40 



DISCOVERY 



Thebes. Peser, ha\'ing acquired infonnation with 

 regard to the plundering of certain royal tombs, as 

 well as of a large number of tombs of nobles and 

 others, natiu-ally thought that here was the chance of 

 a lifetime to bring about his hated rival's downfall. 

 He accordingly passed on the information to the 

 vizier, Khamwese by name, his own and Pewer'o's 

 superior. Evidently Pewer'6 was requested to furnish 

 the \-izier with an explanation concerning the charges 

 brought against him, for the Papyrus Abbott informs us 

 that this official himself " reported to the vizier, the 

 nobles, and butlers of Pharaoh " concerning the tomb- 

 robbers. 



After thus hearing both accounts, the vizier sent a 

 commisson to western Thebes to inspect the necro- 



I"m I— GILDED AND INLAID BOX FOUND IN THE TOMB OF lUYU 

 .\.>fD TUYU. THE PAREN'TS-IN-I<.\W OF AMENOPHIS III. 



polis. The commission, which made this tour of in- 

 spection on the iSth day of the month Hathor, found 

 that all the tombs of the nobles and lesser personages 

 enumerated by Peser had been broken into, and the 

 report drawn up by the commission tells us that "the 

 thieves had pulled the occupants (of these tombs) from 

 their coverings and coffins, they (the mummies) being 

 thrown on the ground ; and that they had stolen 

 their articles of house-furniture (cf. Figs, i, 2, and 3) 

 which had been given them, together with the gold, 

 the silver, and the other ornaments which were in 

 their coverings." However, so far as the royal tombs 

 were concerned, the state of affairs was apparently 

 not so serious as Peser had maintained. Of the ten 

 kings' tombs inspected by the commission, one only 

 is stated in the report to have been plundered, while 

 two had been unsuccessfully tunnelled into by the 

 robbers. However, the plundered tomb, that of the 

 Thirteenth-Dynasty Pharaoh, Sebekemsaf, and his 

 wife Nubkhas, had been completely looted. Luckily 



for him, no doubt. Fewer 6 managed to arrest the 

 robbers of Sebekemsaf 's tomb, and a list of their names 

 was submitted to the vizier. 



What the Thieves found in Sebekemsaf's 

 Tomb 



Accordingly on tlie ne.xt day, the igth of Hathor, 

 the vizier Khamwese and a number of his subordinates 

 examined the eight men accused of this crime, "and 

 the manner in which the thieves had laid their hands 

 upon the king and his royal wife was ascertained. ' ' 

 A portion of their full confession, dragged out of them, 

 no doubt, after a severe beating and under threats of 

 further torture, is preserved to us in a fragmentary 

 document in the Amherst Collection. The descrip- 

 tion of how the robbers broke into the tomb is un- 

 fortunately lost, the first really intelligible passage 

 describing their coming upon the sarcophagus of the 

 queen within the actual burial-chamber. " We pene- 

 trated them all (doubtless the thieves are speaking of 

 a series of chambers and passages leading one into 

 another), we found her resting likewise. We opened 

 their coffins and their coverings (i.e. the inner coffins) 

 in which they were. We found this august mummy of 

 the king. . . . There was a numerous array of 

 amulets and ornaments of gold at its throat ; its head 

 had a mask (?) of gold upon it ; the august mummy 

 of the king was overlaid with gold throughout. 

 The coverings were wrought with gold and silver, 

 within and without ; inlaid with every splendid costly 

 stone. We stripped off the gold which we found on 

 the august mummy of this god, and its amulets and 

 ornaments which were at his throat, and the coverings 

 wherein it rested." The thieves then go on to say 

 how they stripped the body of the queen in like manner, 

 and how finally, to complete their work of destruction, 

 they set fire to " the coverings." With the mummies 

 of the king and queen they found a number of gold, 

 silver, and bronze vases, of which they took possession, 

 and as for the gold which they found on the mummies 

 and on their " coverings," they divided it into eight 

 parts. , 



A Suspected Coppersmith " Examined " 



On the same day, Hathor 19th, another judicial 

 investigation was also undertaken by Ivhamwese and 

 his assistants. It was a proceedimg of great interest 

 for us moderns, for it partook of the nature of a re- 

 construction of the crime, a feature of French judicial 

 inquiries in criminal cases. A certain coppersmith, 

 Pekharu by name, was among those accused by 

 Pewer'6 of tomb-robbing. Probably in order to avoid 

 further beating, he had confessed to having been in 

 the tomb of Queen Ise, a wife of Ramesses III, and to 



