Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-10-12

In the Tombs.

In the Tombs.
From time to time, however, one or an
other was discovered by future genera
tons. Strabo, the Greek geographer, who
was alive when Christ was born, speaks
of forty of them as being worthy Of a
visit, and others are mentioned by writers
later on. During our generation most Of
them were again lost, and 1t was not
until some Arab grave robbers began to
sell curious antiquities that 1t was found
that the tombs had again been discov-
cred and were being rified by these van
dals. The Psychologists then went to
work, and their explorations have re-
suited in the opening up Of tomb after
tomb. until we now have what might
be called a subterranean city of the dead
here in the heart of the Ltbyan desert.
The tombs are nothing like our burial
vaults. They are large rooms cut out of
the solid rock, with walls as straight and
as smooth as those Of a mason. They
are reached by many steps going down
inclined planes until they bring you
far below the surface of the valley and
away down under the mountains. Each
king had his own tomb. and he decorated
it with sketches and paintings represent
ing the life of his time. The ceilings are
beautiful. From some of them the figures
of gods and goddesses look down upon
you. Others are colored in geometric
lines, and in some men and women are
carved in bas-reliefs out of the solid
scenes are religious. and from them the
Psychologist is able to tell us what the
people of that day believed. They also
show how they worked and lived when
our remotest ancestors were savages in
the wilds Of Europe and Asia.
In some Of the tOmbs l saw the massive
stone boxes in which the mummies of the
was ten feet long, six feet wide and eight
feet high. 1t was followed out Of a solid
rock OF granite, and 1t weighs many
tons. That mighty burial casket was cut
out of the quarries of Assouan, far above
here, on the banks of the Nile. 1t must
have been brought down the river on a
barge and carried to this place. When it
was on the ground it had to be lowered
down into the vault, and that without
modern machinery. AS l went through
the tombs l saw several such caskets,
and the archeologist who guided me
showed me the holes in the stone walls
of the entrance ways where beams had
been put across in order that ropes might
be used to prevent these stone masses
sliding too far when let down. 1t Is
difficult job for us to handle iron safes of
even four-foot cube. One of these stone
boxes would weigh as much as several
such safes. and the old Egyptians car
ried them where they pleased
With Pharaoh's Engineers.
Indeed, I venture the civil engineers of
the Pharaohs could teach our people
much All about this region there are
enormous monuments which it would
puzzle the engineers of today to handle.
Take the Colossi of Memnon, the two
mighty stone figures in the Nile valley
within few miles of where 1 am now
writing Each is as high as a six story
mouse, and the stone pedestals upon
which they sit rise thirteen feet above
the ground. l rode by them as I came
home from the valley of the kings. and
climbed up and ran the tape measure over
their legs. The legs measure nineteen feet
from sole to knee. The feet are each ten
feet in length, so long that one would
fill the box of a farm wagon from end to
end, and so wide that it could hardly be
fitted within it. The arms, from finger
tips to elbow, each measure fifteen feet,