IN THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS.

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12306, 28 November 1925, Page 11

IN THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS.

! A VISIT TO THE TOMB OF TUT-ANKH-AMEN.

It i$ counted bp tourists in €appt a Dial) adoenture and a rare privilege to visit tbe tomb or Cut°ankb°Jlmcn, in tbe Valiev or tbe Kings, no other tomb has received so mucb attention trom the whole world, ror none has been so well advertised,' and none berore has yielded up its treasures inviolate to tbe band or tbe scientiric excavator.

WING to tlie limited number oi weeks in tile year in which the tomb eau be shown, because of the great heat in the valley, and also the lira.it of one day a week formerly placed on admission of tourists, the number of persons who up to date have been admitted ip relatively few, as compared with those who have wished to enter the tomb, in the course of a tour in Egypt. Good fortune attended the writer

(one of a party of tourists, whose visit had been arranged by the White Stair Company), on the occasion of his visit to Egypt, for not only was he admitted to the tomb on special permit of the government department in charge of antiquities, but he had an opportunity for a private view, after the last of the tpurists h-d departed, on the final. day of the season on which the tomb Has open. The trip of seven miles from the Luxor, feny. landing, at Thebes to the Valley of the* Kings, prepares one-for • a weird , experience that has for its elimax. a view of the golden casket of the youthful pharaoh. At first the way lies across a level country, by a black dirt road bordering dry irrigation canals between cultivated fields. The road suddenly leave* the cultivated strip between the river and the hills, and enters a rocky defile that reminds one of the barren canyons of North America.

A FORBIDDING SPOT No more forbidding, menacing place could be imagined. The way winds between' steep banks of great rocks and debris fallen from sheer cliffs on either hand. The bottom of the canyon is grayish white, from broken stone piled on either side of the chalk-like, dosty road. The grade upward is pronounced, and the thin horses drawing your little carriage pant as they ascend With every step forward the heat of the Valley increases. There is no wind, no errant air lo refresh one; only breathless intense heat, like the heaff> of an oven. At last a bar across the road is reached, and you descend. Beyond the bar the road debouches into a little opening of the valley, perhaps 100 yards across. Here is noticed a tent, with a few Egyptian soldiers seated in its scant shade. On both ' the) right and the left is an opening in the rock —the entrance to tombs, for there are

many in the valley. Directly ahead is, a depression walled on three sides with dry stones, and open on the fourth, with a light fence and a gate across the opening. This is the tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen. Its entrance is not cut into the canyon’s walls, like those of the other tombs, but seems rather to be in the valley floor, which may account for the fact that "for more than a cen-

tury the keenest searchers engaged in modern Egyptian research walked back and forth over it without suspecting its presence under their feet. Passing the gate of the depression, you are directed by an Englishman, looking hot and uncomfortable in the scant shade of the hither wall, fo enter the tomb. The entrance is , at right angles to the gate, and presents a steep passage, with a rough, stairless rock floor, down which you creep cautiously toward a rough wood platform.

THE GOLDEN COFFIN OF TUTANKHAMEN Reaching this platform, you grasp a rail, and glance downward. If you can suppress an exclamation at what you -see. then you have better selfcontrol than most people, There before you, and directly at your feet, under the glare of two preat hooded electric lights, lies the golden coffin of TutAnkbrAmen, in lie pink gramite sarcophagus, under a sheet of plate glass. 1 Coming from the intense, white heat of the burning valley into the still, subterranean chamber; groping first an uncertain way down the dim declivity to the platform, and then suddenly looking down over the handrai ! ! op on this goldeni apparition, yon feel I that some strange and awesome thing has befallen yon. Before you lies the body of a man bnried 33 centuries before, which as yet no eye has seen since the day that golden coffin lid was fastened into place by the royal burial party. Ages, races, nations, languages, religions, have come and gone in the world since that body was placed .under its golden cover. Only the great hills about you. and the sky above, are the same "as they were when this golden casket was placed where you now see it. After the quick, choking sensation experienced on looking first upon the golden casket, you hare time, if alone, to study it more critically. The gold is a* fair and stainless, with the exception of a small part at the foot, ns the finest watch case displayed by a modern jeweller. Indeed, one may doubt if modern golds is as pure. . . The effigv of tho king, in the-coyer of the casket, is a conventional portrait. It displays a round-faced young man, with the thin. square-ended Egyptian heard. In his right hand is carried a shepherd’s crook, in his left a flail. On his forehead, in the centre of his headdress, aie the head of the sacred cobra, for Upper Egypt, and of the vulture, for Lcwer. Around the aides of the small stone

chamber, which the sarcophagus nearly fills, stand the sides and top of the golden cabinet which housed the kingly bier. These are covered with cotton cloth. To the right stand the two parts of the broken granite cover of the sarcophagus. These objects, the coloured figures and hieroglyphics on the walls, the low arched ceiling of

the chamber, the entrance to the inner room, now being explored, are details that the eye takes in at a sweep, for interest centres, while you are in the tomb, in the gorden effulgence of that figure in the pink granite sarcophagus. You turn from. .it with reluctance, at the same time turning your hack on the centuries as you mount slowly into the blinding white glare of the Valley of the Lings. . . , Of the many other tombs in the valley, nearly ail are larger and deeper than that of Tut-ankh-Amen. Some, like that of Seti 1., which was discovered in 1817, are extensive, with long galleries and numerous chambers. They are interesting, but only mildly so, after one has held audience with Tut-ankh-Amen, in the silence of his golden chamber beneath the burning white floor of the Valley of the Kings.