It is to obtain this knowledge, and also, of course, to add to our general material for the study of art, religion, literature, and so forth, that the ancient tombs must be excavated and recorded, and the dead disturbed. Moreover, the mummies and bones of the dead men are of considerable value to science. The work of Professor G. Elliot Smith, F.R.S., and his assistants has led to most important discoveries in connection with the history of disease; and his minute examination of thousands of mummies has been most extraordinarily fruitful. Studies in the origin and growth of such diseases as tuberculosis or plague cannot fail to be of importance; but without the excavation of ancient tombs no such work can be undertaken. I venture to think, too, that the fight against disease is invigorated by the knowledge that certain maladies are of modern growth, and that the known world was at one time free of them.
There is, however, a very widespread feeling against any meddling with the dead. A sentiment which has a large part of its origin in the belief that the spirits of the departed have still some use for their bodies forbids one to disturb the bones which have been committed to the earth. There is the fear lest the disturbing of the dead should offend the susceptibilities of the living members of the family to which the deceased belonged. A body from which the life has gone assumes, also, a sanctity derived from the mystery of death. It has passed beyond the sphere of our understanding. The limbs which in life were apparently independent of Heaven have suddenly fallen back upon God, and are become the property of the Infinite. A corpse represents the total collapse of our expediencies, the absolute paralysis of our systems and devices; and thus, as the incitement to the mental search for the permanency which must somewhere exist, the lifeless bones become consecrate.
The question, however, is a somewhat different one in the case of the embalmed bodies of the ancient Egyptians. No modern family traces its descent back to the days of the Pharaohs; and the mummies which are found in the old tombs, although often those of historical characters, and therefore in a special sense the property of the Egyptian nation, compel the family consideration of no particular group of persons. Like other antique objects, they fall under the care of the Department of Antiquities, which acts on behalf of the people of Egypt and the scientists of the world. They have been such æons dead that they no longer suggest the fact of death; like statues, they seem never to have been alive. It is with an effort that in the imagination one puts motion into the stiff limbs, and thoughts into the hard, brown skulls. They have lost to a great extent that awful sanctity which more recent bones possess, for the soul has been so long departed from them that even the recollection of its presence is forgotten. People who would be terrified to pass the night in a churchyard will sleep peacefully in an ancient Egyptian necropolis camped amidst the tombs.
After all, what virtue do our discarded bodies possess that we should dislike to turn them over? What right have we to declare that the mummies must be left undisturbed, when their examination will give us vitally important information regarding the history and early development of diseases—information which is of real, practical value to mankind? Is it just for us to object to the opening of tombs which contain matter and material so illuminating and of such value to Egypt and the world? Those who hold orthodox religious opinions sometimes point out that the dead should not be interfered with, firstly, because the bodies are temples of the spirit, and, secondly, because they will rise again at the call of the last trump. “All that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth?” says the Gospel of St. John (v. 28); and the belief in the Second Advent seems, at first sight, to necessitate the preservation of the dead in the tombs. In answer to these contentions, however, one may point out that the mummies of the ancient Egyptians are the notable exception to the general law of total destruction which overtakes the ancient dead in all countries, and which leaves to the present day hardly a trace of the millions of bodies of our remote ancestors. The dissection and scattering of all the mummies in Egypt would add infinitesimally to the number of corpses already reduced to dust and blown about the world. Moreover one may call attention to the words of our Lord: “Let the dead bury their dead,” which seem to indicate that no extreme consideration for them is required.
It is often argued, and with far more justice, that the mummies should not be disturbed or removed from their tombs because it is obvious that the ancients took extreme care to prevent any tampering of this kind, and most passionately desired their bones to be left where they were laid. There are many Churchmen who, tracing an historic growth in religion, maintaining that the consecration ceremony made by the priests of long ago in all sincerity, and accepted by the people in like manner, is of the same eternal value as any Christian committal of the dead body; and that therefore one is actually sacrilegious in touching a body laid to rest in the name of the elder gods.
In stating the answer of the archæologist we must return to the subject of illegal excavation, and must point out that scientific excavation prevents the desecration of the tombs by the inevitable plunderer, and the violent smashing up of the mummies in the crazy search for gold. I have come upon whole cemeteries ransacked by native thieves, the bodies broken and tossed about in all directions. I have seen mummies sticking up out of the sand like the “Aunt Sallies” of a country fair to act as a target for the stone-throwing of Egyptian boys. In the Middle Ages mummies were dragged from their tombs and exported to Europe to be used in the preparation of medicines. “The Egyptian mummies,” says Sir Thomas Browne in Urn Burial, “which Cambyses or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth. Mummy is become merchandise, Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams.” There is some reason, also, to suppose that Pharaoh was sold for common manure.
The scientific excavator anticipates the robber whenever it is possible to do so; and if, in the cause of science, the mummies, like the bodies of paupers in the dissecting-room, are sometimes exposed to what may appear to be indignities, these are surely not so great as the insults which they might suffer at the hands of the modern Egyptians, who, in this regard, care not a snap of the fingers for sentiment.
Nevertheless, I am of opinion that the ancient dead should be treated with very great respect, and that they should be left in their tombs whenever it is consistent with scientific work to do so. Though the religious point of view may not be accepted, it is usually undesirable to act without regard to inherited sentiment; and as regards the dead, there is a very distinct feeling at the back of all our minds against any form of desecration. It is, no doubt, a survival which cannot be defended, but it should not be lightly dismissed on that account. Certain mummies of necessity must be examined and dissected, and for this purpose it is often necessary to remove them to scientific institutions; others, in certain cases, require to be available for public examination in museums. But there is no reason why the bones of one of the Pharaohs, for example, should now lie jumbled in a dusty old box under the table of a certain museum workroom; nor does there seem to be any particular object served in exposing other bodies, which do not happen to have the protective dignity of the mummies of Rameses the Second and Sethos the First, to the jibes and jests of the vulgar.
It seems reasonable to hold that the mummies of Pharaohs and other historical characters should be available for study at any moment, and should not be buried again beneath the tons of sand and rock from which they have been removed. But most assuredly they should be placed with decency and solemnity in a room set aside for the purpose in the Cairo Museum, and should only be seen by special permission. Certain exceptions might be made to this rule. The mummies of Rameses the Second, Sethos the First, Thutmosis the Fourth, Prince Yuaa, Princess Tuau, and one or two others have such inherent dignity that, in rather more serious and impressive surroundings, they might well remain on regular exhibition in Cairo. It is a pity that they cannot be placed once more in their tombs at Thebes, where they might be visited, as is the tomb and mummy of Amenophis the Second among the hills of the western desert. But there is too grave a danger from the native plunderer, who, in spite of bolts, bars, and police, on one occasion burst into the tomb of this Amenophis and bashed in the breast of the mummy in the vain search for gold. At present there are seven watchmen in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, and it would be quite absurd to replace more of the royal mummies there with such inadequate protection. The tomb of Rameses the Second, moreover, is now destroyed, and the alabaster sarcophagus of Sethos the First is in London; thus neither of these two mummies could be properly enshrined.
The public exhibition of the mummies of the ancient Egyptians in the galleries of the museums of the world, where they are generally stuffed into glass