Excavators are, as a rule, extremely good judges of humanity. They know that an ancient predatory instinct is present in most people of the Anglo-Saxon race, and who knows how many short lectures on honesty that one small blue bead gave rise to. But even excavators, or perhaps it is more correct to say some of them, have their failings. They are apt to look down from an immense height upon an amateur digger as something too ignorant for words; and a pained look comes over their faces when you mention the work done by So-and-so, and the conclusions to which he has come. “What is the country coming to?” their expression seems to say.
But the excavators have their trials too. Sometimes a digger has been working for weeks at some deep burial pit. Suppose now that “something” has been found. Perhaps a door is about to be opened. At the critical moment, some tourists appear on the scene. The unearthing or opening must stop, for who knows what may be found, and the greatest care must be taken to get full notes and photographic records, that nothing may be lost. The afternoon passes, and night begins to come on. It is too late now to open the find, it must wait, strongly guarded from thieves, till to-morrow; and the excavator passes an uneasy night, pondering and wondering what he will find, and saying evil things about those who hindered him in his work.
I have been in the habit of showing my forged antiquities to Egyptologists, not bumptiously, but humbly, and with a due knowledge of my own colossal ignorance. The specimen would be passed across the table in silence, accompanied by a magnifying glass. The expert would frown heavily, but the specimen and the glass would, in the end, prove irresistible. As I produced scarabs made more perfect, a certain uneasiness would be shown, and the question asked me, “Is this genuine or not?” To this I would never reply otherwise than to say, “I should be glad to have your opinion on the matter.” A very careful examination of the specimen would follow, and the reasons for considering it to be a forgery would be explained in terse plain language.
There is a certain disadvantage in collecting spurious antiquities and getting expressions of opinion upon them; for after a time your association with these forgeries causes an inclination in the expert to condemn off-hand any specimen you may submit to him. To meet this occasionally I would hand over a genuine scarab, which would be detected, and inquiry made as to “what I was up to now, or whether I had really bought this as a fraudulent antiquity?” Occasionally remarks would be pointed, and expressed in the bluff way which “hides a heart of gold.” This I always accepted humbly, conscious of my own inferiority.
These experts were goodness itself, and would spend hours over a close examination of a specimen submitted to them. On one occasion, when showing the figure seen on page 54, the excavator demanded “where on earth” I had obtained it? Filled with the spirit of mischief, I refused to answer, but dropped vague hints about black granite statues, life size; at which he turned round, saying crossly, “Really, I believe you are in league with every disreputable person in the country.” Modestly I disclaimed this, and pointed out that I was actuated simply and solely by a zeal for science. I asked him if he would be kind enough to read the inscription upon the tablet before him. This he was unable to do himself, but he made a copy which he took away for a friend to read. Day after day went past, and the translation did not arrive. After about a week or ten days, I reminded him, but for some reason or other, the translation was not forthcoming. Weeks after, I learnt that my friend had been afraid to hand the inscription to the man whom he knew could read it, lest it should be a further trick on my part, and should contain nothing more than a message of thanks from a grateful patient.
On another occasion I made an experiment as to whether my association with modern forged antiquities would be sufficient to bias an expert in expressing his opinion as to the genuineness of articles of known antiquity submitted to him.
I obtained four specimens (see [Plate XVI]), of undoubted antiquity, although even these are examples made in or for Nubia about 3500 years ago of Egyptian Funerary objects of New Empire period (reign of Thothmes III).
The largest scarab is of very poor workmanship. The head, which took the unusual form of a sphinx, was badly made and proportioned, and was turned slightly to one side. The workmanship of the smaller scarab was also poor. The sacred eye was well made, of a beautiful blue, and looked as if it had only just left the workshop. The monkey was one of the most startling things I have ever seen found in an excavation in Egypt. The glaze was modern and the whole thing looked as if it had recently come out of a cheap bazaar. But there can be no question about the authenticity of these things, for they were found and taken out of the graves by the archæologists of the Nubian Survey.
PLATE XVI.
