DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12249#0118
THE EXCAVATION CONTINUED.
87
posing that some of the mummies in this tomh had
been slaves or attendants of the palace, and that the
names with which they were ticketed were those of
personages whose special guardianship they thus, as
it were, assumed, or to whose suites they had been
attached. The cartouch. of Amunoph III., with which
the door was sealed, although also countenancing the
supposition, does not necessarily indicate that the
tomb had any connexion even of this sort with royalty,
as the monarch's name was so generally used in various
ways; but at any rate it proves that the last burial
had taken place in his reign, which began (circa
1400 B.C.), about ten years after the death of Thoth-
mes III. At what time the sepulchre had been broken
into there was nothing to show, or by whom the ran-
sacking had been accomplished.
A result like that which it exhibited when I gained
an entrance, if not altogether unexpected, could not be
otherwise than vexatious. But the work here was not
yet concluded, and there was still a chance of a more
successful issue, or rather, as I then feared, of another
disappointment. While the entrance to the tomb
which proved such a comparative failure was being
reached, I had another party of workmen engaged
clearing farther along the same face of rock in which
it was cut. At a distance of twenty feet, a brick wall*
built up to the rock was a favourable sign, and fifteen
* This wall Lad no doubt been part of a porch such as is described
in p. 54.
g 4
87
posing that some of the mummies in this tomh had
been slaves or attendants of the palace, and that the
names with which they were ticketed were those of
personages whose special guardianship they thus, as
it were, assumed, or to whose suites they had been
attached. The cartouch. of Amunoph III., with which
the door was sealed, although also countenancing the
supposition, does not necessarily indicate that the
tomb had any connexion even of this sort with royalty,
as the monarch's name was so generally used in various
ways; but at any rate it proves that the last burial
had taken place in his reign, which began (circa
1400 B.C.), about ten years after the death of Thoth-
mes III. At what time the sepulchre had been broken
into there was nothing to show, or by whom the ran-
sacking had been accomplished.
A result like that which it exhibited when I gained
an entrance, if not altogether unexpected, could not be
otherwise than vexatious. But the work here was not
yet concluded, and there was still a chance of a more
successful issue, or rather, as I then feared, of another
disappointment. While the entrance to the tomb
which proved such a comparative failure was being
reached, I had another party of workmen engaged
clearing farther along the same face of rock in which
it was cut. At a distance of twenty feet, a brick wall*
built up to the rock was a favourable sign, and fifteen
* This wall Lad no doubt been part of a porch such as is described
in p. 54.
g 4