Ethiopian Tombs

Te Aroha News, Volume XXXIX, Issue 6171, 12 January 1922, Page 1

Ethiopian Tombs

Discovery in the Soudan MONARCHS OF 26 GENERATIONS Discovery of the tombs of 26 generations of Ethiopian Kings and the recovery of material buried for more than 2000 years, which makes it possible for the first time to write the history of Ethiopia) were reported recently by the joint Egyptian expedition of Harvard University and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The expedition, in charge of Prof. George A. Reisner, of Harvard, was in Egypt 10 years. Its findings in part have been reported from time to time.

The discovery of the lost civilisation of Ethiopia was made at Napata, now called Gebel Barkal. Napata> ancient capital of Ethiopia, lies in the Anglo-Egyptian Soudan, at the southern end of Dongola Province. The royal cemeteries were found outside the city. At Nuri, to the south, on a low knoll near the River Nile, the archaeologists examined a group of pyramids which proved to be the tombs of the 20 Kings and 25 Queens of Tthiopia from 660 to 250 8.C., most of whose names had been lost to human knowledge.

Excavations gradually uncovered the burial chamber of Tirhaqa, the King of Ethiopia, mentioned in the Book of Isaiah, who was one of the five Ethiopian monarchs who ruled over Egypt, and then one by one uncovered the tombs of all the other Kings. Queens, Princes and Princesses of Ethiopia for a period of more than four centuries.

After the excavations at Nuri, four of the greatest Kings of Ethiopia were still lacking —Kings who, like Tirhaqa, had ruled Egypt as well as Ethiopia. In the third year of search these four Kings with their Queens, and indeed six generations of their ancestors, were found at the second Royal Cemetery on the north of Napata. It was then discovered that the royal family of Ethiopia had sprung from a tribe of Libyan nomads who had entered the province, then part of Egypt, about 900 8.C., had become Egyptianised, revolted from Egypt and finally, under Piankhy, conquered the older country.

Careful study of the objects and inscriptions found in these tombs has given the Harvard-Boston archaeologists a full chronological list of the Kings of Ethiopia during that period and a knowledge of the condition and development of the remarkable arts and crafts of the time.