Now, in spite of the temperature and headache to which I here refer, and which, had I not been so keen on my work, I should most certainly have recognized as a symptom of trouble to come, I had evidently sought to catch up with a somewhat neglected report of the season’s work.
This occupation had apparently kept me at my desk well on towards dawn. I deduce this from the fact that immediately following the above short entry, I find a number of fragmentary hieroglyphic inscriptions having to do with the history of the foundation and erection of Pharaoh’s Mortuary Temple, upon which I had been so long at work.
One of these entries is of special interest in this connection, since, after a lapse of some three thousand years, the two colossal statues of King Amenhotep III, to whom it refers, may still be seen gazing stolidly and immutably eastward across the broad reaches of the Theban Plain.
The following graphic description of the now vanished building itself, a literal translation from the original hieroglyphic, is the last entry in my diary, the last for many a long day, I may add. Further, and for an excellent reason, this last entry was never completed. The translation runs in the following somewhat grandiloquent and semi-poetic vein: “It hath been given me to set up in a holy place two great statues of the Son of Ra, Amenhotep, Conqueror of Asia. These are they which stand before the entrance portal of the Mortuary Temple of His Majesty (Life, Stability and Health to him). Carved from solid blocks of the hard grit-stone of On, they tower seventy feet into the air. Their golden headdresses touch the very dome of heaven. On either side, gold-capped obelisks of red granite reach high above the temple pylons. Four cedar flag-staffs tipped with gold rise from grooves cut in the sculptured sandstone of the temple front. The walls of the temple are carved and richly painted with scenes representing the Asiatic conquests of Pharaoh, Lord of Might. Its great bronze doors are inlaid in gold with the figure of the God Min of Coptos. Through this jeweled outline of his ‘double’ twice daily doth the Great God enter the Holy Sanctuary, there to partake of the offerings spread upon its jeweled altars. In his honor are the ceilings covered with true lazuli of Babylon, its floors enriched with silver and sprinkled with powdered turquoise. Its gleaming walls are engraved with designs representing the New Year’s procession of the Sun Barque, from the Northern to the Southern Apt. Beside the High Altar stands a tablet thirty feet in height, covered with gold and inlaid with sard and emerald. Thus is marked ‘The-Place-Where-His-Majesty-Stands-at-the-Sacrificing.’ Beq, son of Beq, carved the statues and erected the obelisks. Renny, the Syrian, overlaid and enriched the tablet.”
Inserted here was a drawing of the above mentioned tablet, and, upon it, the following additional fragment: “Memorial-tablet found face downwards. I enclose drawings and translations. Evidently mine is a very ancient name? All traces of——.”
Here the diary abruptly stops!
Now, I directly trace the mishap which thereafter befell me to the discovery of this same tablet.
A hot day spent in transcribing to paper its mud-filled inscriptions, and a night devoted to their decipherment, might well have driven me forth in search of the cool breezes to be found along the higher slopes of the nearby Libyan Hills.
Yet, in this connection, I must not forget to mention the contents of a newspaper-clipping sent me by Gardiner just before he left Alexandria, a clipping which seems to have a peculiar meaning, especially in the light of the curious experiences which I shall presently relate.
This clipping was found folded carefully in the page of my Diary opposite that last incomplete entry to which I have referred.