THE TOMBS OF THE KINGS.—RECENT DISCOVERIES OF ROYAL MUMMIES.
"From temples to tombs," wrote one of the boys in his journal, "the transition is a natural one. The kings built the temples, and recorded their exploits on the walls. When they were done with temples and all other earthly things, they were carried to their tombs and laid away to rest. We saw their temples yesterday, and to-day we have made an excursion to their tombs.
SACRED MUSICIANS, AND A PRIEST OFFERING INCENSE.
"The tombs of the kings are about three miles from the river, and the road to them is along a valley as barren as any part of the desert can possibly be. It must have been a weary route for the funeral processions from Thebes to this desolate spot, and it is probable that the kings deferred their journeys there as long as possible. The way is impassable for carriages, and so we rode on donkeys, as we have done in most of our Egyptian excursions.
VALLEY OF THE TOMBS OF THE KINGS.
"The tombs are scattered along a narrow valley of barren mountains at the edge of the Libyan Desert, or, rather, just within its borders; they are excavated in the solid rock, and some of them are very large. Every few years a new discovery is made, and the government allows any explorer to search for tombs under certain conditions: the conditions are now so onerous that few private researches have been undertaken for some time, and none are likely to be till the laws are changed. In the early part of the century several English, French, German, and other explorers were on the ground, and some of their discoveries were of great interest. The tombs they opened are generally known by the names of those who found them, though several have lost that distinction through a system of numbering adopted by Sir Gardner Wilkinson. The guides usually point them out by their numbers. About thirty tombs in all have been opened, and it is certain there are ten or twelve more that have not been discovered. Strabo, the Greek historian, who came here about the beginning of the Christian era, says he saw forty tombs; but some have conjectured that he included those in another valley, and known as the Tombs of the Queens.
VIEW IN BELZONI'S TOMB.
"We didn't have time to see the whole twenty-five, and it would not have been worth while for us to do so, as several of them have no particular interest. We went first to number seventeen, which is also known as Belzoni's tomb; it was discovered by Belzoni, an Italian traveller, and the most of its contents were carried to England, and are now in the British Museum. Perhaps you may wonder why these tombs are so difficult to find, but the reason is this:
"When a king died, and had been properly turned into a mummy, the funeral rites were performed, and he was taken to the excavation in the rock prepared for him. When he was packed away in his stone coffin the entrance to the tomb was sealed up, and the side of the mountain broken away; all trace of the tomb or the entrance of it was destroyed; and there is a rumor that the men who performed the work were killed, in order to prevent any revelations. Doubtless the locality of the tombs was known to a good many people; but the knowledge of it would be gradually lost, especially when the country was devastated by wars, and the whole population, in some instances, swept away. Certainly the most of these tombs were unknown for a thousand years or so previous to the present century, with a few exceptions where the Arabs had accidentally hit upon them, though many of them had been plundered and again closed during the Greek and Roman period. Belzoni was guided in his search by an incident which the Arabs had told him of the sinking of the earth in consequence of a rain, and the disappearance of water at a certain point. This led him to suspect that there might be a tomb there, and by digging away the fallen fragments of rock on the side of the mountain he came upon the entrance.
"There is a general similarity in these tombs, and so we will not weary you with repetitions by describing them all.
"The tomb has a narrow entrance, from which there is a descending passage-way, and sometimes a staircase. There are long halls and lateral chambers, and now and then the real resting-place of the king is beneath the main hall, which contained a bogus mummy intended to mislead any unauthorized visitor. The Egyptians exhausted their brains in devices to conceal the royal mummies, and it is quite possible that in some cases they have succeeded. When Belzoni opened the tomb that bears his name he came upon a staircase at the end of the passage, which he descended; there he found a horizontal chamber terminating in another staircase, and at its foot was an oblong chamber, or pit, of considerable depth.
"This appeared to be the end of the tomb, and it was, as an Hibernian might say, full of emptiness.
