mummy being laid in its original sarcophagus; and a model boat, used in one of the funeral
ceremonies, was left in the tomb. One night the six watchmen who were in charge of the royal
tombs stated that they had been attacked by an armed force; the tomb in question was seen
to have been entered, the iron doors having been forced. The mummy of the Pharaoh was
found lying upon the floor of the burial-hal, its chest smashed in; and the boat had [245]
disappeared, nor has it since been recovered. The watchmen showed signs of having put up
something of a fight, their clothes being riddled with bulet-holes; but here and there the cloth
looked much as though it had been singed, which suggested, as did other evidence, that they
themselves had fired the guns and had acted the struggle. The truth of the matter wil never be
known, but its lesson is obvious. The mummy was put back into its sarcophagus, and there it
has remained secure ever since; but one never knows how soon it wil be dragged forth once
more to be searched for the gold with which every native thinks it is stuffed.
Some years ago an armed gang walked off with a complete series of mortuary reliefs
belonging to a tomb at Sakkârah. They came by night, overpowered the watchmen, loaded
the blocks of stone on to camels, and disappeared into the darkness. Sometimes it is an entire
cemetery that is attacked; and, if it happens to be situated some miles from the nearest police-
station, a good deal of work can be done before the authorities get wind of the affair. Last
winter six hundred men set to work upon a patch of desert ground where a tomb had been
accidently found, and, ere I received the news, they had robbed a score of little graves, many
of which must have contained objects purchasable by the dealers in antiquities for quite large [246]
sums of money. At Abydos a tomb which we had just discovered was raided by the vilagers,
and we only regained possession of it after a rapid exchange of shots, one of which came near
ending a career whose continuance had been, since birth, a matter of great importance to
myself. But how amusing the adventure must have been for the raiders!
The appropriation of treasure-trove come upon by chance, or the digging out of graves
accidentaly discovered, is a very natural form of robbery for the natives to indulge in, and one
which commends itself to the sympathies of al those not actively concerned in its suppression.
There are very few persons even in western countries who would be wiling to hand over to
the Government a hoard of gold discovered in their own back garden. In Egypt the law is that
the treasure-trove thus discovered belongs to the owner of the property; and thus there is
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always a certain amount of excavation going on behind the wals of the houses. It is also the
law that the peasants may carry away the accumulated rubbish on the upper layers of ancient
town sites, in order to use it as a fertiliser for their crops, since it contains valuable
phosphates. This work is supervised by watchmen, but this does not prevent the stealing of
almost al the antiquities which are found. As ilegal excavators these sebakhîn, or manure-
diggers, are the worst offenders, for they search for the phosphates in al manner of places, [247]
and are constantly coming upon tombs or ruins which they promptly clear of their contents.
One sees them driving their donkeys along the roads, each laden with a sack of manure, and it
is certain that some of these sacks contain antiquities. In Thebes many of the natives live inside
the tombs of the ancient nobles, these generaly consisting of two or three rock-hewn hals
from which a tunnel leads down to the burial-chamber. Generaly this tunnel is choked with
débris, and the owner of the house wil perhaps come upon it by chance, and wil dig it out, in
the vain hope that earlier plunderers have left some of the antiquities undisturbed. It recently
happened that an entire family was asphyxiated while attempting to penetrate into a newly
discovered tunnel, each member entering to ascertain the fate of the previous explorer, and
each being overcome by the gases. On one occasion I was asked by a native to accompany
him down a tunnel, the entrance of which was in his stable, in order to view a sarcophagus
which lay at the bottom. We each took a candle, and, crouching down to avoid the low roof,
we descended the narrow, winding passage, the loose stones sliding beneath our feet. The air
was very foul; and below us there was the thunderous roar of thousands of wings beating
through the echoing passage—the wings of evil-smeling bats. Presently we reached this
uncomfortable zone. So thickly did the bats hang from the ceiling that the rock itself seemed to [248]
be black; but as we advanced, and the creatures took to their wings, this black covering
appeared to peel off the rock. During the entire descent this curious spectacle of regularly
receding blackness and advancing grey was to be seen a yard or so in front of us. The roar of
wings was now deafening, for the space into which we were driving the bats was very
confined. My guide shouted to me that we must let them pass out of the tomb over our heads.
We therefore crouched down, and a few stones were flung into the darkness ahead. Then,
with a roar and a rush of air, they came, bumping into us, entangling themselves in our clothes,
slapping our faces and hands with their unwholesome wings, and clinging to our fingers. At last
the thunder died away in the passage behind us, and we were able to advance more easily,
though the ground was alive with the bats maimed in the frantic flight which had taken place,
floundering out of our way and squeaking shrily. The sarcophagus proved to be of no interest,
so the encounter with the bats was to no purpose.
