Not Even the War Sufficed to Prevent the Archeologists from Excavating in Egypt When wars hamper their digging, as World War II has been doing rather seriously, most archeologists simply shrug their shoulders and come home from the field. Some, however, find it practicable to remain in the warring country and go ahead with their excavating, so long as the battles do not touch the actual spot where they dig. Few wars touch all of a country all of the time. Moreover, the archeologists attitude regarding wars differs somewhat from that of the rest of us. We live mainly in the present, its daily events tending to fill our horizon. The archeologist, dealing with the past as his vocation, is a dweller in all the centuries. He knows that men always have warred, yet that life always has kept on rolling along, so why should he become too excited about the squabbles going on in the period in which he happens to live? Hence he digs on, if he can. Professor Pierre Montet is a Frenchman from Strasbourg University who, despite the current combat, has been excavating a magnificent tomb of the ancient pharaoh, or king, Psusennes, in Egypt. He discovered this burial at the site of the ancient city of Tanis, the Zoan of the Bible and the San of today, in the lower, northern, or delta part of Egypt where war knocks loudly as this is written in November. Psusennes the First, second King in the mysterious, little-known 21st Dynasty of Lower Egypt, lived from about 1054 to 1009 B.C., or approximately three centuries later than Tutenkhamon. He was the father-in-law of King Solomon. THE exposed site, or top, of Psusennes tomb is a flat square of massive stone masonry about 75 feet in each dimension. This square is the deck of a deeper stone structure down through which shafts lead to the burial chamber in the rock far below. In this chamber, about five feet in height, Professor Montet found a huge, rectangular stone box, the first sarcophagus of what was hoped would be a resplendent royal mummy. Such outer sarcophagi are hewn from a solid block of stone, with walls about five inches thick, and are provided with one-piece, hewn stone covers of considerable weight. When this cover was removed the French archeologist found an inner or second sarcophagus of black granite, having the general shape of a human being but much larger — the object shown at the left in the photograph. Nested within this enlarged human form in stone was the smaller sarcophagus at the right in the same photograph, yet this one was fully seven feet long. It was made of solid silver, decorated in colors—the most beautiful object discovered in recent years.” In the hands of this silver image, which is also shown on page 6, were the crook and flail, ancient Egyptian symbols of suzerainty, and on the head was the cobra, royal insignia, made of solid gold. Next within was a six-foot silver and gold body covering which may be seen at the rear of the silver sarcophagus in the photograph. It has a solid gold mask. The mummy itself was reached last, in the course of removal of one outer covering after another, but was found to consist of only a few bones. The tomb had not been robbed, but dampness had almost wholly disintegrated the body, not all of Egypt being dry and dusty. Professor Pierre Montet bending over the heavy, solid silver sarcophagus of one of Egypts kings. The same sarcophagus is shown on page 6. In the lower left-hand corner is the larger, hollowed granite sarcophagus in which the other one lay, neatly nested Archeology Scientific American (January 1941), 164, 27 doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0141- 27/Psusennes Tomb / Albert G. Ingalls nature/scientificamerican/journal/v164/n1/pdf/scientificamerican0141-27.pdf
Posted on: Sun, 06 Jul 2014 08:12:57 +0000
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