"Belzoni was disappointed, as his search had been fruitless. While wondering what to do next, he struck his hammer against the wall at the top of the pit, and found that it gave forth a hollow sound. He reasoned that the sound indicated a chamber beyond, and that the apparently solid rock was only a wall of masonry, carefully covered with stucco and hieroglyphics.
"He sent out for the best battering-ram that could be procured, and it soon came in the shape of a log cut from a palm-tree. With this log he knocked down the wall and opened a way into the actual tomb. The inscriptions on the walls were found quite unharmed, and so was the alabaster coffin, which is now in London, but contained nothing of consequence when discovered. The tomb appears to be one of those that was partially plundered within a few hundred years of its occupation by the royal mummy, and again closed up.
"The total distance from the entrance to the farthest point in Belzoni's tomb is four hundred and seventy feet, and the perpendicular descent of the various stairways and inclines is one hundred and eighty feet. We had a fatiguing walk through it, in consequence of the unevenness of the way and the fragments of broken and fallen rock. The air was somewhat stifling, partly owing to its confined character, and partly from the effect of our torches and candles. We burnt a good deal of magnesium wire to light up the halls, and reveal the beautiful inscriptions that were around us in all directions except beneath our feet. Remember that there was hardly a foot of space without inscriptions. The walls of this tomb afford material for a year's study, and hard study at that.
"Some of the inscriptions refer to the daily occupations of the Egyptians, others to the deeds of the kings of Egypt, and others to the funeral ceremonies attending the death of a king. These last are by far the most numerous, and there are long extracts from the 'Book of the Dead,' showing the progress of the soul after it leaves the body.
"One inscription shows the soul passing to Amenthes, where, after a short halt, it was ordered to the Hall of Justice. On its way to this hall it was attacked by demons and wild beasts, but all these were driven away if the body had been properly provided with prayers written on the rolls of papyrus and the scarabæi that are always found with the mummies.
"Another picture represents the soul in the Hall of Justice, where its heart is placed in one scale and the Goddess of Truth in the other. Two of the gods superintend the weighing, and a third makes a note of the result. The god Osiris (with forty-two councillors) pronounces sentence. The heart was found heavy, and therefore the spirit was ordered to the regions of the blessed, where it was to pass through centuries of happiness and then return to the mummy, which would be restored to life. Of course they always found that the heart of the king was of the proper weight; it would have been dangerous for the artist to discover it too light, and thereby condemn it to suffer long tortures as a punishment for its sins before it could pass to a state of rest, and get ready to return to the mummy that waited for it.
"Belzoni's tomb was made for King Sethi I., whose temple we visited from Girgeh. Portions of it were left unfinished, and some of the drawings are incomplete. This condition of the wall is to be regretted for some reasons, but is very fortunate in other respects, as it shows how the Egyptian artists performed their work. The draughtsman made the outlines in red chalk, and they were then inspected by the chief artist, who corrected any errors or made alterations with a black crayon; the marks were then followed by the sculptor, and were afterward colored with the proper pigments. In some cases the wall was laid out in squares before the figures were drawn, but this does not seem to have been the universal rule, and there is abundant evidence that the Egyptian artists were accomplished in what we call 'free-hand' drawing.
AN EGYPTIAN HARPER.
"From this tomb we went to that of Rameses III. It was discovered by Bruce, the famous traveller in Egypt and Abyssinia, and usually bears his name, though it is sometimes called 'the Harper's Tomb,' from the figure of a man playing on a harp, which is painted on one of the walls. It is much easier to visit than Belzoni's, and its chief interest lies in the great number of agricultural, pastoral, and other scenes depicted on the walls. The daily life of the people is very clearly shown, and we have an excellent idea of what the ancient Egyptians did, how they lived, and what were their articles of furniture, dress, and the like. We were astonished to see pictures of sofas, chairs, tables, and other adornments of the house that would be considered luxurious at the present time. Doctor Bronson says the designers of modern furniture might learn a great deal by coming here and copying the pictures on the walls.
A CHAIR FROM BRUCE'S TOMB.
"We saw half a dozen tombs of the kings, and then went to the tombs of the Assaséef. Perhaps you'd like to know what they are?
