AN EGYPTIAN CITY OF THE DEAD.

Timaru Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 3409, 31 August 1885, Page 3

AN EGYPTIAN CITY OF THE DEAD.

M. Ma3pero, tho conservator of the Museum of Boulaq, has just sent an interesting account of somo recent archraological discoveries ho has lately made at Akhmira. The following is his account of the hidden lifo so strangely ruvualed m theso lonely hills above the Nile : — Never did a cemetery deserve the name of necropolis better than this of Akhmiui; it is really a town, whose inhabitants are counted by thousands, each day adding to their numbers, without any sign of Hearing the end after the labors of fifteen mouths. I have explored tho hill over an extent of at least two miles m length, and everywhere I havo found it covered with humau remains. Not only is it intersected with pits and chambers, but all tho natural fissures have been utilised to deposit corpses there. These pits are from 45 to 60 feet deep, and havo several floors, containing from eight to ten small chambers piled one above tho other, to admit a dozen coffins. The first impression was that these were family vaults ; but the titles and genealogies inscribed on the lids indicate almost as many different families as there are mummies, and tho successive generations of the same race are disseminated over different quarters. The grottoes, m particular, havo tho appearance of common burialgrounds. The simple mummies, swathed but not coffined, are piled up m layers on tho ground, like Btacka of wood m a timber yard. Above theso the cardboard mummies have been heaped up to the coiling — all the objects belonging to them, such as stools, pillows, shoes, perfume boxoa, eye salve vases, &c, are thrown pell-mell m the thickness of the layers ; and, to lose nono of the space, tho last coffins were thrust m between tho ceiling and tho accumulated mass, without any regard to their being damaged or not. The first mummies discovered were those of tho Greek opoch, and I thought, m consequence, that tho entiro necropolis belonged to tho period of tho Lower Empiro. But as tho explorations continued, we encountered mora and more ancient tombs ;one of tho sixth dynasty, several of tho eighteenth, and even of tho reign of the Heretic Kings. These latter had been violated from ancient times, and presented tho appearance- of a charnel-house. Tho in- j habitanta of Akhmim, HUo thc.ao of Thebes, niikuo »o scruple of dispossessing tho mummies, and tho extinct families, to gain possession, of their tombs. Most of the chambers must have changod musters ten times before receiving thoir present occupants. To sum up, this was a comotery of small people (lower classes), well-to-do citizens, priestH of an inferior rank, and tradesmen. The heaping up of tho bodies, and the small caro with which these were treated, would not bo easily explained, were it not that contemporary documents furnished us with the n\O3t precise information as to tho manner m which tho preservation and worship of tho dead wero regulatod. Only tho rich had the privilege of occupying a separate chamber, and of ensuring, by pious foundations, the prayers of a special priest ; people of fortune, and belonging to tho middle classes, entrusted tho mummies of ihoir defunct relatives to undertakers or contractors affiliated with the clergy, who utoreil tho bodies m their proiuisen, and for tho payment of an annual rout or a lump sum, undertook to look after their preservation and celobrnto the canonical ceremonies on tho days appointed by tho eeclosi.istictl law. . . . Even tho anim.ils had their hypogoa, mixed with thoso of human linings ; here aro hawks m hundreds m wooden boxes ; there wo find jackals piled up m holes. Tho truth m, Egypt is fur from being exhmiatod ; its soil contains enough to occupy twenty gonorat.ions of workers, and what Ims come to light is ns nothing.