The excavations at Deshasheh in 1897, which first showed me the diversity of burials, also showed that the type of the race had already become unified by intermixture, and that, strange to say, four thousand years later, after untold crossings with many invaders, the type was unchanged. Later work at Dendereh and elsewhere has pointed to the conclusion that a mixture of a new race is subdued to the type of the country by the effect of climate and surroundings within a few centuries.
Turning now to the purely classical Egyptian work, the principal discoveries of the last few years have given us new leading examples in every line. The great copper statue of King Pepy, with his son, dates from before 3000 B. C. It is over life size, and entirely wrought in hammered copper, showing a complete mastery in metal work of the highest artistic power. Probably of the same age is a head of a figure of the sacred hawk, wrought hollow in a single mass of hammered gold, weighing over a pound; this again shows work of noble dignity and power. Both of these were found at Hierakonpolis in 1898, and are now in the Cairo Museum.
Some centuries later was made the exquisite jewelry found at Dahshur in the graves of three princesses. This is a revelation of the delicacy possible in goldsmith’s work. The soldering of the minute parts of the gold is absolutely invisible. The figures of hawks are made up of dozens of microscopic pieces of colored stone—lazuli, turquoise, carnelian—every one cut to the forms of the feathers, and every piece having a tiny cell of soldered gold strip to hold it in place, yet the whole bird only about half an inch high. The finest colored enameling ever made would be child’s play compared with a piece of this early jewelry. The exquisite grace of form, harmony of coloring, and sense of perfection leave the mind richer by a fresh emotion, after seeing such a new world of skill. Coming down to about 1500 B. C., a large work has been done in the last six years in clearing the temple of Queen Hatshepsut at Deir el Bahri, on the western side of Thebes. That great ruler had there commemorated the events of her reign, particularly the expedition to the south of the Red Sea to obtain the plants of the sacred incense and other valued products. The attention shown to exact figuring of plants and animals makes this valuable as a record of natural history. This clearance has been made by Dr. Naville for the English fund. Meanwhile, Franco-Egyptian officials have been clearing out the Temple of Karnak, on the opposite bank, but with disastrous effect. The huge columns, built poorly of small blocks by Rameses II, stand now below the level of the inundation, and, after removing the earth accumulated around them, the Nile water has free circulation. This has dissolved the mortar so much that nine of these Titanic columns of the Great Hall fell last year, and three more threaten to follow them.
The Valley of the Tombs of the Kings has been prohibited ground to foreign explorers for over forty years, although the official department never did any work there. The native plunderers, however, turned up many years ago the beautiful chair of Queen Hatshepsut, and lately they found the entry to still unopened royal tombs. The secret passed—for a consideration—to the Department of Antiquities, and two royal tombs were opened. These contained the bodies of several kings of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties—one undisturbed, the others moved from elsewhere. With these was a crowd of objects of funereal furniture. Unhappily, nothing is published in detail of any official discoveries; with the exception of the first find of the Dahshur jewelry, there has never been any full account issued of the great discoveries in the most important sites, which are reserved to the Government. The great group of kings found at Deir el Bahri, the great necropolis of the priests of Amen, the second find of Dahshur jewelry, the second group of royal mummies, of all these we know nothing but what has appeared in newspapers, or some partial account of one branch of the subject. Hardly any publication has ever appeared, such as the English societies issue every year about the produce of their excavations.
Many of the royal temples of the nineteenth dynasty at Thebes were explored by the English in 1896. The Ramesseum was completely examined, through all the maze of stone chambers around it. But the most important result was the magnificent tablet of black granite, about ten feet high and five wide, covered on one side with an inscription of Amen Hotep III, and on the other side with an inscription of Merenptah. The latter account, of about 1200 B. C., mentions the war with the “People of Israel”; this is the only naming of Israel on Egyptian records, and is several centuries earlier than any Assyrian record of the Hebrews. It has, of course, given rise to much discussion, which is too lengthy to state here.
One of the most important results of historical Egyptian times is the light thrown on prehistoric Greek ages. The pottery known as “Mykenæan” since the discoveries of Schliemann in the Peloponnesus was first dated in Egypt at Gurob in 1889; next were found hundreds of vase fragments at Tell el Amarna in 1892; and since then several Egyptian kings’ names have been found on objects in Greece, along with such pottery. The whole of this evidence shows that the grand age of prehistoric Greece, which can well compare with the art of classical Greece, began about 1600 B. C., was at its highest point about 1400 B. C., and became decadent about 1200 B. C., before its overthrow by the Dorian invasion.
Besides this dating, Greece is indebted to Egypt for the preservation of the oldest texts of its classics. Fragments of Plato almost contemporary with his lifetime, pages of Thucydides, whole books of the Iliad, and the celebrated recent publications of Bacchylides and Herondas, all are due to Egypt. Moreover, of Christian times we have a leaf of an early collection of Sayings of Jesus, a leaf of gospel about two centuries older than any other biblical manuscript, and a host of documents bearing on early Christianity, such as the Gospel of Peter and other apocryphal writings which were later banned by the Church.
Now it may be asked how all these discoveries are made—indeed, many people take for granted that some government kindly pays for it all. On the contrary, the only official influences are a severe check on such scientific work. While a native Egyptian can plunder tombs with but little hindrance, any one desiring to preserve objects and promote knowledge must (after obtaining the permission of the Egyptian Government for the exact place he wants to work) be officially inspected at his own expense (a matter of twenty or thirty pounds a season), and then, after all, give up to the Government half of all he finds, without any recompense. The English Government long ago gave up all claim for British subjects to occupy any post in the Cairo Museum, thus putting a decisive bar on the hopes of would-be students and hindering the object very effectually.
In face of all these disadvantages, work has yet been carried on by the Egypt Exploration Fund and by the Egyptian Research Account; both rely on English and American support, and the latter body is intended expressly to help students in training. Besides these, private work has been carried on during several years by two or three other explorers, partly at their own cost, partly helped by friends. The two societies above named have kept to the principles that everything shall be published as soon as possible, and that all the antiquities removed from Egypt shall be divided among public museums as gifts in return for the support from various places, nothing ever being sold publicly or privately. In this way several centers in America send large annual contributions, have representatives on the London Committee of the Exploration Fund, and receive their share for museums every year.
Besides this organizing of ways and means, there is quite as important organization needed in the excavations. At present most of the above-named work is done by a corps of men who have been engaged at it for many years. They leave their homes and assemble as soon as the winter begins; any dealing in antiquities or misconduct since the last season excludes them from rejoining. They each know their work, what to preserve, how to leave everything intact in the ground where found, and how best to manage different kinds of excavating. With such men it is always possible to screw more information out of a site, however much it may have been already wrecked in ancient or modern times. And it is far safer to leave such men unwatched, with the certainty that they will receive a fair value for all they find, than it is to drive a gang under the lash, on bare wages, without rewards to keep them from pilfering. The English system means mutual confidence and good faith; the native and French system of force means the destruction of both information and antiquities.