Book: The Treasury of Ancient Egypt

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




The party which made the entrance consisted of Mr Davis; his assistant,
Mr Ayrton; Mr Harold Jones; Mr Max Dalison, formerly of the Egypt
Exploration Fund; and myself. Wriggling and crawling, we pushed and
pulled ourselves down the sloping rubbish, until, with a rattling
avalanche of small stones, we arrived at the bottom of the passage,
where we scrambled to our feet at the brink of a large rectangular well,
or shaft. Holding the lamps aloft, the surrounding walls were seen to be
covered with wonderfully preserved paintings executed on slightly
raised plaster. Here Horemheb was seen standing before Isis, Osiris,
Horus, and other gods; and his cartouches stood out boldly from amidst
the elaborate inscriptions. The colours were extremely rich, and, though
there was so much to be seen ahead, we stood there for some minutes,
looking at them with a feeling much akin to awe.

The shaft was partly filled with rubbish, and not being very deep, we
were able to climb down it by means of a ladder, and up the other side
to an entrance which formed a kind of window in the sheer wall. In
entering a large tomb for the first time, there are one or two scenes
which fix themselves upon the memory more forcefully than others, and
one feels as though one might carry these impressions intact to the
grave. In this tomb there was nothing so impressive as this view across
the well and through the entrance in the opposite wall. At one's feet
lay the dark pit; around one the gaudy paintings gleamed; and through
the window-like aperture before one, a dim suggestion could be obtained
of a white-pillared hall. The intense eagerness to know what was beyond,
and, at the same time, the feeling that it was almost desecration to
climb into those halls which had stood silent for thousands of years,
cast a spell over the scene and made it unforgetable.

This aperture had once been blocked up with stones, and the paintings
had passed across it, thus hiding it from view, so that a robber
entering the tomb might think that it ended here. But the trick was an
old one, and the plunderers had easily detected the entrance, had pulled
away the blocks, and had climbed through. Following in their footsteps,
we went up the ladder and passed through the entrance into the pillared
hall. Parts of the roof had fallen in, and other parts appeared to be
likely to do so at any moment. Clambering over the _debris_ we descended
another sloping corridor, which was entered through a cutting in the
floor of the hall, originally blocked up and hidden. This brought us
into a chamber covered with paintings, like those around the well; and
again we were brought to a standstill by the amazingly fresh colours
which arrested and held the attention.

We then passed on into the large burial-hall, the roof of which was
supported by crumbling pillars. Slabs of limestone had broken off here
and there and had crashed down on to the floor, bringing with them
portions of the ceiling painted with a design of yellow stars on a black
ground. On the walls were unfinished paintings, and it was interesting
to notice that the north, south, east, and west were clearly marked upon
the four walls for ceremonial purposes.

The main feature towards which our eyes were turned was the great
pink-granite sarcophagus which stood in the middle of the hall. Its
sides were covered with well-cut inscriptions of a religious nature; and
at the four corners there were figures of Isis and Nephthys, in relief,
with their wings spread out as though in protection around the body.
Looking into the sarcophagus, the lid having been thrown off by the
plunderers, we found it empty except for a skull and a few bones of more
than one person. The sarcophagus stood upon the limestone floor, and
under it small holes had been cut, in each of which a little wooden
statue of a god had been placed. Thus the king's body was, so to speak,
carried on the heads of the gods, and held aloft by their arms. This is
a unique arrangement, and has never before been found in any burial.

In all directions broken figures of the gods were lying, and two defaced
wooden statues of the king were overthrown beside the sarcophagus.
Beautiful pieces of furniture, such as were found by Mr Davis in the
tomb of Yuaa and Thuau, were not to be expected in the sepulchre of a
Pharaoh; for whereas those two persons were only mortals and required
mortal comforts in the Underworld, the king was a god and needed only
the comfort of the presence of other gods. Dead flowers were found here
and there amidst the _debris_, these being the remnant of the masses of
garlands which were always heaped around and over the coffin.

Peering into a little chamber on the right, we saw two skulls and some
broken bones lying in the corner. These appeared to be female, and one
of the skulls may have been that of Mutnezem, the queen. In another
small chamber on the left there was a fine painting of Osiris on the
back wall; and, crouching at the foot of this, a statuette of a god with
upraised hands had been placed. As we turned the corner and came upon it
in the full glare of the lamps, one felt that the arms were raised in
horror at sight of us, and that the god was gasping with surprise and
indignation at our arrival. In the floor of another ante-chamber a
square hole was cut, leading down to a small room. A block of stone had
neatly fitted over the opening, thus hiding it from view; but the
robbers had detected the crack, and had found the hiding-place. Here
there were a skull and a few bones, again of more than one person.
Altogether there must have been four bodies buried in the tomb; and it
seems that the inspectors, finding them strewn in all directions, had
replaced one skull in the sarcophagus, two in the side room, and one in
this hiding-place, dividing up the bones between these three places as
they thought fit. It may be that the king himself was buried in the
underground chamber, and that the sarcophagus was a sort of blind; for
he had seen the destruction caused by robbers in the tomb of Thutmosis
IV., which he had restored, and he may have made this attempt to secure
the safety of his own body. Whether this be so or not, however, Fate has
not permitted the body of the great king to escape the hands of the
destroyer, and it will now never be known with certainty whether one of
these four heads wore the crown of the Pharaohs.

