BACK TO DARKNESS

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 49, 27 February 1923, Page 7

BACK TO DARKNESS

SEALING LUXOR TOMB

TUTANKHAMEN TREASURES

QUESTION OF PRESERVATION.

(UNITED PRESS ASffICUriOX—COPTEIGKT.)

(AUSTRALIAN • SBW ZEALAND CABIE ASSOCIATION.) LONDON, 26th February.

A Luxor message says that the last visit of the season has been paid to Tutankhamen's tomb. Twenty men are now installing an airtight and watertight door, in the case of a cloudburst, which occurs occasionally in the Luxor district. The tomb will then be reburied under 100 tons of earth, to keep out robbers. Meanwhile the archaeologists will continue examining the treasures already taken out, and preserving them prior to their dispatch to Cairo. This is being done in the abandoned tomb of Seti the Second. The work includes the reconstructing of royal robes and a corselet of links of faience on gold, resembling a Crusader's chain armour.

Many archaeologists disapprove taking the mummy and other discoveries to Cairo. They say that if the wooden art treasures are kept in the damp air of Cairo Museum they will be hopelessly decayed in 20 years, and urge that a special museum be built in Cairo to house the things taken from the Royal tomb and other tombs in the Luxor hills.

A vigorous controversy is also going on as to whether proper respect is being shown to the dead, especially as their religion attached special importance to the tombs being not tampered with.

Sir Rider Haggard's suggestion that Tutankhamen and other Royal mummies should be reburied in the chambers of the great Pyramid of Cheops, which should be finally sealed from the prying eyes of tourists, is being widely approved Lord Carnarvon is anxious to leave Tutankhamen's sarcophagus in the Luxor hffls.