TREASURES OF THE PAST

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 35, 11 February 1939, Page 8 (Supplement)

TREASURES OF THE PAST

In a study art Liverpool University stands' an > unusual figure.

It is the mummy of a cheerfullooking lady gazing down benignly at the study's owner, a tall, brown-eyed man whose brilliant researches into the history of ancient Egypt have won for him the oldest Chair of Egyptology in England.

He is Professor R. M. Blackman, who has just returned to his desk in Liverpool after digging up yet more of Egypt's far distant past.

Last winter and spring the professor with three colleagues, on behalf of the Egypt Exploration Society, excavated a new and untouched site in the Northern Sudan, between the second and third cataracts of the Nile. Here they made some extremelv luckv and interest-

ing discoveries

As coins and newspapers of cur time are often placed under the foundation stones of new buildings, so did the ancient Egyptians deposit objects of their day under the cornerstones of their temples, and at Sesebi Professor Blackman was fortunate in finding four sets of such foundation deposits, a unique discovery of its kind.

In the town where the archaeologists were digging are the remains of what was a magnificent temple, erected about the time that the Israelites captured Jericho. Beneath both the north-west and south-west corner-stones of this building, the of the expedition came upon small pits, all four of them full of all sorts of attractive things; blije scarabs, blue tiles, copper model tools, brightly-coloured beads, and little pottery vases. Most interesting among these objects were the scarabs and tiles, for they were inscribed with the name of the famous Pharaoh Akhenaten, the king who tried to make the Egyptians worship one God instead of a multitude of gods.

Besides the temple, Professor Blackman also excavated the ruined houses of the town, and there, and in the graveyard nearby, were found many delightful things, articles of household use, children's toys (toy dogs, cows and a fascinating little

toy pig) hand-mirrors, ornaments and jewellery.

Loveliest of all is a delicate white porcelain vase decorated with bright blue and dark purple lotus flowers, once tJie scent bottle of some fine Egyptian lady who died three thousand years ago.

Perhaps the most striking thing in the collection, however, is a granite statue head, believed to have been the portrait of Queen Hatshepsut, the princess who found Moses in the bulrushes.

The relics from the land of the Nile are being distributed to various museums throughout the world, including the British Museum.