"They were the tombs of certain high-priests of Thebes, who are reputed to have been very wealthy and powerful, and certainly they must have been pretty nearly as important as the king under whom they lived. Their tombs are even larger than any of the tombs of the kings: the greatest of the Assaséef tombs has a lineal distance from the entrance to the farthest point of eight hundred and sixty-two feet, and the floors of the various passages, rooms, and pits include an area of about an acre and a quarter. Isn't that a pretty large tomb for one person—even though he included the members of his family and a few personal friends?
"We lighted our torches at the entrance, and then began a long walk through the interior, though we did not visit all the side chambers and narrow rooms, of which there are a great many. The sculptures on the walls are inferior to those in Belzoni's and Bruce's tombs, and we did not spend much time over them.
"Several times some of our torches were put out by the bats, of which there are great numbers in the tomb. It was quite as bad for the bats as for the torches, as they could not fly into the flame without risk of having their wings singed. They flew in our faces, and were anything but agreeable. One of our party said he had heard of receiving 'a bat in the eye,' but never before experienced the sensation. He had a dozen of them at least before he got out of the place.
"From this place we went to some private tombs, and then to the tombs of the queens, but only visited one of each. Neither of these was particularly interesting after what we had seen, though they contained the usual profusion of mural paintings, which we had no time for inspecting. The best of the paintings and sculptures have been copied by Wilkinson and others, and we may study them at our leisure when we get home, and our friends who are interested in the subject can do the same thing. In one of the tombs we found the work of an artist who evidently had the spirit of fun in him, as there were several caricatures of no mean order. In one picture a boat has collided with another, and a whole lot of cakes and other eatables are overturned on the rowers. We find caricatures occasionally, but not often, and, on the whole, the Egyptians seem to have been a serious people.
"We got back all right to the bank of the river, where the boats were waiting to ferry us over to Luxor. So ends our sight-seeing at Thebes, as we leave to-morrow morning to continue our journey up the Nile. We have had no accident beyond a few slight tumbles and bruises, and have obtained a store of information that will severely tax our memories to retain. Let us hope that we can remember it, and be able to impart our knowledge to others; if we can, we shall be rewarded a thousand times over for the trouble we have taken, and for the fatigues of our visits to the temples and tombs of this famous city of thirty centuries ago."
Since the travels of our friends in Egypt an event has occurred of great interest to all who have any familiarity with the history of the land of the Pharaohs. It will be noted that Frank and Fred, during their visits to the tombs of the kings, and to the museum at Boulak, did not see the mummy of any royal personage, if we except that of Queen Amen-Hotep, which was found by Mariette Bey, together with the remarkable collection of jewellery described in Chapter VIII.
Remembering that no mummy of a king had been found down to the date of the journey of our friends in Egypt, and that all the royal tombs when opened were found to have been previously visited by vandals as free-handed as those of modern days, we can appreciate the importance of the announcement, toward the end of 1881, that a new tomb had been opened and found to contain the mummies of several kings, together with those of other royal personages. The following description is taken from a recent publication, the details having been derived from the reports of M. Maspero, the able successor of Mariette Pasha:
"For the last ten years or more it had been suspected that the Theban Arabs (whose main occupation is tomb-pillage and mummy-snatching) had found a royal sepulchre. Objects of great rarity and antiquity were being brought to Europe every season by travellers who had purchased them from native dealers living on the spot; and many of these objects were historically traceable to certain royal dynasties which made Thebes their capital city. At length suspicion became certainty. An English tourist, passing through Paris, presented Professor Maspero with some photographs from a superb papyrus which he had then lately bought at Thebes from an Arab named Abd-er-Ranoul. This papyrus proved to be the Ritual, or funereal sacred book, written for Pinotem I., third priest-king of the twenty-first dynasty. Evidently, then, the tomb of this sovereign had been discovered and pillaged. In January, 1881, the late lamented Mariette Pasha died at Cairo, and was succeeded by Professor Maspero, the present Conservator of Antiquities to H.H. the Khedive. Professor Maspero at once resolved to get to the bottom of the Theban mystery; and, with that object chiefly in view, proceeded last April to Upper Egypt upon his first official trip of inspection. Arriving at Luxor he straightway arrested the said Abd-er-Ranoul. Threats, bribery, persuasion were, however, tried in vain, and Abd-er-Ranoul was consigned to the district prison at Keneh, the chief town of the province. Here for two months he maintained an obstinate silence. In the mean while Professor Maspero offered a reward of £500 for the discovery of the secret, and returned to Europe. Scarcely had he embarked when the elder brother of Abd-er-Ranoul went privately before the Governor of Keneh, offered to betray the secret, and claimed the reward.
