CHAPTER VIII
THE ETHICS OF DESECRATION
With the awakening of a world-wide interest in the tomb of Tutankhamen there has been a good deal of not altogether relevant discussion about the ethics of desecration, which is none the less unfortunate because it is inspired by ignorance of the real facts of the case. By inflaming feeling it may help to defeat the object everyone concerned is doing his utmost to achieve, that is, to secure the adequate protection and reverent treatment of the dead pharaoh and his fellow-sleepers. Hence it is necessary to put the issue in its true light.
It seems to have been overlooked by those who write about leaving the royal mummies in their own tombs that in the past only one of them was actually found in his own tomb, and that this pharaoh, Amenhotep II, was left there reposing in his own sarcophagus. It is equally important to note that it was Mr Howard Carter, who is in charge of the present work for the late Lord Carnarvon, who was at that time Inspector of Antiquities at Luxor and was largely responsible for this decision. Nor is it any secret that those responsible for the present work propose to leave the mummy of Tutankhamen in the tomb, provided that the risk of damage can be guarded against.
The issue raised by the oft-repeated protests against desecration is complicated by the fact that in every case the mummies of the pharaohs were plundered and grossly maltreated by their own subjects more than thirty centuries ago; and, except in two or three instances, were unceremoniously removed from their own tombs and hidden away in any place that happened to be convenient.
If archæologists did not open and examine these tombs there is no doubt that in time the native tomb-robbers of Luxor, the most experienced members of their craft to be found anywhere, would in time discover the hidden tombs, plundering them and destroying the historical evidence. There can be no question that the work of the archæologist when conscientiously done saves the ancient tombs from wilful destruction and gives the mummies and the furniture a new lease of assured existence. So long as these tombs are left alone there is always the risk that they will be desecrated at any moment.
The problem which the archæologist has to solve, once he has opened a tomb, is what is the proper course to take with reference to the mummies and the funerary equipment. It is claimed by many writers to the Press that at any rate the bodies of the kings ought to be restored.
But even if it were possible to replace the royal mummies in their own tombs, and to persuade the museums of the world to return their sarcophagi and funerary equipment, it would still be a moot point whether such procedures would save them from desecration. For, unless large sums of money are spent in equipping the tombs against the attacks of robbers and providing guards, such measures would defeat the purpose that prompted them. For the mummies would become the lure for the greed of the Theban population, which for sixty centuries and more has been habituated to tomb-robbing, and has shown little respect for the mummies of even the most famous of its rulers. In fact, the most powerful sovereigns of Egypt have suffered worst at the hands of the people of their own metropolis. The mummies of the greatest emperors and wisest statesmen of the eighteenth dynasty, such as Thothmes III and Amenhotep III, were stripped and badly mutilated; and it is more likely than not that the mummy of the famous Hatshepsut, the Queen Elizabeth of Egyptian history, was totally destroyed. Even when Amenhotep II (together with the mummies found with him) were left in his own tomb, it was not long before the tomb was entered by plunderers and wanton damage inflicted on the bodies left in it. In my volume of the Official Catalogue of the Cairo Museum, dealing with the royal mummies, gruesome evidence is given of the mutilation effected upon the bodies of a prince and two princesses in this tomb, both by ancient and modern robbers.
The moral of all this is that unless the tomb is rendered burglar-proof, and in addition is protected by adequate guards, it is inviting desecration to leave the mummies in them. Everyone immediately concerned with the problem of Tutankhamen’s mummy agrees that, if it is feasible, it should be left in its own tomb and adequately protected there after a thorough examination of it has been made, and all the information as to age and infirmities which the X-rays can afford has been obtained. The late Lord Carnarvon was strongly in favour of this course of action, and Mr Howard Carter has always been in favour of leaving the mummies in their tombs. But if this is done they must be adequately guarded. For it is not an exaggeration to claim that in the past the removal of the royal mummies to the Cairo Museum saved them from destruction, or from being broken up for disposal to tourists, as in former centuries some of them were sold to druggists. For, as Sir Thomas Browne expressed it two and a half centuries ago, “The Egyptian mummies, which Cambyses or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth. Mummy is become merchandise, Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams.”
But, apart from such considerations, the fact has not received due acknowledgment that the archæologists who are investigating the tomb of Tutankhamen are clearly not engaged in a work of destruction or of desecration, but are striving to preserve his remains and his treasured possessions, and to secure his name and his record from the oblivion which he himself and his representatives strove so hard to avert.