PHARAOH'S WIFE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9194, 25 March 1908, Page 2

PHARAOH'S WIFE.

JEWELS BROUGHT TO LIGHT AFTER 3200 YEARS. Archaeologists are excited over a recent find of great importance in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes, where the jewels of the wife of Seti 11. have been brought to light. She was a royal lady of the nineteenth dynasty, wso lived about 1300 years 8.C., arid was probably no less a person than the wife of the Pharaoh of "Exodus." It is said that there are bracelets of heavy gold, earrings several inches in length, bearing the cartouche of the royal wearer, rings of elaborate workmanship, and fillets of gold, which the Queen wore round her head, but no one but the fortunate finders and experts have yet viewed the treasure — with the exception of Sir Eldon and Lady Gorst. The tomb itself proved empty, the jewels being found a few days later, embedded in mud, where they had probably been thrown by robbers of some bygone age, who plundered the tomb of the royal dead. / Engineers working at Sheila], in connection with the heightening of the great Nile dam below Philffi, announce the discovery of a. prehistoric cemetery. As in the case of the jewels found at Thebes, the public are excluded till it has been viewed by experts; but it is an open secret that the bodies found are those of a pre-dynastic people, who embalmed in a most primitive way, were small in stature, and so poor in worldly gooas that they carried with them to their graves only a few pebble ornaments. Near to this cemetery a trench was discovered, in which were found the bodies of forty Roman soldiers, lying side by side, with their heads cut off. Another prehistoric mummy, of the period of the qne> in the British Museum, was found at Thebes, a few weeks ago, and will be sent to England before long. Enormous interest has been aroused by the discovery xfrf the 'jewels of the wife of Seti 11., who was prooably the Pharoah of the " Exodus." Dr Wallis Budge, of the British Museum, and other Egyptologists in London, have already received news confirming the find. "The discovery of these jewels," said an expert, "is of the greatest importance, and it is a further triumph for Mr Theodore M. Davis, the American millionaire, who is backing the excavations in the Valley of the Kings, near Thebes, and also for Mr E. R. Ayrton, the English Egyptologist, whose recent luck has earned for him the name of ' the King-finder.' " The excavations in this valley are being directed by Mr Quibell, for the Egyptian Government Service des Antiquities, with the greatest care. These, jewels will not come to England, neither is there any present possibility of their leaving Egypt. They will be removed to the Cairo Museum. " The importance of the find lies in this, that although the actual mummy of the Queen has not been found, the bracelets of heavy gold, the huge earrings, the elaborately-worked rings, and possibly the crown worn by all the Egyptian queens, together with, a host of accessories, will have their story to tell of her life and history. They may even set at rest the claims that Rameses 11. was the Pharaoh of the ' Exodus,' and enthrone Seti 11. and the Queen, whose jewels are now found, as the rulers with whom Moses talked, who had Ms upbringing, ' who knew not Joseph,' who suffered the plagues, and were prominent figures in one of the most vivid chapters in the Bible.^ "Valuable, again, is the find in this, that extremely litle is known of the wife of Seti 11. Of Seti himself we have some particulars. He it was who seized the Great obelisks at Heliopolis. known as Cleopatra's Needles — one of which is on the* Thames Embankment."