The temperature was very great in the tomb, and the perspiration
streamed down our faces as we stood contemplating the devastation. Now
the electric lamps would flash upon the gods supporting the ransacked
sarcophagus, lighting for a moment their grotesque forms; now the
attention would concentrate upon some wooden figure of a
hippopotamus-god or cow-headed deity; and now the light would bring into
prominence the great overthrown statue of the king. There is something
peculiarly sensational in the examining of a tomb which has not been
entered for such thousands of years, but it must be left to the
imaginative reader to infuse a touch of that feeling of the dramatic
into these words. It would be hopeless to attempt to put into writing
those impressions which go to make the entering of a great Egyptian
sepulchre so thrilling an experience: one cannot describe the silence,
the echoing steps, the dark shadows, the hot, breathless air; nor tell
of the sense of vast Time the penetrating of it which stirs one so
deeply.

The air was too bad to permit of our remaining long so deep in the
bowels of the earth; and we presently made our way through halls and
corridors back to the upper world, scrambling and crashing over the
_debris_, and squeezing ourselves through the rabbit-hole by which we
had entered. As we passed out of this hot, dark tomb into the brilliant
sunlight and the bracing north wind, the gloomy wreck of the place was
brought before the imagination with renewed force. The scattered bones,
the broken statues, the dead flowers, grouped themselves in the mind
into a picture of utter decay. In some of the tombs which have been
opened the freshness of the objects has caused one to exclaim at the
inaction of the years; but here, where vivid and well-preserved
wall-paintings looked down on a jumbled collection of smashed fragments
of wood and bones, one felt how hardly the Powers deal with the dead.
How far away seemed the great fight between Amon and Aton; how futile
the task which Horemheb accomplished so gloriously! It was all over and
forgotten, and one asked oneself what it mattered whether the way was
difficult or the battle slow to win. In the fourth year of the reign of
Horemheb a certain harper named Neferhotep partly composed a song which
was peculiarly appropriate to the tune which ran in one's head at the
opening of the tomb of this Pharaoh whom the harper served--

"(1.) Behold the dwellings of the dead. Their walls fall
down; their place is no more: they are as though they had
never existed. (2.) That which hath come into being must
pass away again. The young men and maidens go to their
places; the sun riseth at dawn, and setteth again in the
hills of the west. Men beget and women conceive. The
children, too, go to the places which are appointed for
them. O, then, be happy! Come, scents and perfumes are
set before thee: _mahu_-flowers and lilies for the arms
and neck of thy beloved. Come, songs and music are before
thee. Set behind thee all cares; think only upon
gladness, until that day cometh whereon thou shalt go
down to the land which loveth silence."

Horemheb must often have heard this song sung in his palace at Thebes by
its composer; but did he think, one wonders, that it would be the walls
of his own tomb which would fall down, and his own bones which would be
almost as though they had never existed?




PART IV.

THE PRESERVATION OF THE TREASURY.


"Laugh and mock if you will at the worship of stone
idols, but mark ye this, ye breakers of images, that in
one regard the stone idol bears awful semblance of
Deity--the unchangefulness in the midst of change--the
same seeming will, and intent for ever and ever
inexorable!... And we, we shall die, and Islam will
wither away, and the Englishman straining far over to
hold his loved India, will plant a firm foot on the banks
of the Nile and sit in the seats of the Faithful, and
still that sleepless rock will lie watching and watching
the works of the new busy race, with those same sad
earnest eyes, and the same tranquil mien everlastingly."
--KINGLAKE: _Eothen_ (1844).




CHAPTER X.

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 is 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 the 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 the 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 "archaeological 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.


[Illustration: PL. XXIII. A modern Theban Fellah-woman and her child.]

[_Photo by E. Bird._


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
recently 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 lately published a
collection of mediaeval 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 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 trap-door; 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. Sir Gaston Maspero, the
Director-General of the Department of Antiquities, tells 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 mediaeval
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 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 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 archaeologists,
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 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 Amenhotep II. at Thebes, the mummy being
laid in its original sarcophagus; and a model boat, used in one of the
funeral ceremonies, was 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; the tomb in question was seen to have been entered, the
iron doors having been forced. The mummy of the Pharaoh was found lying
upon 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 Sakkarah. 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. Last 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 a career whose continuance had been, since birth, a
matter of great importance to myself. 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 is that the treasure-trove thus discovered
belongs to the owner of the property; and thus there is always a certain
amount of excavation going on behind the walls of the houses. It is also
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. This work is
supervised by watchmen, but this does not prevent the stealing of almost
all the antiquities which are found. As illegal excavators these
_sebakhin_, 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 _debris_, 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 passage, the loose stones sliding beneath our feet. The
air was very foul; and below us there was the 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 appeared to peel off the 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 the 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 does 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 archaeologists work for the purpose
of making money. Speaking of Professor Flinders Petrie, a peasant said
to me the other day: "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.

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