CONTENTS

PAGE
[Preface]9
[Bibliographical Note]11
CHAPTER
I.[Introductory]15
II.[Exploration of the Theban Tombs of the Kings]24
III.[Tutankhamen]35
IV.[The Significance of the Discovery]44
Embalming and Immortality—Early Beliefs—The Dawn of Civilization—Giving Life to the Dead—Success after Twenty Centuries—The King and Osiris.
V.[The Valley of the Tombs]65
Tomb-Robbers’ Confessions—Hiding the Mummies.
VI.[The Story of the Flood]92
VII.[Getting to Heaven]100
VIII.[The Ethics of Desecration]124

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FIG. PAGE
[Map of the Ancient East]22
1.[Mummy of Thothmes IV]27
2.[Ancient Plan of the Tomb of Rameses IV]32
3.[The Mummies of Yuaa and Tuaa]33
4.[Tutankhamen receiving Ethiopian tribute from Huy]40
5.[Asiatic tribute presented to Tutankhamen by Huy]42
6.[Part of a mace-head, showing early Egyptian king]51
7.[Portrait of Hesi, circa 3000 b.c.]56
8.[The “packed” mummy of a Queen of the Twenty-first Dynasty]58
9.[Drawing from Book of the Dead]61
10.[The end of the desolate Valley of the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes]66
11.[Ancient Egyptian drawing (circa 1400 b.c.) illustrating arrangement of tomb and temple]68
[Map of Thebes]70
12.[The great cliffs behind Deir el Bahari]74
13.[Lid of the coffin which contained the rewrapped mummy of Amenhotep III]79
14.[An inscribed stone showing Akhenaton, his queen Nefertiti, and their daughters]87
15.[A painted wooden portrait bust of Nefertiti, wife of Akhenaton]89
16.[The skull of Akhenaton]90
17.[Cow carrying a dead man to heaven]106
18.[Narmer’s belt with four Hathor cows’ heads, circa 3400 b.c.]106
19.[Three couches represented on the walls of the tomb of Seti I]109
20.[A lion-couch, a mummy with three solar emanations]117
21.[Three givers of divinity, the cow, the hippopotamus, and Horus on guard]119
22.[The goddess Astarte borne on her lioness]121

PREFACE

During the period when the newspapers were publishing daily reports of the progress of the work in Tutankhamen’s tomb and Mr Harry Burton’s photographs, which gave us so vivid an impression of the objects that were being found, I wrote for the Daily Telegraph a series of articles discussing the wider significance of the startling discoveries. They did not describe the tomb itself or the wonderful collection of funerary equipment, but were merely a general commentary on the meaning of the information being given by the reporters from the Theban necropolis. Nor was any attempt made to collect the few facts concerning Tutankhamen himself, or even to discuss the events of his time. The exploration of the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, for which the late Lord Carnarvon and Mr Howard Carter were responsible, had brought to light the tomb of the youthful nonentity Tutankhamen, which sheds a dazzling searchlight on one particular phase of the history of civilization thirty centuries ago. What I set out to attempt was to interpret the deeper meaning of those Egyptian beliefs which found such brilliant expression in the luxuriously extravagant equipment of his tomb.

I have been urged to collect these articles into the more convenient form of this little book. As they were merely comments on the descriptions of the actual tomb and its contents the separate issue of these topical and ephemeral notes seemed at first to lack any justification, but I have received so many requests for information and guidance that I thought it might serve some useful purpose to redraft my articles and give such bibliographical references as would help the general reader to understand the results that have so far been attained and to appreciate the value of the more important discoveries that next season’s work will certainly reveal.