"The governor telegraphed immediately to Cairo; and Herr Emil Brugsch, Keeper of the Boulak Museum (whom Professor Maspero had deputed to act for him in any case of emergency), was forthwith despatched to Thebes. Here he was conducted to a lonely spot in the most desolate and unfrequented part of the great necropolis which extends for between three and four miles along the western bank of the Nile. Hidden behind an angle of limestone cliff, and masked by a huge fragment of fallen rock, he beheld the entrance to a perpendicular shaft descending to a depth of thirty-nine feet. At the bottom of this shaft opened a gallery two hundred and forty feet in length, leading to a sepulchral vault measuring twenty-three feet by thirteen. In this gallery and vault were found some thirty-six mummies, including more than twenty kings and queens, besides princes, princesses, and high-priests, to say nothing of an immense store of sacred vessels, funereal statuettes, alabaster vases, and precious objects in glass, bronze, acacia-wood, etc. The treasure thus brought to light consisted of some six thousand items, not the least valuable of which were four royal papyri. Professor Maspero, in his official report, warmly eulogizes the energy with which Herr Emil Brugsch, by the aid of five hundred native laborers, exhumed, packed, shipped, and brought to Cairo the whole contents of this now famous hiding-place.
COFFIN AND MUMMY OF A ROYAL PRINCESS.
"The following are the principal royal mummies found in this recently opened tomb:
"King Rasekenen-Taaken and Queen Ansera, of the seventeenth dynasty.
"King Ahmes Ra-neb-Pehti, Queen Ahmes Nofretari, Queen Aah-Hotep, Queen Merit-Amen, Queen Hontimoo-hoo, Prince Se Amen, Princess Set-Amen, King Amen-Hotep I., King Thothmes I.,* King Thothmes II., King Thothmes III., Queen Sitka, all of the eighteenth dynasty.
"King Rameses I.,* King Sethi I., King Rameses II., of the nineteenth dynasty.
[The asterisk indicates that the mummy is missing.]
"Queen Notem-Maut, King and High-priest Pinotem I., King Pinotem II., Prince and High-priest Masahirti, Queen Hathor Hout-Taui, Queen Makara, Queen Isi-em-Kheb, Princess Nasi-Khonsu, Prince Tat-f-Ankh, Nebseni, a priest, Noi-Shounap, a priest, of the twenty-first dynasty.
"In some instances the mummy reposes in its original mummy-case, and sometimes in two or three mummy-cases, the whole enclosed in an enormous outer sarcophagus. In others, only the mummy case is left, the mummy having been destroyed or abstracted. Farther, some mummies are found in mummy-cases not their own, or in mummy-cases which have been altered and usurped for their use in ancient times.
"There can be no doubt that the vault in which these various mummies and funereal treasures were found was the family sepulchre of the kings of the twenty-first dynasty. This dynasty was founded by Her-Hor, High-priest of Amen of the great Temple of Amen at Thebes, who, toward the close of the twentieth dynasty, at a time the throne of the last Ramessides was tottering to its foundations, either inherited the crown by right of descent or seized it by force.
"The close of the twentieth dynasty was an epoch of great internal trouble and disorder. During the reigns of the last four or five kings of that line there had been little security for life and property in Thebes; and organized bands of robbers committed constant depredations in the more retired quarters of the necropolis, attacking chiefly the tombs of great personages, and venturing even to break open the sepulchres of the royal dead. Hence it became the sacred duty of the reigning monarch to take every possible precaution to insure the mummies of his predecessors against profanation and pillage.
