Petrie, William M. Flinders: Syria and Egypt from the Tell el Amarna letters (London, 1898)

2 INTRODUCTION

sent some to Dr. Oppert, at Paris, who pro-
nounced them to be forgeries; others were
sent to M. Grebaut, then head of the Depart-
ment of Antiquities, and were treated by him
with customary silence. At last, when they
were supposed to be almost worthless, a
quantity were carried in sacks to Luqsor to
hawk about among the dealers there, and
these were largely ground to pieces on the
way. What has been preserved, therefore,
is but a wreck of what might have been, had
any person equal to the occasion placed his
hand upon them in time. The tablets thus
reaching the dealers' hands became known,
and were bought up mainly for the British
Museum and the Berlin Museum. Some
drifted to St. Petersburg, Paris, and the
Cairo Museums; and some into the private
collections of Murch, Rostowicz, and others.
A similar miserable fate attends all dis-
coveries in Egypt, unless made by a skilled
observer, as witness the palace of Ramessu
III. at Tell el Yehudiyeh, the Deir el Bahri
treasure, the cemetery of Ekhmim, the
palace of Amenhotep III. at Thebes, as
well as unnumbered cemeteries and towns
throughout the land.

The tablets thus dispersed were published