DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11610#0106
94
TEN YEARS' DIGGING IN EGYPT
low in the water as to be out of arms' reach. The
need of doing everything by feeling, and the impos-
sibility of seeing what was done under the black water,
made it a slow business. A third day I then attacked
it, with a helpful friend, Mr. Fraser. We drilled holes
in the coffin, as it was uninscribed, and fixed in stout
iron bolts. Then, with ropes tied to them, all our
party hauled again and again at the coffin ; it yielded ;
and up came an immense black mass to the surface of
the water. With great difficulty we drew it out, as it
was very heavy, and we had barely room for it beneath
the low ceiling. Anxiously opening it, we found a
slight inner coffin, and then the body of Horuta
himself, wrapped in a network of beads of lazuli, beryl,
and silver, the last all decomposed. Tenderly we
towed him out to the bottom of the entrance pit,
handling him with the same loving care as Izaak his
worms. And then came the last, and longed-for scene,
for which our months of toil had whetted our appetites,
—the unwrapping of Horuta. Bit by bit the layers of
pitch and cloth were loosened, and row after row of
magnificent amulets were disclosed, just as they were
laid on in the distant past. The gold ring on the
finger which bore his name and titles, the exquisitely
inlaid gold birds, the chased gold figures, the lazuli
statuettes delicately wrought, the polished lazuli and
beryl and carnelian amulets finely engraved, all the
wealth of talismanic armoury, rewarded our eyes witli
a sight which lias never been surpassed to archaeolo-
gical gaze. No such complete and rich a series of
amulets has been seen intact before ; and as one by
one they were removed all their positions were
TEN YEARS' DIGGING IN EGYPT
low in the water as to be out of arms' reach. The
need of doing everything by feeling, and the impos-
sibility of seeing what was done under the black water,
made it a slow business. A third day I then attacked
it, with a helpful friend, Mr. Fraser. We drilled holes
in the coffin, as it was uninscribed, and fixed in stout
iron bolts. Then, with ropes tied to them, all our
party hauled again and again at the coffin ; it yielded ;
and up came an immense black mass to the surface of
the water. With great difficulty we drew it out, as it
was very heavy, and we had barely room for it beneath
the low ceiling. Anxiously opening it, we found a
slight inner coffin, and then the body of Horuta
himself, wrapped in a network of beads of lazuli, beryl,
and silver, the last all decomposed. Tenderly we
towed him out to the bottom of the entrance pit,
handling him with the same loving care as Izaak his
worms. And then came the last, and longed-for scene,
for which our months of toil had whetted our appetites,
—the unwrapping of Horuta. Bit by bit the layers of
pitch and cloth were loosened, and row after row of
magnificent amulets were disclosed, just as they were
laid on in the distant past. The gold ring on the
finger which bore his name and titles, the exquisitely
inlaid gold birds, the chased gold figures, the lazuli
statuettes delicately wrought, the polished lazuli and
beryl and carnelian amulets finely engraved, all the
wealth of talismanic armoury, rewarded our eyes witli
a sight which lias never been surpassed to archaeolo-
gical gaze. No such complete and rich a series of
amulets has been seen intact before ; and as one by
one they were removed all their positions were