The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1896-02-12
New Discoveries in Egypt.

Anyone who has visited Egypt in
the last decade might be excused for
thinking that he had seen all there is
to see in that ancient land, it being
natural to suppose that a few years
could make but little change in a
country upon which "forty centuries
looked DOWN" But this is a mistake,
since the last ten years have been
years of very active work in the de-
partment of Egyptian exploration, and
a great number of valuable additions
have been made to the antiquities
previously discovered. The head of
this department is Monsieur de Nor
gan, who is, as his name indicates, a
Gallicised Welshman, in whom are
combined the perseverance, and energy
of both of these races, and under his
management the work Of discovery is
pushed forward with more zeal and
crowned with more success than ever
before.
Every temple and tomb in Egypt 10
now under the closest surveillance to
prevent the carrying away of their
treasures by the natives, who formerly
made a practice of robbing them and
selling the spells to chance visitors.
In this way many articles of the great
est value aud interest were scattered
about the world in the possession Of
private individuals, and so were lost
to students of archaeology. Now all
discoveries are deposited in public
museums. where they tell to thous-
ands the story Of by gone milleniums.
Even visitors to the temples and
tombs are not admitted without a
special permit, for which the sum Of
100 piastres-about five dollars-is
charged. The money thus realized is
used in carrying OF the work Of exca-
v~ation.
At each place of Importance watch
men are employed to keep away ma
RAIDERS, and hundreds of men and
boys are given occupation in removing
the sand and earth hat hava accumu-
lated over and around the ruins in the
course of ages. This is not so expens-
i've an undertaking as it sounds, since
the wages Of a man is only about if
teen cents a day, and of the boys half
that amount. 1t is true the workthey
| do accords very well with their hire,
as the earth is removed, a few spade
fuls at q time, in baskets carried on
their heads to the accompaniment Of
their own singing. But even this way
of excavating, which much resembles
the labor of ants, tells in the end, and
many stately edi6ces that once lay
concealed beneath the desert sands,
or with some native village alone
marking their site, have been more
than once brought to the light of day.
Just as the excavations made by
DR.. schlicmann at Troy showed that
three distinct towns had been built,
one we the other, in ancient Ilium,
so NJ. de Morgan has uncovered tenn
Piles that have long been buried in
sand and the accumulated rubbish Of
many successive native villages. The
gradual rising of the Nile valley,
caused by the annual overflow of it's
waters, has contributed much towards
the disappearance Of many splendid
edifces in Egypt. After they had
ceased to be used as places of worship,
and were forsaken by their priests,
the deposits from the Nile filled up
their halls, the desert sands drifted
into them, and the natives sought
shelter among the ruins, and so, in
the course of time, they were entirely
concealed and the level of the river
rose above them. At Luxor the mag
ni6cent pillars of the temple stand
boldly above the river, but excava-
tions have been made and courts
cleared, SO that pillars sixty feet high
stand out in all their original gran
deur. One of the finest colossal stat
ues of Egypt has recently been reeov-
cred from beneath the earth that had
hidden it for ages.
No one can visit the ruins of Egypt
without being confronted by that un-
answered problem as to the means
used for the transportation of such
immense blocks Of stone for great dis
t%ances, and for raising them into lofty
positions. The broken statue of
| Rameses II is estimated to weigh be-
tween eight hundred and nine hun
dred tons, in one block, and the stone
was brought one hundred and thirty
miles. from Assouan to Thebes. Such
a task as the moving of that immense
block for such a distance might well
tax the powers Of modern engineers
with all their mechanical appliances
and the aid Of steam power. 1t is
mentioned as an example Of the o
derful skill of the ancient Egyptians
that the finest obelisk at Karnak was
brought there from Assouan, erected
and covered with hieroglyphics, grav-
en- and finely gilded, in the short
space Of eight months.
Besides these magnificent temples
that are gradually being resurrected,
numerous tombs have been found con-
tanning many objects of interest and
value, although in many instances the
natives have forestalled the archaeol-
ogists and carried off everything Of
intrinsic value the tombs enclosed.
We are told by a correspondent of a
Glasgow paper that this plundering of
the royal tombs is by no mean a
modern device, but was begun a thous-
and years before the Christian era.
One king, to protect the royal mum
mics, had a strong tomb excavated in
a mountain near Thebes, in which to
secure his royal forsfathers, together
with a vast amount of funeral trap
pings then thought necessary for the
digni6ed repose Of the departed. In
this quiet retreat the dead remained
undisturbed until some twenty years
ago, when the tomb was discovered
by three providing Arabs, and for ten
years it proved a perfect bonanza to
them, as they carried off and sold it's
contents until the Egyptian authori-
ties discovered their secret and con-
c..l III .a,,,inr fraounrau IT,