Hopkinsville Kentuckian., 1907-05-16

--4'N' Sli'SN ~ NlC lOIIlp OF GuSSn lie
ther and mother of Queen Til. This
tomb contained, besides the actual
mummies of these progenitors of IA
nous kings, sn incredible treasure Of
Itinerary furniture, richly carved and
overlaid with gold. Last year Mr..
Davis, with Mr.. Edward r. Ayrton as
his assistant, discovered the tomb of
King Siptah, Of the XIXth dynasty.
This year Mr.. Davis and Mr.. Ayrton
have made a more sensational find.
They have discovered the tomb of the
famous Queen Til herself.
The famous Valley of the Tonbs of
the Kings, the Biban el-Mulak ("Gates
of the Kings') at Thebes, the place
where the remains of successive SOW
ereigns of ancient Egypt from the six.
teenth to the twelfth centuries, B. c.,
were buried, has become fruitful soil
for the Psychologist, who has found in
the tombs deeply cut in the limestone
rock, the royal bodies so long ago pre-
served and laid away. And it is either
here or in the hiding places to which
they were afterwards removed in or
der to save them from the depreda-
Eons of tomb-robbers, that most of the
actual bodies Of the greatest monarchs
of Egypt and OF members of their
families have been found in modern
times.
The tomb in which the remains OF
| Queen Til were found is unimpOrtant
! in itself, in no way comparing with
the sepulchres Of other mOnarchs near
by, so that it may well be that it was
not originally intended to be the rest
| ing place of so great a queen. But
within it the explorers found the re-
mains of the funeral state Of Til, and
her body, lying covered with a golden
diadem in the form of vulture, whose
wings encircled and clasped the brow
of it's mistress. She lay wrapped
about with sheets of FURNISHED gold
within a coffin, slightly nodded to the
form of her body, and encrusted with
carnelian and colored glass set in gold.
This coffin was originally placed with
in wooden shrine or naos, of which
the remains we're found. It's sides
were covered with stucco overlaid with
gold leaf. The stucco was modelled in
relief, with representations Of the
queen making offerings to the Aten,
the sundisk which she and her son
worshiped. These reliefs are of ex-
traordinary beauty and delicacy. OF
the other objects found in the tomb
the most beautiful are the "canopic
jars" to hold the entrails of the de-
ceased, the lids of which are fashioned
in the form of portrait heads Of the
deceased queen, which show us her
features more perfectly than any other
known representation of her I'm
happily the mummy itself tells us
nothing; only the grinning skull and a
heap of bones are left. All the con-
tents of the tomb were found In a
state Of the utmost confusion. The
burial place had been roughly dis.
turbed by the orthodox priests of
Amen, who, on the overthrow Of the
Aten heresy, invaded the resting place
of the queen in order to hammer out
from her funeral furniture the name
OF her heretical son. And, at some
time unknown, water entered the
tomb, rendering most Of the wood
work rotten and reducing 1t to the
condition OF touchwood Much of it,
as well as the skull and bones Of the
queen, has only been saved by being
coated with boiling parafin wax, which
soaks into the soft material and hard
ems 1t.