Tutankhamen and the Discovery of His Tomb by the Late Earl of Carnarvon and Mr. Howard Carter

by Grafton Elliot Smith

The relatively slight disturbance of the antechamber holds out the prospect that the mummy also may have been spared that wanton destruction which was the fate of so many pharaohs of his dynasty, although it is to be expected that the valuable gold objects upon the body are not likely to have escaped the plunderers.

If the mummy is found, an examination of it by means of the X-rays will be made; but, whatever measures are adopted for wresting from it the story it has to tell, no one need be anxious about its desecration. No damage of any sort will be inflicted upon the body; but every precaution will be taken to assure that prolongation of its existence within its own sarcophagus which the embalmer of thirty-two centuries ago aimed at achieving.

In the commentary on the discoveries in Tutankhamen’s tomb I have dealt mainly with aspects of the new revelation of Egyptian customs and beliefs that to most readers may seem less impressive than the dazzling display of artistic treasures which has aroused in them an interest in archæology.

But to the student who is interested in tracing out the origin of the customs and beliefs which have shaped the fabric of civilization and influenced the trends of even our own thoughts, the objective expression of ancient beliefs displayed in Tutankhamen’s tomb is the most important outcome of Mr Howard Carter’s discovery.

For it enables us to realize more vividly than before the relentless and persistent logic with which the ancient Egyptian theologian strove by any and every device he could think of, to make as certain as any physical or magical procedure could make it, to give a new lease of life or existence to the dead. Many modern scholars object to the use of the word logic to apply to a series of procedures inconsistent the one with the other except in their ultimate aim, and are constantly emphasizing and marvelling at their lack of cogency and consistency. But the modern psychologist has recently been insisting that we ourselves, and, in fact, all mankind, are just as illogical as the Ancient Egyptian priesthood. In our everyday life we are hourly doing things as glaringly inconsistent the one with the other as anything that the Egyptians ever did. It is merely that our wider acquaintance with the nature of matter and the properties of living creatures enables us the more readily to hide our inconsistencies and rationalize our statements so as to hide our ignorance and lack of cogency.

In this connexion it is important to try and put ourselves in the position of the theologians of Tutankhamen’s time, and ask whether it is likely that they really imagined the ceremonial couches to be potent to transfer the dead king to the sky. They knew perfectly well that the couches could not effect this physical transference to a topographical heaven. But long usage had accustomed them to attach a definite symbolic meaning to the ceremonial practice of placing the mummy of the king upon such couches. This was supposed to confer upon the dead king immortality and divinity, to identify him with the sun-god Re in the sky.

The problem which is perhaps responsible for most disagreement between Egyptian scholars to-day is the relationship of the two gods Osiris and Re, with both of which the dead king was identified as a means of attaining immortality. The obvious connecting link between them is the rôle assigned to Horus, who, as the son of Osiris, is charged with the function of securing for the dead king the same boons which he was able to confer on Osiris. Yet as a sun-god, intimately associated with Re, Horus could also secure for him the solar heaven and enable him to dwell with Re, if not be identified with him, in the sun.

There is a profound difference of opinion whether Osiris or Re was the earliest god. Philologists like Professor Breasted and Dr Blackman, who derive their knowledge from the literary texts (which, however, were not put into writing until all thought and expression were dominated by the sun-cult and the Pyramid Texts were actually written by Heliopolitan priests) insist on the priority of the sun-god Re.

Ethnologists who know how relatively recent is the belief in a sky-world and in sun-worship insist upon the priority of the god Osiris, who was originally a king on earth. To my mind the whole conception of deity and the attributes of the earliest gods can be understood and explained only if we admit that Osiris was the first god and that Re acquired his reputation secondarily from Osiris.

In Tutankhamen’s tomb the one idea that informed the funerary ritual and equipment was this identification with Osiris, and the solar embellishments are clearly additions to the more ancient practices. I have entered in detail into the interesting problems of the funerary couches in order to bring out in a definite and concrete form the essential meaning of the whole equipment of Tutankhamen’s tomb.