Tutankhamun

“ It is this fundamental fact that gives the study of Egyptian customs and beliefs its tremendous importance. The essential elements of civilization were originally invented by the Egyptians, who gave them simpler and more obvious expression than other peoples, who borrowed them ready-made without acquiring the connecting stages in their 99 development or the naïve explanation of their meaning.
I have introduced this subject for consideration as an introduction to the study of the funerary equipment of Tutankhamen’s tomb, to which the next chapter will be devoted. ”

“ The whole conception of animal vehicles, which plays such a large part in the religious symbolism of India, Eastern Asia and Central America, is a purely Egyptian fancy that finds such grotesque expression in Tutankhamen’s funerary couches, no less than in the borrowed symbolism that was spread abroad from Egypt to Asia and America. ”

“ From these considerations we can safely predict that if, as seems now to be certain, the unplundered mummy is found in the tomb of Tutankhamen jewellery of great value and beauty of design will probably be found on it. The superb workmanship displayed in making these ornaments and amulets is known to us from the discoveries made by M. de Morgan in the Pyramids at Dashur in 82 1893. These gold pectoral ornaments inlaid with precious stones were wrought with an amazing perfection of technical skill many centuries before the time of Tutankhamen ”

“ The discovery of the royal mummies in 1881—and this applies with special force to the remains of the famous pharaohs Seti I and Rameses II—gave us the other side of the story, for it revealed the measures taken to protect the bodies of these kings from further injury, and the persistence with which the protectors of the tombs moved the mummies from one place to another in their endeavour to save them. The condition of78 affairs revealed in the tomb of Tutankhamen brings proof of what has long been suspected, that the work of the plunderer began soon after the closing of the chambers. ”

“ There can be no doubt that it gives expression to the same belief as the lofty and uncouth funerary beds in Tutankhamen’s tomb have forced upon our attention.
Another wave of diffusion of culture is represented in the adoption by European furniture-makers of the Egyptian method of designing legs for chairs, beds and couches. In Egypt itself such a practice can be traced back to the first dynasty 3400 or more b.c. But the lion paws were adopted in Europe as a design for legs of chairs, etc. almost as soon as the Egyptian craft of carpentering and joinery was introduced. ”

“ Another reason why the sudden weakening of Egyptian influence in Asia under Akhenaton and Tutankhamen is so important an event in the history of civilization is because it occurred at a time when the literature of the Jews was becoming crystallized in the shape that was destined to exert so tremendous an influence upon the history of belief and social practice. ”

“ No damage of any sort will be inflicted upon the body; but every precaution will be taken to assure that prolongation of its existence within its own sarcophagus which the embalmer of thirty-two centuries ago aimed at achieving.
In the commentary on the discoveries in Tutankhamen’s tomb I have dealt mainly with aspects of the new revelation of Egyptian customs and beliefs that to most readers may seem less impressive than the dazzling display of artistic treasures which has aroused in them an interest in archæology. ”

“ Map of the Ancient East.
23 The period which is so brilliantly illuminated by the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb is thus perhaps the most critical period in the whole history of civilization. A new era was dawning and every scrap of information that sheds any light upon the circumstances of this fateful time is of tremendous interest to us in understanding the civilization under which we ourselves are living. ”

“ For the mummy of Amenhotep II had been badly plundered like all those discovered before or since until the opening of Tutankhamen’s burial chamber made it practically certain that in it will be revealed for the first time to modern men the undisturbed tomb of an ancient Egyptian king. ”

“ Howard Carter were hoping to find another tomb when they came across that of Tutankhamen. When [Pg 33] Maspero made his discovery of so many of the Pharaohs about forty years ago, the mummy of Tutankhamen was missing, and there was accordingly the possibility that some diligent man might eventually unearth it.
For forty years the search went on. Other tombs were found, but that of Tutankhamen still eluded discovery, until the autumn of 1922. The digger always has hopes of finding a certain thing, but as often as not he comes across something else. ”

