Book: The Treasury of Ancient Egypt

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




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 L50 for
the protection of certain beautiful tombs. When they were shown the
works undertaken with their money, they expressed themselves 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.


[Illustration: PL. XXIV. A modern Gournawi beggar.]

[_Photo by E. Bird._


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 the 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 cannot say that it is pernicious as long as it is confined
to minor objects. How many objects of value to science would be
destroyed by their finders if there was no market to take them to! One
of the Theban dealers leads so holy a life that he will assuredly be
regarded as a saint by future generations.

The sale of small antiquities to tourists on the public roads is
prohibited, except at certain places, but of course it can 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, he 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 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.

The attempt to regain a lost antiquity is seldom 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 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 Dircoter of the tembels. I
have honner 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 he not attintive to His, but alway he 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 _cafe_ which
adjoins the temple.

A short time ago 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 invented the
accusation which he had brought to me. This 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 archaeologists, "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 and truthful little fellow."

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 is now 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 resposible.'"

I have no idea what "using the sate to strengthen" means.

It is sometimes said that 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 seen smashed to atoms in order to make more rare
the specimens preserved. The peasant has no regard 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 turn himself
into a cat at night-time, not only for the purpose of stealing his
brother Muhammed 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 power of detecting all
robberies on his works. The archaeologist, 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
archaeologist, who is sometimes called upon to pay L10 or L20 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 seem 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 L14, 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 L400, 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 these 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 archaeologist 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
archaeological 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 archaeologist 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.




CHAPTER XI.

THE FLOODING OF LOWER NUBIA.


The country of Lower Nubia lies between the First and Second Cataracts
of the Nile. The town of Aswan, once famous as the frontier outpost of
Egypt and now renowned as a winter resort for Europeans and Americans,
stands some two or three miles below the First Cataract; and two hundred
miles southwards, at the foot of the Second Cataract, stands Wady Halfa.
About half-way between these two points the little town of Derr nestles
amidst its palms; and here the single police-station of the province is
situated. Agriculturally the land is extremely barren, for the merest
strip of cultivation borders the river, and in many reaches the desert
comes down to the water's edge. The scenery is rugged and often
magnificent. As one sails up the Nile the rocky hills on either side
group themselves into bold compositions, rising darkly above the palms
and acacias reflected in the water. The villages, clustered on the
hillsides as though grown like mushrooms in the night, are not
different in colour to the ground upon which they are built; but here
and there neatly whitewashed houses of considerable size are to be
observed. Now we come upon a tract of desert sand which rolls down to
the river in a golden slope; now the hills recede, leaving an open bay
wherein there are patches of cultivated ground reclaimed from the
wilderness; and now a dense but narrow palm-grove follows the line of
the bank for a mile or more, backed by the villages at the foot of the
hills.

The inhabitants are few in number. Most of the males have taken service
as cooks, butlers, waiters, and bottle-washers in European houses or
hotels throughout Egypt; and consequently one sees more women than men
pottering about the villages or working in the fields. They are a fine
race, clean in their habits and cheery in character. They can be
distinguished with ease from the Egyptian _fellahin_; for their skin has
more the appearance of bronze, and their features are often more
aquiline. The women do not wear the veil, and their dresses are draped
over one shoulder in a manner unknown to Egypt. The method of dressing
the hair, moreover, is quite distinctive: the women plait it in
innumerable little strands, those along the forehead terminating in
bead-like lumps of bee's-wax. The little children go nude for the first
six or eight years of their life, though the girls sometimes wear around
their waists a fringe made of thin strips of hide. The men still carry
spears in some parts of the country, and a light battle-axe is not an
uncommon weapon.

