16 



ARCHAEOLOGY. 



the style, though becoming degraded and clumsy, 

 retains the character of the old kingdom. Besides 

 many minor objects of the old and middle king- 

 doms, a beautifully carved group of Mentuhotep, 

 son of Beba, and his wife Nefermeant, daughter of 

 Hepy, probably of the eleventh dynasty, is men- 

 tioned. The man's head is lost, but the woman's is 

 equal to the best work of the old kingdom. 



The Tomb of Osiris. In excavations begun in 

 1896 at Abydos in search of relics of the worship of 

 Osiris, of which he had already found some traces, 

 M. E. Amelineau reached a point within three or 

 four metres of a large tomb. His work there was 

 then suspended in consequence of his occupation at 

 other points. The hill under which the tomb was 

 hidden, 180 metres long by 160 metres wide, and be- 

 tween 7 and 8 metres high, was composed of " mil- 

 lions upon millions" of small jars and earthen 

 vases, along with some large ones mixed up with 

 sand and a few rare pieces of stone. From the 

 first days of the new excavations, begun in Decem- 

 ber, 1897, pieces of pottery of all shapes, entire or 

 broken, were found, bearing inscriptions written in 

 hieroglyphic or hieratic signs. Large numbers of 

 pieces mentioned the name of Osiris, and a smaller 

 number bore the name of Amon-Ra. A few of 

 them mentioned the House of Osiris. These dis- 

 coveries impressed M. Amelineau so strongly, he 

 says, that as early as Dec. 2 he recorded in the 

 diary he kept of his excavations the belief that he 

 was going to come across the tomb of Osiris. The 

 tomb was a large rectangle in shape, and sur- 

 rounded on its four sides by series of tombs num- 

 bering about 200 in all. Moreover, the necropolis, 

 known in the country as Om-el-Gaab-el-Gharby, 

 contained the sepulchres of persons of very high 

 rank, among them kings whose steles had been dis- 

 covered by M. Amelineau two years previously. 

 On the 1st day of January the " fortunate stair- 

 case " mentioned in the text concerning the House 

 of Osiris was discovered, and the next day a gran- 

 ite monolith in the shape of a bud decorated with 

 the head and legs of a lion, on which was lying a 

 mummy bearing what is known as the white crown, 

 and holding in its hands, which came out of the 

 case, a flagellum and a pastoral cane. Near the 

 head were two hawks, and two more were at the 

 feet. The head was designated by the inscription, 

 "Osiris the Good Being." The "hawks were la- 

 beled "Horus, avenger of his father"; and the 

 goddess Isis was also designated by her name. The 

 monument was 1.70 metre, or 5 feet, in width, and 

 about a metre (3 feet 3 inches) in height. The 

 tomb itself had the shape of a dwelling, with a 

 courtyard in front. It contained 14 rooms and 

 the staircase, 5 rooms to the north, 5 to the south, 

 and 4 to the east, while the western face was open. 

 There were evidences of fire in the tomb, and it 

 seemed to have suffered from spoliators; and for 

 these reasons the results of the excavations are not 

 so complete as was desirable. 



Tin- "Journal Egyptien," in publishing M. Ame'- 

 linoau's letter, observes that M. Marriette spent 

 much time and money at Abydos in searching for 

 the conventional tomb of Osiris. The discovery of 

 M. Amelineau. astonishing as it may appear, is a 

 possibility and in accordance with the records of 

 all the ancient authors and the belief of most 

 Ku'yptologists. The tomb spoken of in connection 

 with this disciivery and with M. Marriette's search 

 is a conventional tomb, supposed to have been in- 

 stituted by the priests in very ancient times, and 

 not any real tomb in which the jrod was actually 

 buried. It is possible that the tomb discovered may 

 be proved, after more complete examination of the 

 epigraphic documents exhumed, to be a sanctuary 

 to Osiris erected during one of the later dynasties. 



Tombs of Amenophis II and other Kings. 



It was announced in April that M. Lovet had 

 discovered and opened the tomb of Amenophis 

 II, of the eighteenth dynasty, and found the 

 mummy of that king intact, and with it the mum- 

 mies of Thothmes IV, Amenophis III, Set Nakht, 

 Seii II, and Rameses IV, Rameses VI, and Rain- 

 eses VIII. The discovery marks the first instance 

 in which the body of an Egyptian king has been 

 found actually in the tomb prepared for him, in 

 other instances the tombs having been found with- 

 out the bodies or the bodies found removed from 

 their tombs. In this case the valuable objects hat! 

 been taken away, but the tomb was in perfect 

 preservation, with the paintings fresh and the sar- 

 cophagi and chaplets of flowers in excellent condi- 

 tion. In the first chamber of the tomb the body 

 of a man was found bound on a richly painted 

 boat, his arms and feet tied with cord, a gag in his 

 mouth, and wounds in his breast and head ; and in 

 the next chamber three other bodies of persons who 

 had been killed by violence. It is believed that these 

 bodies represent human sacrifices offered at the 

 time of the royal burial. 



Among the relics discovered by Mr. Petrie in his 

 explorations of 1896, and described in his book on 

 " Six Temples of Thebes," was a wine jar dated in 

 the twenty-sixth year of Amenophis II, vindicating 

 the statement of Manetho that this king reigned 

 twenty-five years and ten months, and refuting M. 

 Maspero's theory that his reign was a short one. "It 

 is indeed wonderful," Mr. Petrie remarks, " how 

 constantly Manetho's statements, after a long period 

 of discredit, are justified by the monuments, and 

 how accurate his records have lately proved." 



Early Remains at Deshasher. In the explora- 

 tions of Deshasher, nearly opposite Beni Suef and 

 near the site of the ancient Heracleopolis Magna, 

 by Prof. Petrie in 1897, an account of which is pub- 

 lished in the fifteenth memoir of the Egypt Ex- 

 ploration Fund, a portrait statue of Prince Neuk- 

 heft-Ka, of the fifth dynasty, was recovered, the 

 pleasing expression, European features, and execu- 

 tion of which bear witness to the high level attained 

 by Egyptian art at that early age. Here also were 

 found some of the oldest amulets in the world, dif- 

 fering somewhat from those in use in the twenty- 

 sixth dynasty, which were considered the earliest 

 known examples. Some excellent bas-reliefs of 

 about a century later than the statue depict scenes 

 in a war between the Egyptians and another people 

 which are very spirited and dramatic, and so far the 

 earliest of their kind. One of them represents the 

 siege of a town defended almost entirely by women. 

 A partly successful escalade headed by bearded 

 archers has taken place, but the assailants are all 

 disposed of by the women as they get over the ram- 

 parts, while outside a round-capped officer is seen 

 leaning on his staff and directing the efforts of two 

 soldiers who are mining the wall with pikes. 

 Another discovery was that of many mutilated 

 skeletons, the bodies having been dismembered 

 before burial and each part wrapped separately in 

 a linen cloth. Mr. Petrie suggests that this may be 

 a "relic of cannibalism." 



Development of Egyptian Funereal Art By 

 a change in arrangement the mummies and coffins 

 in the British Museum have been made more acces- 

 sible, and may be seen to better advantage. The 

 museum preserves about 44 mummies and 80 

 coffins, besides covers of coffins and various frag- 

 ments, which, taken together, represent a period 

 of about four thousand years. The oldest mummi- 

 fied human remains in' the collection are those of 

 Mycerinus. the builder of the third pyramid of 

 Gizeh ; and the most modern, those of a lady whose 

 name is unknown, with her three children, who 





