The Recent Discovery At Thebes.

THE RECENT DISCOVERY AT THEBES .

WE have thought it well to perserve the record of this very wonderful find , and therefore ive have given Professor Maspero ' s and Mr . Peake ' s accounts . PROFESSOR MASPERO begins by describing the p lace where the mummies were concealed , which is probably the tomb of a certain Queen Ansera , whose

mummy is among those recently discovered . The entrance to this excavation is situated behind a fallen rock , in an angle of the cliff a little way to the south-west of the temple of Dayr-el-Bahari , and is so cunningly contrived that one might pass it twenty times without noticing any outward sign of its existence , The ground rises considerably to the foot of the cliffs , and the mouth of the p it is about 60 metres above the level of the alluvial plain . A perpendicular shaft descending to a depth of 12 metres leads to a gallery 74

metres long , at the end of which is a sepulchral chamber measuring 7 metres by 4 . The heig ht of the gallery varies from 1 metre 10 centimetres to 5 metres . A sketch of the cliffs showing the fractured rock and the position of the shaft , a sketch-map of the locality generally , together with a ground plan and section of the excavation , accompany this part of the memoir . M . Maspero then goes on to say that his attention and the attention of the late JVfariette Pasha had long been drawn to the fact that large numbers of valuable objects

were constantly flowing from Egypt into Europe , many of them bearing the same royal names and belonging to the same periods . Between the years 1872 and 1877 no less than five royal papyri made their appearance , four of which were the funereal papyri of queens . Of these , two were purchased for the Louvre and two for the Boulak Museum . The fifth— -a superb

specimenwas bought by Captain Campbell , an Englishman , and proved to be the funereal papyrus of Pinotem I . Other objects came to light bearing the name of the High Priest Masahirti , & o . " Mariette , like myself , " says M . Maspero , "had come to the conclusion that the Arabs had found some royal tombs . During my stay at Thebes in March and April last ( 1881 ) I ordered the arrest of one Abd-er-rasool , to whom a variety of testimony pointed as possessor of the secret . He was imprisoned at Kenehthen releasedancl it was not till

, , the beginning of July that one of his brothers decided to reveal all to Daoud Pasha , the Mudir of Keneh . " Daoud Pasha hereupon telegraphed to the Khedive , and the Khedive despatched a steamer to Thebes , having on board Herr Emil Brugsch , keeper of the Boulak Museum , and Ahmed-Effendi-Kemal , acting secretary and interpreter . M . Maspero warmly eulogizes the

devotion and energy with ivhich these gentlemen performed their ivork ; and states that by the end of July the whole treasure had been safely packed and transported to Cairo . The number of mummy cases discovered is twenty-nine , of Avhich seven contain mummies of kings , nine mummies of queens ancl princesses , five various personages of distinction . " The presence of all these royal mummies in a single tomb would be very surprising , " writes Professor Maspero" if we did not know that the necropolis of Thebes was pillaged

, toivards the end of the Twentieth Dynasty , and that the reigning Pharaohs were consequently obliged to take every possible precaution to insure the remains of their predecessors against profanation and theft . It therefore became necessary to remove the sarcophagi of those Pharaohs from their sepulchres in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings , and to hide them in some place duly