The pilfering of antiquities found during the course of authorised excavations is one of the most
common forms of robbery. The overseer cannot always watch the workmen sufficiently
closely to prevent them pocketing the smal objects which they find, and it is an easy matter to
carry off the stolen goods, even though the men are searched at the end of the day. A little girl [249]
minding her father's sheep and goats in the neighbourhood of the excavations, and apparently
occupying her hands with the spinning of flax, is perhaps the receiver of the objects. Thus it is
more profitable to dig for antiquities even in authorised excavations than to work the water-
hoist, which is one of the usual occupations of the peasant. Puling the hoisting-pole down, and
swinging it up again with its load of water many thousands of times in the day, is monotonous
work; whereas digging in the ground, with the eyes keenly watching for the appearance of
antiquities, is always interesting and exciting. And why should the digger refrain from
appropriating the objects which his pick reveals? If he does not make use of his opportunities
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and carry off the antiquities, the western director of the works wil take them to his own
country and sel them for his own profit. Al natives believe that the archæologists work for the
purpose of making money. Speaking of Professor Flinders Petrie, a peasant said to me the
other day: "He has worked five-and-twenty years now; he must be very rich." He would
never believe that the antiquities were given to museums without any payment being made to
the finder.
The stealing of fragments broken out of the wals of "show" monuments is almost the only form
of robbery which wil receive general condemnation. That this vandalism is also distasteful to [250]
the natives themselves is shown by the fact that several better-class Egyptians living in the
neighbourhood of Thebes subscribed, at my invitation, the sum of £50 for the protection of
certain beautiful tombs. When they were shown the works undertaken with their money, they
expressed themselves as being "pleased with the delicate inscriptions in the tombs, but very
awfuly angry at the damage which the devils of ignorant people had made." A native of
moderate inteligence can quite appreciate the argument that whereas the continuous warfare
between the agents of the Department of Antiquities and the ilegal excavators of smal graves
is what might be caled an honourable game, the smashing of public monuments cannot be
caled fair-play from whatever point of view the matter is approached. Often revenge or spite
is the cause of this damage. It is sometimes necessary to act with severity to the peasants who
infringe the rules of the Department, but a serious danger lies in such action, for it is the nature
of the Thebans to revenge themselves not on the official directly but on the monuments which
he is known to love. Two years ago a native ilegaly built himself a house on Government
ground, and I was obliged to go through the formality of puling it down, which I did by
obliging him to remove a few layers of brickwork around the wals. A short time afterwards a
famous tomb was broken into and a part of the paintings destroyed; and there was enough [251]
evidence to show that the owner of this house was the culprit, though unfortunately he could
not be convicted. One man actualy had the audacity to warn me that any severity on my part
would be met by destruction of monuments. Under these circumstances an official finds
himself in a dilemma. If he maintains the dignity and prestige of his Department by punishing
any offences against it, he endangers the very objects for the care of which he is responsible;
and it is hard to say whether under a lax or a severe administration the more damage would
be done.
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[Photo by E. Bird.
A modern Gournawi beggar.
PL. XXIV.
The produce of these various forms of robbery is easily disposed of. When once the
antiquities have passed into the hands of the dealers there is little chance of further trouble.
The dealer can always say that he came into possession of an object years ago, before the
antiquity laws were made, and it is almost impossible to prove that he did not. You may have
the body of a statue and he the head: he can always damage the line of the breakage, and say
that the head does not belong to that statue, or, if the connection is too obvious, he can say
that he found the head while excavating twenty years ago on the site where now you have
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found the body. Nor is it desirable to bring an action against the man in a case of this kind, for
it might go against the official. Dealing in antiquities is regarded as a perfectly honourable
business. The official, crawling about the desert on his stomach in the bitter cold of a winter's [252]
night in order to hold up a convoy of stolen antiquities, may use hard language in regard to the
trade, but he cannot say that it is pernicious as long as it is confined to minor objects. How
many objects of value to science would be destroyed by their finders if there was no market
to take them to! One of the Theban dealers leads so holy a life that he wil assuredly be
regarded as a saint by future generations.
The sale of smal antiquities to tourists on the public roads is prohibited, except at certain
places, but of course it can be done with impunity by the exercise of a little care. Men and
boys and even little girls as they pass wil stare at you with studying eyes, and if you seem to
be a likely purchaser, they wil draw from the folds of their garments some little object which
they wil offer for sale. Along the road in the glory of the setting sun there wil come as fine a
young man as you wil see on a day's march. Surely he is bent on some noble mission: what
lofty thoughts are occupying his mind, you wonder. But as you pass, out comes the scarab
from his pocket, and he shouts, "Wanty scarab, mister?—two shilin'," while you ride on your
way a greater cynic than before.
