THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM MAGAZINE. 



263 



The Recent Archaeological Discovery 



in Egypt. 



By Ernest Wunderlich, E.R.A.S. 



NO event of I'eeent times has so fired 

 the jniblic imagination as the dis- 

 covery of Tiitankliamen's tomb 

 and storehouse in the Valley of the Kings 

 at Tliebes. Indeed it has become a craze. 

 News])apers \\hich had never before de- 

 voted an inch of their space to such 

 subjects have taken it up. From the 

 commotion made one would fancy that 

 Egyptology was quite a new thing ; and 

 yet the only extraordinary part of this 

 discovery is the fuss that has been made 

 of it. After all, it is only an episode in 

 forty years of systematic excavation : 

 only one of a long series of similar dis- 

 coveries. However, this extensive pub- 

 licity has had the effect of drawing 

 attention to archaeology and in par- 

 ticular to the important bearing Egypt 

 has had on oiu" present civilisation. 

 A sign that the general public is taking 

 a greater interest in such matters is 

 evident from the large audiences that 

 attended Professor Flinders Petrie"s 

 lante]-n lectures on " Royal Burials '" 

 recently held in London. 



Who was Tutankhamen ? Shorn of 

 ■■ ankh " and " amen," which are mere 

 titles, and mean respectively ''to 

 whom long life '" and " beloved of 

 Amen " (the deity of Thebe), the name 

 condenses to Tutu. He may or may 

 not have been of royal descent. It is 

 believed he was the natural son of 

 Amenhotep III., the great Emperor- 

 King, and his chief claim to fame is 

 having married the daughter of Amen- 

 hote]) IV. (or Akhenaten) the legitimate 

 son of that jNIonarch. Akhenaten was 

 the religious idealist and reformer, whose 

 lofty ideas were in advance of the time 

 and Avho, in endeavouring to stop war, 

 lost the greater part of Egiy^Dfs Em- 

 pire. On his death Tutu claimed the 

 throne as Tutankhaten, Init re])udi- 

 ated the idealistic doctrines of his pre- 

 decessor, and, changing his name to 

 Tutankhamen. ])ecame a j^liable tool of 



the all ])(>\\erful 'riicbaii liicratcliy of 

 Amen. 



Tutankhamen has come into the 

 limelight. He is the craze of the hour. 

 But the glamour is undeserved. Little 

 is known of his reign, and the very 

 objects found in his tomb were ]m)bay)ly 

 never his. His illustrious ancestors 

 l)ass unnoticed : Akhenaten, the ])rince 

 of jieace, Avho preached the religion of 

 love and suffered the most pathetic 

 disappointments ; Amenhotep III. the 

 serene monarch, during whose long and 

 untroubled reign Egypt reached the 

 zenith of its power and expansion of 

 peaceful enterprise, arts and com- 

 merce : Thotmes III., the great Avar- 

 rior, conqueror, and builder of the 

 Empire that Akhenaten again lost. 

 And yet the lives of these and of manjT- 

 other kingly figures of a remote past are 

 as accessible to anyone interested as the 

 history of the Middle Ages, thanks to 

 the patient labours of men of science. 

 But it must be regretfully admitted that 

 the vast literature on ancient Egypt 

 is read only by a very limited public 

 who look a little beyond the routine, 

 fads and fancies of the day. 



Few realise the extent of research 

 since Champolhon. A\orking on Dr. 

 Young's clue, first found the key to 

 hierogylphics just a hundred years ago, 

 and in deciphering the Rosetta Stone 

 established exact data upon which 

 science has since built. What great 

 men have worked in this field since 

 then, most of them without, or almost 

 without pay, purely for science's sake. 

 To mention a few : Le]:(sius, Brugsch, 

 Mariette, Maspero, Naville, Bunsen, De 

 Rouge, Wallis Budge, Flinders Petrie. 



So exact are the data in this held of 

 research that we know more about the 

 ])rivate hfe of the ancient Egyptian than 

 we do about the Greek or Roman. 



It must be asked Avhat use it is to 

 know all this. But archaeology, or 



