, "I laid me on my stomach, my arms were
bended before him. And he gave me a freight of frankincense, perfume and
myrrh, sweet-scented woods and antimony, giraffes' tails, great heaps
of incense, elephant tusks, dogs, apes and baboons, and all manner of
valuable things. And I loaded them in that ship, and I laid myself on my
stomach to make thanksgiving to him. Then he said to me: 'Behold, thou
shalt come home in two months, and shalt press thy children to thy
bosom, and shalt flourish in their midst; and there thou shalt be
buried.'"


[Illustration: PL. XV. A Nile boat passing the hills of Thebes.]

[_Photo by E. Bird._]


To appreciate the significance of these last words it is necessary to
remember what an important matter it was to an Egyptian that he should
be buried in his native city. In our own case the position upon the map
of the place where we lay down our discarded bones is generally not of
first-rate importance, and the thought of being buried in foreign lands
does not frighten us. Whether our body is to be packed away in the
necropolis of our city, or shovelled into a hole on the outskirts of
Timbuctoo, is not a matter of vital interest. There is a certain
sentiment that leads us to desire interment amidst familiar scenes, but
it is subordinated with ease to other considerations. To the Egyptian,
however, it was a matter of paramount importance. "What is a greater
thing," says Sinuhe in the tale of his adventures in Asia, "than that I
should be buried in the land in which I was born?" "Thou shalt not die
in a foreign land; Asiatics shall not conduct thee to the tomb," says
the Pharaoh to him; and again, "It is no little thing that thou shalt
be buried without Asiatics conducting thee."[1] There is a stela now
preserved in Stuttgart, in which the deceased man asks those who pass
his tomb to say a prayer for his soul; and he adjures them in these
words: "So truly as ye wish that your native gods should praise you, and
that ye should be established in your seats, and that ye should hand
down your offices to your children: that ye should reach your homes in
safety, and recount your travels to your wives;--then say a prayer,"
&c.[2]

[Footnote 1: Sinuhe, B. 159, 197, 258.]

[Footnote 2: Zeit. Aeg. Spr., 39 (1901), p. 118.]

The serpent was thus giving the castaway a promise which meant more to
him than all the other blessings, and it was with a light heart indeed
that he ran down to the beach to greet his countrymen. "I went down to
the shore where the ship was," he continued, "and I called to the
soldiers which were in that ship, and I gave praises upon the shore to
the lord of this island, and likewise did they which were in the ship."

Then he stepped on board, the gangway was drawn up, and, with a great
sweep of the oars, the ship passed out on to the open sea. Standing on
deck amongst the new cargo, the officers and their rescued friend bowed
low to the great serpent who towered above the trees at the water's
edge, gleaming in the sunshine. "Fare thee well, little one," his deep
voice rolled across the water; and again they bowed in obeisance to him.
The main-sail was unfurled to the wind, and the vessel scudded bravely
across the Great Green Sea; but for some time yet they must have kept
their eyes upon the fair shape of the phantom island, as the trees
blended into the hills and the hills at last into the haze; and their
vision must have been focussed upon that one gleaming point where the
golden serpent, alone once more with his memories, watched the ship
moving over the fairy seas.

"So sailed we northwards," said the sailor, "to the place of the
Sovereign, and we reached home in two months, in accordance with all
that he had said. And I entered in before the Sovereign, and I brought
to him this tribute which I had taken away from within this island. Then
gave he thanksgivings for me before the magistrates of the entire land.
And I was made a 'Follower,' and was rewarded with the serfs of such an
one."

The old sailor turned to the gloomy prince as he brought his story to an
end. "Look at me," he exclaimed, "now that I have reached land, now that
I have seen (again in memory) what I have experienced. Hearken thou to
me, for behold, to hearken is good for men."

But the prince only sighed the more deeply, and, with a despairing
gesture, replied: "Be not (so) superior, my friend! Doth one give water
to a bird on the eve, when it is to be slain on the morrow?" With these
words the manuscript abruptly ends, and we are supposed to leave the
prince still disconsolate in his cabin, while his friend, unable to
cheer him, returns to his duties on deck.




PART III.

RESEARCHES IN THE TREASURY.


"...And he, shall be,

Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair,
Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,

Who loved, who suffered countless ills,
Who battled for the True, the Just,
Be blown about the desert dust,
Or seal'd within the iron hills?"

--TENNYSON.




CHAPTER VII.

RECENT 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 as 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 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 the digger is not often a pleasant one.


[Illustration: PL. XVI. The excavations on the site of the city
of Abydos.]

[_Photo by the Author._


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 archaeologists 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 masons' 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 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 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.

*Transcriber's note: Original text read "exhanging".

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 happened 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 on to 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
appearances, 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. Two years
ago I assisted at an excavation upon a site of my own selection, the net
result of which, after six weeks' work, was one mummified cat! To sit
over the work day after day, as did the unfortunate promoter of this
particular enterprise, 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 have been conducted for some
years by Mr Theodore M. Davis, of Newport, Rhode Island, by special
arrangement with the Department of Antiquities of the Egyptian
Government; and as an official of that Department I have had the
privilege of being present at all the recent discoveries. The finding of
the tomb of Yuaa and Tuau a few years ago was one of the most
interesting archaeological events of recent times, 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 open 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,[1] who had
obviously come on the expectation that trouble was ahead; but though in
this they were certainly 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.

[Footnote 1: Mr and Mrs Joseph Lindon Smith.]


[Illustration: PL. XVII. Excavating the Osireion at Abydos. A chain of
boys handing up baskets of sand to the
surface.]

[_Photo by the Author._


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
room once more. That was perhaps the first sensation as we stood, really
dumfounded, 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 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.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.