The glory of the Pharaohs

by Arthur E. P. Brome Weigall

To rough it is to lead an exposed life under conditions precluding the possibility of indulging in certain comforts which, in their place and at the right time, are enjoyed and appreciated. A man may well be said to rough it when he camps in the open, and dispenses with the luxuries of civilisation; when he pours a jug of water over himself instead of lying in ecstasy in an enamelled bath; eats a meal of two undefined courses instead of one of five or six; twangs a banjo to the moon instead of ravishing his ear with a sonata upon the grand piano; rolls himself in a blanket instead of sitting over the library fire; turns in at nine p.m. and rises ere the sun has topped the hills instead of keeping late hours and lying abed; sleeps on the ground or upon a narrow camp-bed (which occasionally collapses) instead of sprawling at his ease in a four-poster.

A life of this kind cannot fail to be of benefit to the health; and, after all, the work of a healthy man is likely to be of greater value than that of one who is anæmic or out of condition. It is the first duty of a scholar to give attention to his muscles, for he, more than other men, has the opportunity to become enfeebled by indoor work. Few students can give sufficient time to physical exercise; but in Egypt the exercise is taken during the course of the work, and not an hour is wasted. The muscles harden and the health is ensured without the expending of a moment’s thought upon the subject.

Archæology is too often considered to be the pursuit of weak-chested youths and eccentric old men; it is seldom regarded as a possible vocation for normal persons of sound health and balanced mind. An athletic and robust young man, clothed in the ordinary costume of a gentleman, will tell a new acquaintance that he is an Egyptologist, whereupon the latter will exclaim in surprise: “Not really?—you don’t look like one.” A kind of mystery surrounds the science. The layman supposes the antiquarian to be a very profound and erudite person, who has pored over his books since a baby, and has shunned those games and sports which generally make for a healthy constitution. The study of Egyptology is thought to require a depth of knowledge that places its students outside the limits of normal learning, and presupposes in them an unhealthy amount of schooling. This, of course, is absurd.

Nobody would expect an engineer who built bridges and dams, or a great military commander, to be a seedy individual with longish hair, pale face, and weak eye-sight; and yet probably he has twice the brain capacity of the average archæologist. It is because the life of the antiquarian is, or is generally thought to be, unhealthy and sluggish that he is so often regarded as a worm.

Some attempt should be made to rid the science of this forbidding aspect; and for this end students ought to do their best to make it possible for them to be regarded as ordinary, normal, healthy men. Let them discourage the popular belief that they are prodigies, freaks of mental expansion. Let them shun pedantry and the affectations of the dons’ common-room as they would the plague. Let their first desire be to show themselves good, useful, hardy, serviceable citizens, and they will do much to remove the stigma from their profession. Let them be acquainted with the feeling of a bat or racket in the hands, or a saddle between the knees; let them know the rough path over the mountains, or the diving-pool amongst the rocks, and their mentality will not be found to suffer. A winter’s “roughing it” in the Theban necropolis or elsewhere would do much to banish the desire for perpetual residence at home in the west; and a season in Egypt would alter the point of view of the student more considerably than he could imagine. Moreover, the appearance of the scholar prancing about on his fiery steed (even though it be but an Egyptian donkey) will help to dispel the current belief that he is incapable of physical exertion; and his reddened face rising, like the morning sun, above the rocks on some steep pathway over the Theban hills will give the passer-by cause to alter his opinion of the students of antiquity.

As a second argument a subject must be introduced which will be distasteful to a large number of archæologists. I refer to the narrow-minded policy of certain European and American museums, whose desire it is at all costs to place Egyptian and other eastern antiquities actually before the eyes of western students, in order that they may have the comfort and entertainment of examining at home the wonders of lands which they make no effort to visit. I have no hesitation in saying that the craze for recklessly dragging away unique monuments from Egypt to be exhibited in western museums for the satisfaction of the untravelled man, is the most pernicious bit of folly to be found in the whole broad realm of Egyptological misbehaviour.

A museum has three main justifications for its existence. In the first place, like a home for lost dogs, it is a repository for stray objects. No curator should endeavour to procure for his museum any antiquity which could be safely exhibited on its original site and in its original position. He should receive chiefly those stray objects which otherwise would be lost to sight, or those which would be in danger of destruction. He should make it his first endeavour not so much to obtain objects direct from Egypt as to gather in those antiquities which are in the possession of dealers or private persons who cannot be expected to look after them with due care, or make them accessible to students.

In the second place, a museum is a storehouse for historical documents such as papyri and ostraca, and in this respect it is simply to be regarded as a kind of public library, capable of unlimited and perfectly legitimate expansion. Such objects are not often found by robbers in the tombs which they have violated, nor are they snatched from temples to which they belong. They are usually discovered accidentally, and in a manner which precludes any possibility of their actual position having much significance. The immediate purchase, for example, by museum agents of the Tell el Amarna tablets—the correspondence of a great Pharaoh—which had been discovered by accident, and would perhaps have been destroyed, was most wise.

In the third place, a museum is a permanent exhibition for the instruction of the public, and for the enlightenment of students desirous of obtaining comparative knowledge in any one branch of their work, and for this purpose it should be well supplied not so much with original antiquities as with casts, facsimiles, models, and reproductions of all sorts.

To be a serviceable exhibition both for the student and the public a museum does not need to possess only original antiquities. On the contrary, as a repository for stray objects, a museum is not to be expected to have a complete series of original antiquities in any class, nor is it the business of the curator to attempt to fill up the gaps without thought of the consequences. To do so is to encourage the straying of other objects. The curator so often labours under the delusion that it is his first business to collect together by fair means or foul as large a number as possible of valuable masterpieces. In reality that is a very secondary matter. His first business, if he be an Egyptologist, is to see that Egyptian masterpieces remain in situ so far as is practicable; and his next is to save what has irrevocably strayed from straying further. If the result of this policy be a poor collection, then he must devote so much the more time and money to obtaining facsimiles and reproductions.