164 
The Discovery of the Mummies of the 
Pbaraobs. 
By Horace T. Brown, F.R.S. 
*Extvacted from a Lecture on “Egypt and its Monuments,” read 
before the Society, April 19th, 1895. 
= hte this narrow gorge ran an old Egyptian road 
to the eastern valley, which ends in a precipitous 
cul-de-sac. Opening out of the steep rocky sides of the valley 
are numerous passages sloping gently downwards into the 
heart of the hills, and widening out here and there into 
several chambers, and at the end of each passage is the 
chamber which contained the sarcophagus and its regal 
mummy. 
There are in all about 25 of these rock-cut tombs of royal 
personages actually known at the present time out of the forty 
which were known to exist in the time of Strabo, but in none 
of them were the mummies themselves found. 
Up to fourteen years ago it was believed by Egyptologists 
that the royal bodies had long since disappeared under the 
hands of many generations of sacreligious spoilers of the dead, 
but in the year 1881 a most unexpected and remarkable dis- 
covery was made which has resulted in bringing to light no 
less than 36 coffins and mummies of the kings, princes, and 
princesses of the powerful XVIIIth and XIXth dynasties. 
A perfectly accurate account of the circumstances under 
which the extraordinary find was made has never yet been 
*This Lecture was published 77 extenso in the ‘‘ Journal of the Camera 
Club,” Nos. 111 and 112. 
