The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1891-08-13
A Leather Tent.

Gent piece of leather in the world
has recently been discovered in
Egypt by Villiers Stuart, NJ. P, who
has published an account of the fu-
neral tent of an Egyptian queen, says
a trade journal 1t appears that the
profusion of articles of the eighteenth
dynasty which were offered for sale
by the Arabs and others led to the
important discovery of the tombS of
the ancient royal families of Egypt.
About forty royal mummies of kings,
queens, princes and princesses, to-
gether with about 5000 articles be-
longing to their sepulchers, furniture
and equipment were found in the ut
most confusion, scattered about at
random, probably by the robber
Arabs who had discovered, after the
lapse of thousands of years, the Sc
cret burial place of the ancient mon
archs of Egypt. Amongst the vari-
Gus articles were statuettes. boxes
and caskets, vases, goblets, articles
of wearing apparel, papyri. etc. The
story is too long for repetition here,
so we must content ourselves by in
serting only the following descrip-
ton of the funeral tent, which from
its being made of leather, will be es-
pecially interesting in the present
article. Prominent among the Sc
pulchral paraphernalia found with
the royal mummies at Deirel Baharia
is the leather canopy; it is perfect
ly unique example of ancient Egyp-
tian tapestry, and constituted the
funeral tent Of Queen Isiem Kheb.
The tent itself may be described as
a mosaic of leather work, consisting
of thousands of pieces of gazelle
hide stitched together with thread Of
colors to match. The edges are
neatly bound with pink cord of
twisted leather. sewn on with stout
pink thread; each color is separate
piece-no one section bearing two
colors; thus each square of the
chess board patterned foot-stool, up
on which the gazelles are kneeling IS
a distinct morsel stitched to its
neighbors. The whole work is. in
fact, mosaic one, and is the only
example yet discovered of what may
be called ancient Egyptian tapestry.
The colors consist of bright pink,
deep golden yellow, pale primrose,
blush green and pale blue. They
are wonderfully well preserved, con-
sidering that they were laid on not
long after, the Trojan war, and are
contemporary with Solomon. Much
of the surface still retains gloss
similar to that of kid glove. The
pink, yellow and green have not
faded at ALL though dulled to some
extent by the dust of ages. The
leather of which the tent is made is
tanned with the bark of the acacia
tree-it was one of the few timber
trees which the Egyptians possessed
1t is SO fragile from age that it re-
quires the greatest care in handling,
some parts of it breaking almost
with touch. For this reason it. is
not yet exhibited in the British Mu-
scum to the general public. We are
able to fix the date of this piece Of
tapestry pretty exactly. The queen
for whom it was made was mother
in-4aw to the Shishak who besieged
and took Jerusalem three or four
years after the death of Solomon, B.
c. 900. She appears to have died
young; we therefore allow about
twenty years between the two events,
which would make this specimen Of
needlework only century later than
the Trojan war. Since the busy
fingers of the Egyptian damsels
stitched together those multitudinous
morsels of gazelle leather, the king
doms Of Israel and judah, and the
Greek anG Roman Empires, the
Ma cedonian, the Assyrian and Par
sian Empires, and many of the me.
diaval Kingdoms and dynasties hava
come and gone. and all that time
that artistic piece of leather patch
work has lain undisturbed in the 81
lent vault, amid the wild gorges Of
the Lybian hills, alongside its mis-
tress and her gazelle; and now after
all those centuries it has come forth
nearly in its pristine brightness of
hue, to tell its story, to be the won
der and admiration of nineteenth
century tourists, and to show Us
what manner of tapestry was in fash
ion and served as canopy to cover
the shrine of the funeral boat on its
way to its final destination, two
thousand nine hundred years ago.
Have we any truly great men at the