"We accordingly find that Her-Hor caused the sepulchres of his predecessors to be periodically visited by a service of regularly appointed Inspectors of Tombs, whose duty it was to report upon the condition of the royal mummies; to repair their wrappings and mummy-cases when requisite; and, if necessary, to remove them from their own sepulchres into any others which might be deemed more secure. All of them seem to have been moved several times: at one time the tomb of Queen Ansera, at another time the tomb of Sethi I., at another time the tomb of one of the Amen-Hoteps would seem to have been selected as the chosen hiding-place of several royal mummies, all of whom had been removed from their own original sepulchres by order of Her-Hor or his successors. The mummy of Rameses II. (to whose memory, as the supposed Pharaoh of the oppression of the Hebrews, so strong an interest attaches) appears to have been removed more frequently, and to have suffered more vicissitudes of fortune than any of the others. That his sepulchre in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings had been violated by robbers can scarcely be doubted, for his original mummy-cases were either destroyed or damaged beyond repair.
"All the mummies were eventually consigned to the tomb of the Her-Hor family near the end of the twenty-first dynasty. Professor Maspero believes this final measure to have been taken during the reign of King Menkheperra, the last sovereign but one of the Her-Hor line. Menkheperra himself is not among those found in the vault; neither is his son and successor, Pinotem III. Having piously deposited all these revered and deified Pharaohs and other royal personages in the last home of his own immediate ancestors, Menkheperra evidently closed the vault forever, and was himself content to be buried elsewhere.
"It is interesting to learn from the reports of Professor Maspero and Herr Brugsch the heights of some of the famous kings of Egypt. Raskenen, it seems, was among Egyptian kings like Saul in Israel. He measured six feet one inch, and very few of his descendants took after him in this particular. Ashmes, for instance (his grandson), measured only five feet six inches, and the great Thothmes III. five feet seven inches. Thothmes II. approached the stature of his ancestor, but Sethi I. was no more than five feet nine inches. It is satisfactory to learn that Rameses II. was taller than his father, and not, like Thothmes III., a little man, by any means, for his mummy wants but one inch of six feet.
"One of the most interesting objects in the collection is the coffin of Rameses II. The face of the king is represented on the lid, and the hands are in high relief, grasping the Osirian scourge and crook, but the face is not from the studio of the artists who carved the walls of Abydus, and designed the sitting figures of Aboo-Simbel. On the breast is a legend which includes two royal cartouches or ovals, with an inscription in that hieratic or cursive hieroglyphic writing which is so difficult to read. The names in the ovals are easily read, however—'Ra-messes-mer-Amen' in one, 'Ra-user-Ma Setep-en-Ra' in the other.
"Considerable interest attaches to the mummy of King Pinotem, as it was the latest of all the royal collection. Pinotem was the third king of the twenty-first dynasty, who reigned as nearly as possible a millennium b.c. In addition to the royal mummies, a multitude of objects bearing cartouches will throw great light upon the succession of these kings; and the tent of Pinotem, of leather, embroidered and colored, and covered with hieroglyphics, cannot fail to clear up some historical difficulties as to the priest-kings of Thebes. His face has an Ethiopian cast of features, and he is believed to have been descended from the princes of Egypt who came from the South. The lips are slightly parted, and the upper teeth are almost visible. The absence of the eyeball is indicated by the way in which the eyelids are sunken; and the nostrils are forcibly distended, in consequence of the method employed by the embalmers for the removal of the brain, which was effected by means of a hooked instrument passed up through the nose. The expression is, nevertheless, not unpleasing. The shrouds are of somewhat coarse texture; and a few withered flowers may be observed stuck through the bands which hold the wrappings together."
SECTION OF PAPYRUS. 
COFFIN OF QUEEN NOFRETARI. 
COFFIN OF RAMESES II.