JARS OF BEER

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 May 1928, Page 8

JARS OF BEER

IN ROYAL TOMB. PARIS, May 7. The story of “the most disconcerting adventure yet provided by the Egypt of the Pharaohs” is promised by Dr. J. C. Mardrus, the well-known French Orientalist, who to-day begins the publication of a seh’ies of articles about the recent discovery of the tomb of Queen Hotep-Heres,'mother of Theops, who built the great Pyramids. The finding of the tomb is much more sensational than the Tut-ankh-amen discovery, according to Dr. Mardrus, as it is 1,800 years older, and was found absolutely intact and inviolate. Among the treasures he refers to a.re “the magnificent alabaster sarcophagus of the Queen, just, as it was on the day of the funeral; the great canopy of gold for the Queen’s bed; her sedan chair; gold cups and handbowls; flagons filled with perfume, and pots containing unguent which are still “unguent.” There is also a whole series of offerings to the “double” of the Queen — the mysterious spirit that protects the tomb against profanation—including jars of beer, pickled geese, petit-fours, mummified eggs, nuts, dates, and diverse victuals. It is about the “double” that Dr. Mardus says there are weird revelations. He declares that the supreme interest of the local inhabitants in regard to the opening of the tomb is to. learn the nature of the revenge which the “double” will inflict on the intruders, as was said to have happened in the case of the opening of Tut-ankh-amen’s tomb. It will he recalled that the deaths of Lord Carnarvon and others concerned in the discovery and unearthing of Tu.t-ankh-ameri’s tomb were attributed to the work of t_he dead king’s “double” as a revenge for the intrusions into the tomb.