CONTENTS
| CHAPTER I | |
| PAGE | |
| The Story of the Rosetta Stone—How it was found bythe French and passed into possession of GreatBritain—The puzzling picture writing of the ancientEgyptians which no one could read—The Englishmedical man, Dr. T. Young, who began to tear thesecret from the Rosetta Stone, and the astoundingwork of François Champollion, who built up thefirst hieroglyphic dictionary | [1] |
| CHAPTER II | |
| The Ruins of Egypt—Men who are using their eyes tobring back to us the glories of the past—Papyrus, thepaper of olden times, and how it was made—Bits ofpottery worth their weight in gold; how they act ascalendars—The cleverness of native thieves | [12] |
| CHAPTER III | |
| Shifting 70,000 tons of rubble to find the tomb of Tutankhamen—Thedreadful monotony of digging in vain—Alucky decision which led to the discovery ofTutankhamen’s dazzling treasure—The genius ofProfessor Flinders Petrie, and his great finds atAbydos which the French overlooked—The mysteryof a Cretan pot | [22] |
| CHAPTER IV | |
| Signs which tell men where to dig—Egypt’s wonderfulclimate, which preserves things almost for ever—Whythe Nile was worshipped—The annual floods and howthey were watched by the people of old—The strangeadventures of Cleopatra’s Needle—Pagans whoanticipated Christian teachings | [32] |
| CHAPTER V | |
| Graves which make history—The great age of Egyptiancivilization—Mud that tells a story—The first kingof Egypt—The romance of the tombs—The Book ofthe Dead which contains some Christian commandments—Thesleight of hand of ancient scribes | [42] |
| CHAPTER VI | |
| Wonders of the Pyramids—The mystery surroundingthem and a simple explanation—How the Pyramidswere built—Amazing accuracy of architects who lived6000 years ago—The secret entrance found at last bythieves—Why the Pyramids were one of the plaguesof Egypt—The problem of the Great Sphinx—TheColossi of Memnon that guard a vanished temple | [54] |
| CHAPTER VII | |
| Thebes, the one-time capital of Egypt, then and now—Armiesto transport stones—Handling the giganticobelisks—Controlling the floods thousands of yearsago—An endless battle of wits between the Pharaohsand the tomb robbers—The greatest discovery ofRoyal mummies ever made—Romantic lives of twofamous men—The appalling desolation of the Valleyof the Tombs of the Kings | [71] |
| CHAPTER VIII | |
| A despised statue that realised £10,000—Some Americandiscoveries—Finding treasure valued at £3,000,000—Howchance led Professor Flinders Petrie to a long-lostcity—His weird adventure with a mummy—Thetablets of Tell-el-Amarna—Dramatic moments at theopening of Tutankhamen’s tomb—The mummy thatvanished—How relics are preserved—Ancient ladieswho painted their faces in modern fashion—A marvellousknife made of stone | [91] |
| CHAPTER IX | |
| The mystery of cuneiform writing—A young Englishsoldier who solved an age-old puzzle—Rawlinson’swork on the Rock at Behistun—Perched on theverge of a precipice—His thrilling escape from death—Howhe read the unknown Persian writing thatrevealed the civilizations of Babylonia and Assyria | [105] |
| CHAPTER X | |
| Hills which are buried cities—Romance of Sir AustinHenry Layard—The young English lawyer who wentinto the desert and dug up Nineveh of old—TheArab who laughed at the men who hunted brokenbricks, and the remarkable result | [119] |
| CHAPTER XI | |
| How Layard, with £60, uncovered a lost civilization—Awild boar hunt which was not quite what it seemed—Findingthe great winged bull—Deserts that wereonce the Garden of Eden—Hardships and adventuresamong the Arabs—Mining a way into Nineveh—Difficultyof transporting the mighty Assyrianstatues—Ancient letters like modern puppy biscuits—Theclever Sumerian canal builders—Rise and fall ofBabylon, and the doom of Nineveh | [129] |
| CHAPTER XII | |
| A mussel shell which proved that scientists were wrong—Theforerunner of modern Manchester in the heartof ancient Mesopotamia—Finding the treasure ofthe Moon God at Ur—The Tower of Babel—WhenNebuchadnezzar reigned in Babylon and Daniel sawthe writing on the wall—The Code of Hammurabiand the Ten Commandments | [149] |
| CHAPTER XIII | |
| Discovery of Troy by Heinrich Schliemann—His amazinglife—The grocer’s boy who wept over Homer, starvedhimself to buy books, and eventually made a fortuneto carry out his boyish dream of finding the city ofwhich Homer sang—How scientists laughed at him—Theastounding treasure of Troy and the wealth ofMycenæ | [161] |
| CHAPTER XIV | |
| Schliemann vindicated and honoured—His 100,000 relicsfrom Troy—The Greek sculpture of Apollo—Gloriesof ancient Greece—When Phidias, the world’s greatestsculptor, carved the most beautiful statues ever seen—Turkswho smashed them for sport—Romanceof the Elgin Marbles—Lord Elgin’s fight for thematchless relics | [176] |
| CHAPTER XV | |
| Did ancient Crete dominate the world like modernBritain?—The Mediterranean civilization—Brilliantdiscoveries of Sir Arthur Evans—The Throne Roomat Knossos—Some Cretan cameos—The problem ofthe unknown writing of Minoa and what we maylearn from it | [183] |
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
| Excavating at Thebes | [Frontispiece] |
| FACING PAGE | |
| The Rosetta Stone | [4] |
| Temple of Karnak | [12] |
| The Tomb of Tutankhamen | [24] |
| Temple of Luxor | [26] |
| The Avenue of Sphinxes at Karnak | [36] |
| A Scene from the Book of the Dead | [50] |
| The Pyramids of Gizeh | [56] |
| The Colossi of Memnon | [69] |
| A partly-hewn Obelisk in a Quarry | [73] |
| The Noble Ruins of Philæ | [77] |
| Temple of Queen Hatshepsut at Thebes | [88] |
| Two Marvellous Coffins | [100] |
| The Cuneiform Inscriptions at Behistun | [105] |
| The Sculptures of Darius the Great | [117] |
| Nineveh in Desolation | [124] |
| Excavating at Knossos | [124] |
| A Winged Lion from an Assyrian Palace | [134] |
| A Quaint Spelling Book of Clay | [146] |
| A Clay Letter and Envelope | [146] |
| Babylon To-day | [156] |
| Ruins of Troy | [170] |
| Where the Treasure of Mycenæ was found | [174] |
| A Digger’s Camp in Crete | [183] |
| The Palace of Knossos | [184] |
| Giant Store Jars of Minoa | [189] |
THE ROMANCE OF EXCAVATION
THE
ROMANCE OF EXCAVATION
CHAPTER I
A scientist stood in the British Museum gazing at a piece of rock. Many people passed to and fro, but never one halted to see what held his attention, never one save a little boy, who wondered what the grown-up was looking at. Those who glanced in that direction merely saw a shattered stone, and passed on unheeding.
Had the fragment of stone been the Cullinan diamond or a glowing ruby, everybody would have clustered round to gaze at it. As it was neither one nor the other, everybody walked on. Yet that fragment of stone was, and is, much more wonderful than the finest diamond or ruby ever dug out of the earth.