Some years ago a large inscribed stone was stolen from a certain temple, and was promptly
sold to a man who sometimes traded in such objects. This man carried the stone, hidden in a [253]
sack of grain, to the house of a friend, and having deposited it in a place of hiding, he tramped
home, with his stick across his shoulders, in an attitude of deep unconcern. An enemy of his,
however, had watched him, and promptly gave information. Acting on this the police set out
to search the house. When we reached the entrance we were met by the owner, and a
warrant was shown to him. A heated argument folowed, at the end of which the infuriated
man waved us in with a magnificent and most dramatic gesture. There were some twenty
rooms in the house, and the stifling heat of a July noon made the task none too enjoyable. The
police inspector was extremely thorough in his work, and an hour had passed before three
rooms had been searched. He looked into the cupboards, went down on his knees to peer
into the ovens, stood on tiptoe to search the fragile wooden shelves (it was a heavy stone
which we were looking for), hunted under the mats, and even peeped into a little tobacco-tin.
In one of the rooms there were three or four beds arranged along the middle of the floor. The
inspector puled off the mattresses, and out from under each there leapt a dozen rats, which, if
I may be believed, made for the wals and ran straight up them, disappearing in the rafter-
holes at the top. The sight of countless rats hurrying up perpendicular wals may be familiar to
some people, but I venture to cal it an amazing spectacle, worthy of record. Then came the [254]
opening of one or two traveling-trunks. The inspector ran his hand through the clothes which
lay therein, and out jumped a few more rats, which likewise went up the wals. The searching
of the remaining rooms carried us wel through the afternoon; and at last, hot and weary, we
decided to abandon the hunt. Two nights later a man was seen walking away from the house
with a heavy sack on his back; and the stone is now, no doubt, in the Western hemisphere.
The attempt to regain a lost antiquity is seldom crowned with success. It is so extremely
difficult to obtain reliable information; and as soon as a man is suspected his enemies wil rush
in with accusations. Thirty-eight separate accusations were sent in against a certain head-
watchman during the first days after the fact had leaked out that he was under suspicion. Not
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one of them could be shown to be true. Sometimes one man wil bring a charge against
another for the betterment of his own interests. Here is a letter from a watchman who had
resigned, but wished to rejoin, "To his Exec. Chief Dircoter of the tembels. I have honner to
inform that I am your servant X, watchman on the tembels before this time. Sir from one year
ago I work in the Santruple (?) as a watchman about four years ago. And I not make anything
wrong and your Exec. know me. Now I want to work in my place in the tembel, because the
man which in it he not attintive to His, but alway he in the coffee.... He also steal the scribed [255]
stones. Please give your order to point me again. Your servant, X." "The coffee" is, of course,
the café which adjoins the temple.
A short time ago a young man came to me with an accusation against his own father, who, he
said, had stolen a statuette. The tale which he told was circumstantial, but it was hotly denied
by his infuriated parent. He looked, however, a trifle more honest than his father, and when a
younger brother was brought in as witness, one felt that the guilt of the old man would be the
probable finding. The boy stared steadfastly at the ground for some moments, however, and
then launched out into an elaborate explanation of the whole affair. He said that he asked his
father to lend him four pounds, but the father had refused. The son insisted that that sum was
due to him as his share in some transaction, and pointed out that though he only asked for it as
a loan, he had in reality a claim to it. The old man refused to hand it over, and the son,
therefore, waited his opportunity and stole it from his house, carrying it off triumphantly to his
own establishment. Here he gave it into the charge of his young wife, and went about his
business. The father, however, guessed where the money had gone; and while his son was
out, invaded his house, beat his daughter-in-law on the soles of her feet until she confessed
where the money was hidden, and then, having obtained it, returned to his home. When the [256]
son came back to his house he learnt what had happened, and, out of spite, at once invented
the accusation which he had brought to me. This story appeared to be true in so far as the
quarrel over the money was concerned, but that the accusation was invented proved to be
untrue.
Sometimes the peasants have such honest faces that it is difficult to believe that they are guilty
of deceit. A lady came to the camp of a certain party of excavators at Thebes, holding in her
hand a scarab. "Do tel me," she said to one of the archæologists, "whether this scarab is
genuine. I am sure it must be, for I bought it from a boy who assured me that he had stolen it
from your excavations, and he looked such an honest and truthful little felow."
In order to check pilfering in a certain excavation in which I was assisting we made a rule that
the selected workmen should not be alowed to put unselected substitutes in their place. One
day I came upon a man whose appearance did not seem familiar, although his back was
turned to me. I asked him who he was, whereupon he turned upon me a countenance which
might have served for the model of a painting of St John, and in a low, sweet-voice he told me
of the ilness of the real workman, and of how he had taken over the work in order to obtain
money for the purchase of medicine for him, they being friends from their youth up. I sent him
away and told him to cal for any medicine he might want that evening. I did not see him again [257]
until about a week later, when I happened to meet him in the vilage with a policeman on either
side of him, from one of whom I learned that he was a wel-known thief. Thus is one deceived
even in the case of real criminals: how then can one expect to get at the truth when the crime
committed is so light an affair as the stealing of an antiquity?