“ Dr Gardiner describes the actual condition of affairs found in a private Theban tomb of the eighteenth dynasty (in the reign of Thothmes III, about a century earlier than Tutankhamen) ; and in the light of his intimate knowledge and understanding of the literature of the period, he interprets the meaning of the arrangement of the tomb and especially of the scenes and inscriptions sculptured and painted upon the walls, which Mrs de Garis Davies has reproduced with such skill and accuracy. ”

“ But to the student who is interested in tracing out the origin of the customs and beliefs which have shaped the fabric of civilization and influenced the trends of even our own thoughts, the objective expression of ancient beliefs displayed in Tutankhamen’s tomb is 130 the most important outcome of Mr Howard Carter’s discovery. ”

“ The wide interest in the revelation of Egypt’s achievements more than thirty centuries ago should prepare men’s minds impartially to study the vast significance of the facts thus displayed by Mr Howard Carter’s investigations.
Besides revealing the wonderful equipment of a royal tomb the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb enables us to examine many objects and articles of funerary equipment hitherto known to us only in pictures. ”

“ Atonism did not long survive its most loyal adherents. Meritaton became Meritamon, and the famed King Tut is known by his later name, Tutankhamon, rather than the earlier Tuntankhaton. In many ways Akhenaton seems to have been a man whose life was a failure. All for which he stood was quickly obliterated during the scant generation after his death. Yet this judgment is too hasty. Even the priests of Amon could not wholly turn back the reforms in art and literature which Akhenaton encouraged. ”

“ Archæologists familiar with all the marvels of Egyptian art, now treasured in the museums scattered throughout the world, have exhausted their vocabularies of wonder and admiration in attempting to depict the splendours of Tutankhamen’s101 tomb. The outstanding feature of the discovery is, in fact, the recovery of so vast a collection of superb works of art and the new revelation it affords of the dazzling brilliance of Egyptian civilization thirty centuries ago. ”

“ But to us the complicated technique of the embalmers during the twenty-first dynasty appeals rather as ingenious trickery, a tampering with the natural body to give it a spurious and trumpery resemblance to a living being. Judged by our artistic standards there can be no doubt that the ancient Egyptian practice of mummification was seen at its best at the end of the eighteenth dynasty, that is about the time of Tutankhamen. ”

“ The sides of the Hathor couch are grotesque models of the Divine Cow, the earliest of the Great Mothers who were believed to have bestowed life and prosperity on mankind. It108 may seem strange that the artists of Tutankhamen’s time should have perpetrated such a monstrosity as this Hathor couch. When religious motives impelled the designers to fashion a piece of furniture in imitation of so uncouchlike a creature as a cow, the artist was set a task which was almost impossible of realization unless he sacrificed his artistic ideals. ”

“ The danger was rendered the more serious when the Chinese Ambans perceived for the first time that the sympathies of a large portion of their Tungan soldiery were estranged from them. It was doubtful whether the Tungan regiments could be relied on against a fresh Khoja revolt, and it was certain that they would not combine in any repression of the Mahomedan religion, even though the sufferers should only be Andijanis. Such was the state of the public mind in Altyshahr in 1862, when the Tungani revolted and obtained success in Kansuh and Shensi. ”

“ Readers of the daily papers and the illustrated weeklies will already be aware of the vast quantity of furniture and of the fact that even those who were already familiar with the superb design and workmanship displayed in the objects from such tombs as those of Thothmes IV, Yuaa and Tuaa, and Akhenaton were amazed at the new revelation of Egyptian craftsmanship revealed in scores of the things found in Tutankhamen’s tomb, the throne, a superb work of art, the no less wonderful chariots, chairs, couches, statues, sandals, textiles and jewellery, and above all the impressive canopy or shrine. ”

“ So soon as the discontent among the working classes had assumed formidable proportions by the pecuniary embarrassment of the Chinese, and the Tungan successes in the east of Jungaria had raised a fanatical feeling to swell the hatred against a declining and Buddhist rule, the Tarantchis were not backward for their part in reviving their almost forgotten grievances, and in joining in a defensive and offensive alliance with the Tungani. ”