There is no railway between Aswan and Halfa, all traffic being conducted
on the river. Almost continuously a stream of native troops and English
officers passes up and down the Nile bound for Khartoum or Cairo; and in
the winter the tourists on steamers and _dahabiyehs_ travel through the
country in considerable numbers to visit the many temples which were
here erected in the days when the land was richer than it is now. The
three most famous ruins of Lower Nubia are those of Philae, just above
Aswan; Kalabsheh, some forty miles to the south; and Abu Simbel, about
thirty miles below Halfa: but besides these there are many buildings of
importance and interest. The ancient remains date from all periods of
Egyptian history; for Lower Nubia played an important part in Pharaonic
affairs, both by reason of its position as the buffer state between
Egypt and the Sudan, and also because of its gold-mining industries. In
old days it was divided into several tribal states, these being governed
by the Egyptian Viceroy of Ethiopia; but the country seldom revolted or
gave trouble, and to the present day it retains its reputation for
peacefulness and orderly behaviour.

Owing to the building, and now the heightening, of the great Nile dam at
Aswan, erected for the purpose of regulating the flow of water by
holding back in the plenteous autumn and winter the amount necessary to
keep up the level in the dry summer months, the whole of the valley from
the First Cataract to the neighbourhood of Derr will be turned into a
vast reservoir, and a large number of temples and other ruins will be
flooded. Before the dam was finished the temples on the island of Philae
were strengthened and repaired so as to be safe from damage by the
water; and now every other ruin whose foundations are below the future
high-water level has been repaired and safeguarded.

In 1906 and 1907 the present writer was dispatched to the threatened
territory to make a full report on the condition of the monuments
there;[1] and a very large sum of money was then voted for the work. Sir
Gaston Maspero took the matter up in the spirit which is associated with
his name; Monsieur Barsanti was sent to repair and underpin the temples;
French, German, and English scholars were engaged to make copies of the
endangered inscriptions and reliefs; and Dr Reisner, Mr C. Firth, and
others, under the direction of Captain Lyons, were entrusted with the
complete and exhaustive excavation of all the cemeteries and remains
between the dam and the southern extremity of the reservoir. As a result
of this work, not one scrap of information of any kind will be lost by
the flooding of the country.

[Footnote 1: Weigall: 'A Report on the Antiquities of Lower Nubia.'
(Department of Antiquities, Cairo, 1907.)]

As was to be expected, the building and raising of the dam caused
consternation amongst the archaeologically interested visitors to Egypt,
and very considerably troubled the Egyptologists. Philae, one of the
most picturesque ruins on the Nile, was to be destroyed, said the more
hysterical, and numerous other buildings were to meet with the same
fate. A very great deal of nonsense was written as to the vandalism of
the English; and the minds of certain people were so much inflamed by
the controversy that many regrettable words were spoken. The Department
of Antiquities was much criticised for having approved the scheme,
though it was more generally declared that the wishes of that Department
had not been consulted, which was wholly untrue. These strictures are
pronounced on all sides at the present day, in spite of the very
significant silence and imperturbation (not to say supination) of
Egyptologists, and it may therefore be as well to put the matter plainly
before the reader, since the opinion of the person who is in charge of
the ruins in question, has, whether right or wrong, a sort of interest
attached to it.

In dealing with a question of this kind one has to clear from the brain
the fumes of unbalanced thought and to behold all things with a level
head. Strong wine is one of the lesser causes of insobriety, and there
is often more damage done by intemperance of thought in matters of
criticism than there is by actions committed under the influence of
other forms of immoderation. We are agreed that it is a sad spectacle
which is to be observed in the Old Kent Road on a Saturday night, when
the legs of half the pedestrians appear to have lost their cunning. We
say in disgust that these people are intoxicated. What, then, have we to
say regarding those persons whose brains are unbalanced by immoderate
habits of thought, who are suffering from that primary kind of
intoxication which the dictionary tells us is simply a condition of the
mind wherein clear judgment is obscured? There is sometimes a debauchery
in the reasoning faculties of the polite which sends their opinions
rollicking on their way just as drink will send a man staggering up the
highroad. Temperance and sobriety are virtues which in their relation to
thought have a greater value than they possess in any other regard; and
we stand in more urgent need of missionaries to preach to us sobriety of
opinion, a sort of critical teetotalism, than ever a drunkard stood in
want of a pledge.

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