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The folowing is a letter received from one of the greatest thieves in Thebes, who is now
serving a term of imprisonment in the provincial gaol:—
"SIR GENERAL INSPECTOR,—I offer this application stating that I am from
the natives of Gurneh, saying the folowing:—
'On Saturday last I came to your office and have been told that my family using
the sate to strengthen against the Department. The result of this talking that al
these things which somebody pretends are not the fact. In fact I am taking great
care of the antiquities for the purpose of my living matter. Accordingly, I wish to
be appointed in the vacant of watching to the antiquities in my vilage and
promise myself that if anything happens I do hold myself resposible.'"
I have no idea what "using the sate to strengthen" means.
It is sometimes said that European excavators are committing an offence against the
sensibilities of the peasants by digging up the bodies of their ancestors. Nobody wil repeat [258]
this remark who has walked over a cemetery plundered by the natives themselves. Here
bodies may be seen lying in al directions, torn limb from limb by the gold-seekers; here
beautiful vases may be seen smashed to atoms in order to make more rare the specimens
preserved. The peasant has no regard whatsoever for the sanctity of the ancient dead, nor
does any superstition in this regard deter him in his work of destruction. Fortunately
superstition sometimes checks other forms of robbery. Djins are believed to guard the hoards
of ancient wealth which some of the tombs are thought to contain, as, for example, in the case
of the tomb in which the family was asphyxiated, where a fiend of this kind was thought to
have throttled the unfortunate explorers. Twin brothers are thought to have the power of
changing themselves into cats at wil; and a certain Huseyn Osman, a harmless individual
enough, and a most expert digger, would turn himself into a cat at night-time, not only for the
purpose of stealing his brother Muhammed Osman's dinner, but also in order to protect the
tombs which his patron was occupied in excavating. One of the overseers in some recent
excavations was said to have power of detecting al robberies on his works. The
archæologist, however, is unfortunately unable to rely upon this form of protection, and many
are the schemes for the prevention of pilfering which are tried.
In some excavations a sum of money is given to the workman for every antiquity found by [259]
him, and these sums are sufficiently high to prevent any outbidding by the dealers. Work thus
becomes very expensive for the archæologist, who is sometimes caled upon to pay £10 or
£20 in a day. The system has also another disadvantage, namely, that the workmen are apt to
bring antiquities from far and near to "discover" in their diggings in order to obtain a good
price for them. Nevertheless, it would seem to be the most successful of the systems. In the
Government excavations it is usual to employ a number of overseers to watch for the smal
finds, while for only the realy valuable discoveries is a reward given.
For finding the famous gold hawk's head at Hieraconpolis a workman received £14, and with
this princely sum in his pocket he went to a certain Englishman to ask advice as to the
spending of it. He was troubled, he said, to decide whether to buy a wife or a cow. He
admitted that he had already one wife, and that two of them would be sure to introduce some
friction into what was now a peaceful household; and he quite realised that a cow would be
less apt to quarrel with his first wife. The Englishman, very properly, voted for the cow, and
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the peasant returned home deep in thought. While pondering over the matter during the next
few weeks, he entertained his friends with some freedom, and soon he found to his dismay
that he had not enough money left to buy either a wife or a cow. Thereupon he set to with a [260]
wil, and soon spent the remaining guineas in riotous living. When he was next seen by the
Englishman he was a beggar, and, what was worse, his taste for evil living had had several
weeks of cultivation.
The case of the fortunate finder of a certain great cache of mummies was different. He
received a reward of £400, and this he buried in a very secret place. When he died his
possessions descended to his sons. After the funeral they sat round the grave of the old man,
and very rightly discussed his virtues until the sun set. Then they returned to the house and
began to dig for the hidden money. For some days they turned the sand of the floor over; but
failing to find what they sought, they commenced operations on a patch of desert under the
shade of some tamarisks where their father was wont to sit of an afternoon. It is said that for
twelve hours they worked like persons possessed, the men hacking at the ground, and the
boys carrying away the sand in baskets to a convenient distance. But the money was never
found.
It is not often that the finders of antiquities inform the authorities of their good fortune, but
when they do so an attempt is made to give them a good reward. A letter from the finder of
an inscribed statue, who wished to claim his reward, read as folows: "With al delight I please
inform you that on 8th Jan. was found a headless temple of granite sitting on a chair and
printed on it."
I wil end this chapter as I began it, in the defence of the Theban thieves. In a place where [261]
every yard of ground contains antiquities, and where these antiquities may be so readily
converted into golden guineas, can one wonder that every man, woman, and child makes use
of his opportunities in this res