“ Not content with having chastised the living Tungani, by annihilating them, as a race capable of self-defence for a generation to come, the bodies of some of the prime movers in the Tungan movement in its infancy, such as To-teh-lin, Heh-tsun, and Han-Hing-Nung, were exhumed and quartered, as an example to all traitors to the Chinese Empire. The fall of Manas struck a blow that resounded throughout Central Asia, and at the intelligence a panic spread among all the peoples of Chinese Turkestan and Jungaria. ”

“ These form at this day the greatest and most powerful tribe of the Turkomans. They are separated into two principal encampments--the first at Akhal (to the east of Tedjend) , and the second at Merv. According to the best accounts, they have sixty thousand tents. Possessing less land that is capable of being cultivated than the other Turkoman tribes, they are, so to say, almost forced by nature itself to commit acts of robbery, and are a real scourge in the hand of God to the north-easterly portions of Persia, to Herat and its neighbourhood. ”

“ In the opinion of a well-known living authority,567 the Turkomans belong to a branch of the Turkish race inhabiting the Altaī Mountains and the upper regions of the Yenesei and Irtish in Mid-Siberia. Long before the Christian era the pressure of population led them to migrate southwards and eastwards, and, following in all probability the old course of the Oxus, their hordes spread over the great steppes extending from the Caspian to the Hindu Kush. ”

“ Merira led Tuta by the hand to the armchair and making him sit in it, said:
"The high priest of God on high, Amon-Ra, the king over all other gods, the prophet of all the gods of the south and the north, the great seer of the sky, Urma Ptamose, commanded me, on his death-bed, to elect king of all the earth Tutankhamon, the son of King Nebmaar Amenhotep, the son of Horus. Do you all agree, men and brethren?"
"We agree. Long live Tutankhamon, King of Egypt!" ”

“ He is all for the world and all the world is for him. A man like that is certain to reign. You will be king over the mice, you cat! Akhnaton will disappear, Tutankhaton will remain. He will go through the ages in his Amon's sandals, trampling on the Great Spirit. And the kingdom of this world will be Tuta's kingdom! ”

“ This the Baluchi promised to do, but he explained that the Turkoman would not live long because the warrior had many enemies in Bandar Abbasi who would take his life in requital of old wrongs, now that he was helpless.
“O hakim,” he said at parting, “thou art an old man, treading the way of justice. Take care, upon the road. It would be well to wait for the great caravan of Mirakhon Pasha, who also takes the northern road to-morrow, through the mountains to the salt lake on the way to Ind.” ”

“ The Turkomans are notorious among all the races of Central Asia as the most restless adventurers, and rightly; for not only there, but throughout the whole globe, hardly can a second nation be found of such a rapacious nature, of such restless spirit and untameable licentiousness as these children of the desert. To rob, to plunder, to make slaves, is in the eye of the Turkoman an honourable business, by which he has lived for centuries. ”

“ Further north, on the banks of the Oxus river, the border line that divides Afghan from Russian Turkestan, are Turkoman and Usbàk tribes. The Turkoman is, as the name implies, of Turk descent. This people lived to the south of the Thian Shan or Celestial mountains, and in the eleventh and twelfth centuries overran Bokhara, Armenia, and Georgia. Physically they are immensely strong men, taller than the Hazara, of rough manners and coarse fibre, seeming more or less insensible to pain or sorrow: their cold insensible nature contrasting strongly with the more amorous nature of Afghan and Persian. ”

“ The Turkomans have villages in which they spend the winter, wandering over the great plains of the interior with their flocks and herds during the summer. The Yuruks on the contrary are a truly nomad race. Their tents are made of black goats’ hair and their principal covering is a cloak of the same material. They are not limited to the milder districts of the interior, but when the harvest is over, descend into the rich plains and valleys near the coast. The Chepmi and Takhtaji, who live chiefly in the Aidin vilayet, appear to be derived from one of the early races. ”