SIR GASTON MASPERO. IX 



folklore which found a literary expression in the dramatic story of 

 Joseph and the wife of the Egyptian official who, by the way, was 

 not Potiphar's wife. It is time to relieve this lady of the unjust sus- 

 picion that has attached to her for several thousand years. 



In 1899 he was again called back to Egypt, this time as the di- 

 rector of the Service of Antiquities. By the Anglo-French agree- 

 ment whereby, in return for allowing them free scope in Algiers, 

 the French government waived further claims on Egypt in favor of 

 the English, the English government granted the French the con- 

 tinuance of one privilege in Egypt — the supervision of the excava- 

 tions of Egyptian remains. This concession was confirmed by the 

 Convention of 1904 between England and France in regard to Mo- 

 rocco. The English were interested in live Egyptians and left the 

 mummies to the French. I suppose that it is a fair question which 

 nation got the better of the bargain. The living present is always 

 troublesome — that is what it exists for — but it is a grievous error 

 to suppose that the dead past belongs in the region where the wicked 

 cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. If we allowed the 

 dead past to bury its dead that might be the case, but archeology in- 

 sists upon exhuming the past, and it is amazing to see how much 

 trouble these old Pharaohs, who built their temples millenniums ago 

 and who have been lying beneath their pyramids and in their rock- 

 cut tombs for ever so long, can make when you dig them up. With 

 English, French and German archaeologists, backed by their govern- 

 ments, competing for the privilege of exhuming the past, the task of 

 the mediator between rival claims was hard indeed. The reviving 

 interest in archaeological research made it imperative to have at the 

 head of the Service, which was in control of all work on the tombs 

 and temples, a man of tact and judgment, one in whose fairness and 

 ability all could have confidence. One Frenchman after the other 

 tried the job of director and left the post — exhausted by worry — 

 and in an unhappy frame of mind. Maspero was called in as a 

 last resort in 1899 ^^^ maintained the headship till 1914 — a period 

 of fifteen years. 



If the preceding fourteen years were his years of greatest scien- 

 tific activity, the succeeding fifteen were those of greatest public 

 service. His time and strength were given to the difficult task be- 



