DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55201#0139
126
EXCAVATIONS AT DEIR EL BAHRI
storming a castle wall, and with this clue to guide us we had only to
turn to the contemporary pictures of sieges at Deshasheh and Beni
Hasan. The defenders line the battlements armed with bows and
arrows, with slings and with handfuls of stones. The attackers rush
up to the walls with scaling ladders, or crouch beneath them with
picks, endeavoring to sap the defenses under a rain of missiles falling
on their heads and shoulders, only precariously protected by their
companions’ shields.
It must have been during an assault on a fortress, then, that our
unknown soldiers fell, under a shower of sling-shots on heads pro-
tected by nothing but a mass of hair, or with lungs and heart pierced
by arrows aimed at their uncovered shoulders. The fire had been too
hot, and their fellows had scampered away out of range, but not with-
out some of them being overtaken by the storm of arrows. One of
them had been hit in the back just under the shoulder blade by an
arrow which had transfixed his heart and projected some eight inches
straight out in front of his chest. He had pitched forward, headlong
on his face, breaking off the slender ebony arrow-tip in his fall, and
the ragged end between his ribs was found by us all clotted with his
blood. It was only after he was long dead that those who gathered up
his body had broken off the reed shaft sticking out of his back, for
that end had no trace of blood upon it.
With the attack beaten off there had followed the most barbarous
part of an ancient battle. The monuments to Egyptian victories always
show the king clubbing his captives in the presence of his god, and the
battle pictures show the Egyptian soldiers searching out the enemy
wounded to despatch them. Usually they grab the fallen by the hair
and dragging them half upright, club or stab them, and as they swing
their clubs with their right hands their blows fall upon the left sides
of their victims’ faces and heads. We recognized at least a dozen who
had been mercilessly done to death in this way. One of the wounded
had fallen unconscious from a sling-shot which had hit him over the
eye; another had been stunned by an arrow which had all but pene-
trated one of the sutures of his skull; and a third probably lay helpless
from loss of blood ebbing from the arteries in his arm torn by an
arrow. None of those need have been fatal wounds, but evidently, as
soon as the attackers had retired out of range, a party had made a
sortie from the castle to mop up the battlefield, and when the last
breathing being had been finished off, their bodies had been left lying
beneath the walls to be worried and torn by the waiting vultures and
ravens. The ghastly evidence of their work was plain enough to see
EXCAVATIONS AT DEIR EL BAHRI
storming a castle wall, and with this clue to guide us we had only to
turn to the contemporary pictures of sieges at Deshasheh and Beni
Hasan. The defenders line the battlements armed with bows and
arrows, with slings and with handfuls of stones. The attackers rush
up to the walls with scaling ladders, or crouch beneath them with
picks, endeavoring to sap the defenses under a rain of missiles falling
on their heads and shoulders, only precariously protected by their
companions’ shields.
It must have been during an assault on a fortress, then, that our
unknown soldiers fell, under a shower of sling-shots on heads pro-
tected by nothing but a mass of hair, or with lungs and heart pierced
by arrows aimed at their uncovered shoulders. The fire had been too
hot, and their fellows had scampered away out of range, but not with-
out some of them being overtaken by the storm of arrows. One of
them had been hit in the back just under the shoulder blade by an
arrow which had transfixed his heart and projected some eight inches
straight out in front of his chest. He had pitched forward, headlong
on his face, breaking off the slender ebony arrow-tip in his fall, and
the ragged end between his ribs was found by us all clotted with his
blood. It was only after he was long dead that those who gathered up
his body had broken off the reed shaft sticking out of his back, for
that end had no trace of blood upon it.
With the attack beaten off there had followed the most barbarous
part of an ancient battle. The monuments to Egyptian victories always
show the king clubbing his captives in the presence of his god, and the
battle pictures show the Egyptian soldiers searching out the enemy
wounded to despatch them. Usually they grab the fallen by the hair
and dragging them half upright, club or stab them, and as they swing
their clubs with their right hands their blows fall upon the left sides
of their victims’ faces and heads. We recognized at least a dozen who
had been mercilessly done to death in this way. One of the wounded
had fallen unconscious from a sling-shot which had hit him over the
eye; another had been stunned by an arrow which had all but pene-
trated one of the sutures of his skull; and a third probably lay helpless
from loss of blood ebbing from the arteries in his arm torn by an
arrow. None of those need have been fatal wounds, but evidently, as
soon as the attackers had retired out of range, a party had made a
sortie from the castle to mop up the battlefield, and when the last
breathing being had been finished off, their bodies had been left lying
beneath the walls to be worried and torn by the waiting vultures and
ravens. The ghastly evidence of their work was plain enough to see