TOMB PILLAGERS.

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 17805, 2 September 1929, Page 9

TOMB PILLAGERS.

TOOK PEKING TREASURE. V LOOT FROM ROYAL DEAD. (From a Correspondent.) CHICAGO, July 20. Tombs of the Royal Chinese dead near Peking have been looted of jewels and treasures worth millions of dollars, according to Edgar L. Morgan in a current article for the publishers of the Encyclopedia Americana. He adds that most of the plundering has been done in the last year; that never throughout the changes in the last few decades in China has there been shown such disrespect for the royal dead as in the disorders of recent months. Mr Morgan, as secretary of the China Baptist Publication Society at Tsingtao, is thoroughly familiar with Chinese affairs. He says that jewels valued at more than £40,000,000 have been rifled in the last year from one tomb alone —that of the Dowager Empress Tsu-hsi, who died in November, 1908. This magnificent tomb itself cost £BOO,OOO. Most of the loot taken from it was sold by vandals to gem and curio dealers. A few million dollars’ worth was recovered.

A spirit of wanton disrespect was shown for the dead by the thieves and vandals, according to Mr Morgan. lie says that the bones of the Emperor Chian Lung were scattered about bis tomb by the pillagers and that few of them could be found and gathered up. The bones recovered, the writer said, were wrapped in silk and reinterred. Mr Morgan says the utmost dishonour was shown the body of “The old Buddha,” as the dowager Empress Tsu Tsi was called. Her corpse was found lying on her coffin lid, denuded to the waist. It was revealed that the old Empress’s body was so covered with jewels and gems that the thieves probably snatched her clothes from the body to obtain them. Neither the Sumerian Queen, ShubAb, nor any Pharaoh of Egypt was ever buried in the magnificence with which Tsu Hsi was laid to rest, according to Morgan. He says that historians and antiquarians have been amazed at the richness and the vast number of gems which viere entombed with this queen.