NATURE 



481 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1881 



EGYPTIAN EXCAVATIONS AND MUMMIES 



THE recent excavations in Egypt have been productive 

 of great results to archaeology and the history of 

 Egypt. One site, which has yielded unexpected additions 

 to the early period of the country, has been excavated on 

 scientific principles under the direction of M. Maspero, 

 the present superintendent or director of the Archajologi- 

 cal Department. It is his intention to open the «hole 

 group of unexplored pyramids, in order to find the 

 sequence of monarchs of whom they were the sepulchres, 

 and to discover any inscriptions with which they may 

 have been decorated. An examination of the whole 

 group of pyramids indeed was formerly made by J. Shay 

 Perring, C.E., at the expense of Col. Howard V'yse, who 

 spent a fortune in pyramidal researches ; but the ex- 

 cavations of Perring were chiefly devoted to the examina- 

 tion of three great pyramids of Gizeh, those of Cheops, 

 Chephren, and Mycerimis, and although he examined 

 the whole group in the scientific manner of an engineer, 

 by some fatality he appears not to have penetrated into 

 the interior ot the smaller ones, which are now in process 

 of examination by IVI. Maspero. The conviction which 

 that savant has arrived at is that these pyramids are 

 arranged in symmetrical groups, each group holding the 

 remains of the nioaarchs who followed each other in 

 chronological succession. The group just discovered 

 consists of three pyramids at Sakkara, of small dimen- 

 sions, lying to the N. and E. of the step-shaped pyramid, 

 and on the road to the Serapeum, the sepulchres of three 

 monarchs of the sixth dynasty, Ra-meri or Mira, whose 

 name was Pepi or Phiops, a king who is said to have 

 reigned 100 years all but an hour ; his successor, Merienra^ 

 named Har-em-saf, or Ta-em-saf, and a king called Una. 

 They seem all to have been constructed on ihe same 

 principle, having inclined entrances leading to sepulchral 

 chambers with pointed roofs, the walls of the passages 

 and chambers covered with hieroglyphs coloured green, 

 the ceilings of the sepul .hral chambers w ith pointed 

 roofs on which were stars in white upon a black ground, 

 indicative of the hours of the night. The inscriptions of 

 these chambers are of interest purely mythological, no 

 historical fact or allusion being mentioned in them, but 

 their contents consisting of prayers similar to those in 

 the Book of the Dead, or Ritual, and chiefly referring to 

 the myth of Osiris and Hades, especially the identifica- 

 tion of the kings with Osiris as the son of Nut and Seb, 

 and his following the course of the constellation Orion, 

 rising and setting with that constellation, allied with the star 

 Scht, or Sothis, and the progress ol^ the king to the Aahlu 

 or Egyptian Elysium, and in the account of the Island of 

 the Fields of Ho-tep, or Peace, recalling to mind Eden, 

 mention is made of a tree of life. In the Pyramid of Pepi, 

 the Phiops of the sixth dynasty, who issaidby the history of 

 Manetho to have reigned 100 years all but an hour, and who 

 must consequently have ascended the throne quite a boy, 

 was found theremains of a sarcophagus of blackand white 

 granite of unfinished work, which had been broken, and 

 another in the south-east corner of the chamber of the 

 same material, which had been let into the masonry. In 

 the vicinity of this sarcophagus on the west side between 

 Vol. xxiv. — No. 621 



this and the wall was found amidst a heap of rubbish 

 remains of dresses and mummy bandages varying from 

 yellow to dark brown of extreme fineness ; of the mummy 

 itself an embalmed hand in good condition was only 

 found, and even this may be considered remarkable, as 

 the bodies of the earlier period were only dried, ani not 

 embalmed, and generally fall to pieces when exposed to 

 air. The pyramid was indeed small, considering the long 

 reign of Pepi. The Pyramid of Metienra, or Har-em-saf, 

 which resembled in general character that of Pepi or Phiops, 

 had two sarcophagi of red granite close to one another, the 

 cover of one removed and hidden under blocks of stone. 

 The other held a body mummied, which was that of the 

 king ; it had been anciently plundered of its ornaments 

 but embal.Tied with the greatest care, the skin well pre- 

 served, the traits of the countenance distinct, the eyes 

 closed, the end of the nose fallen in, the stature of medium 

 height, and the limbs youthful. This king was the suc- 

 cessor of Phiops. The third pyramid of the group was of 

 NoferI.:ara or Nephercheres, but no details of the inscrip- 

 tions have as yet been published, although they probably 

 refer to the Osiris myth, like the others. The details of 

 the size of coffins and mummies of this pyramid are still 

 wanting. Each pyramid had a special name : that of 

 Pepi was called Mennefer, that of Ha-rem-saf was Sha- 

 nefer, that of Noferkara also Mennefer. Compared with 

 the great Pyramids of Gizch, they are far inferior, but the 

 inscriptions in them offer an interest greater than that of 

 the plain Gizeh Pyramids. The only question is whether 

 the mummies found in them are contemporaneous with the 

 sixth dynasty, which appears most probable, or subsequent 

 usurpations, of which there is no monumental or inscribed 

 evidence. 



The next remarkable discovery is that of the thirty- 

 nine mummies, several of kings, in a subterraneous well 

 or pit not very far from the edifice of the Deir-el-Bahari. 

 This remarkable structure, consisting of a temple on a 

 platform with chambers let into the solid rock, had been 

 published by Marriette Pasha, and had been suspected by 

 Brugsch Bey to be the site of the sepulchres of the early 

 monarchs of the eighteenth dynasty. The temple itself 

 had been commenced by the queen Hatasu or Hasheps, 

 daughter of Thothmes I. and wife of Thothmes II., and 

 its sculptures commemorated the expedition made by that 

 queen to Punt or Somali, the treasures brought from 

 thence in gold, silver, frankincense, besides trees of that 

 material, besides giraffes, cynocephali, large dogs. Besides 

 whijh they give representations of the inhabitants and of 

 the Egyptian fleet which descended the Red Sea on the 

 voyage of amity or discovery promoted by the Egyptian 

 queen. 



In the well or pit of the Deir-el-Bahari, which was 

 formed of bricks of conical shape stamped with inscrip- 

 tions, on which could be traced the titles of the high priest 

 of Amen-ra thus used by the monarchs of the twenty- 

 first dynasty, were found the coffins, mummies, and other 

 objects which appear to have been there deposited in the 

 reign of Herhor, first monarch of the twenty-first dynasty, 

 and of another king, Panetem or Pinotem, of the same 

 dynasty. The cause of the removal of the mummies 

 deposited in the Theban sepulchres, such as the El 

 Assasif and the Biban-el-Molook, is stated on soine of 

 the wraps of the mummies to have been the apprehen;ion 



