The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-10-02

Egyptian mummy, and that of l \ simonpure princess, perhaps 2oo0 years old? I was offered one at the Gizeh museum today. The price was just slO0 in cash, and accompanying 1t was a certificate showing 1t was not made in Germany The excavations which are now going on In the valley of the Nile are such that the museum has mummies and relics to sell Hundreds of the an- cient dead have been shipped to all parts of the world and the ghost-like officials are now adding to their revenues by dis posing of their surplus bodies of nobles who lived and ruled ages ago. In con- nection with the mummy offered me was a certificate giving its probable age. The lady lay in the clothes in which she was buried She was wrapped around with linen as yellow as saffron. and her black face appeared to smile as I looked. She had been put up in spices, and 1t seemed to me that could almost smell the perfumes with which she was cured.
 Tickling the PhnrRohs
 During my stay in the museum I heard much of the thousands of mummies which have already been found, and Of those which are now being dug from the desert. A vast number have been dis covered In addition to those of the Pha- raohs, and the actual bodies of the greatest rulers of ancient Egypt are now on view Many of these were so treated by the embalmers of the past that they ara in excellent condition today.
 Take old Rameses, the King who built Thebes, Karnak and other great cities. He was the man who oppressed the ls- raelItes. although not the one whom the Lord afflicted with plaques and thereby caused the exodus. This Rameses was the Alexander of Egypt, the Napoleon of the Nile valley of 80o0-odd years ago. He had conquered the countries about him and was rolling in wealth. lie was as great in the minds of the nations or that time as Theodore Roosevelt Is today, and his blood flowed as freely. He now lies here, with none too poor to oo nm revenance.
 And still he is wonderfully pre- served. His iron jaw is as firm as when he uttered his commands in his capital, the hundred-gated city of The- he's. His enormous nose Is still prom inent and his white teeth have lasted these 5000 years without the use or A dentist He has his original halr, little faded, perhaps. and his neck, shrunken to the size of my wrist shoWs an Adams apple as big as golr pah
 Near this casket is one containing Seti I, the pharaoh who preceded Ha- meses, another great warrior ana con oueror who is said to have maoe canal from the Nile to the Red sea ; and nearby Is the mummy or Meneptah' the pharaoh who hardened hls heart against the Isrealites and would not let them go. Seti lies in his coffin wlth his black arms crossed and his black head cushioned on yellow grave clotnes' His features are as peacelul as III iiie l. fA eli we'll
 Some Female Mummies
 How would you American girls ike to wear one <suit of clothes for 5000 years? That has been the fate of the well preserved ladies of this Egyptian museum The most of them are clad in fine gauge much like linen or siik' and in some cases this looks as 1resh as when it was made. It was wrapped around their limbs after having been properly treated with spices and pltch' and it clings to them more tightly than the hobble skirt of today. noticed one queen with a necklace of beads and an- other who has shawl around her head. A third lies at full length In her coffin with the mummy or her | baby at her feet.
 Another princess stands upright against the side of the wall Her face is plated with gold and her mum my clothes are embroidered. She Is wrapped round and round with cloths, and one might wrap up girl or today and make similar bundle. Another of these mummy ladies has hair which appears to have been done up in curl papers and, strange to me, the hair Is as red as my own.
 Gorgeous Coins
 Many of the mummy caskets are splen- did They are made of fine woods( paint ed inside and out with pictures describ- ing the life of the owner. Some are cov- cred with carvings, and some with heads which may have been likenesses of those who lay within. It costs much to die now It must have cost more to die then. The expense of making mummy was S12OO, and money was then worth 10 times what it Is now. The caskets were more expensive than any of the coffins we have today, and they were in- cased in great sarcophagi or stone or wood, some single ones of which must have cost fortunes. In the Gizeh mus cum there is one room called the Hall of Baskets. It covers, I judge, about one-fourth of an acre, and 1t is filled with coffins and caskets. There are enough sarcophagi in 1t to form water ing troughs for the largest of the Chi cago stockyards, and many of them have been cut out of solid blocks of red or gray granite, the sides being so smooth that you can see your face In them. Others are covered with hieroglyphics, and all are constructed with an art equal to the finest stone cutting of today
 How Mummies Were Made
 I have asked the archeologists here as to how the Egyptians made the mummies which are now being dug from the earth. Their reply was that the desire for num- mification came from the religion or the ancient Egyptians, who believed in the transmigration of souls. They thought that the spirit wandered about for sew eral thousand years after death, and then came back to the home 1t had upon earth. For this reason it was desirable to keep the body intact and every one looked to his mummihood as his only chance of recreation hereafter.
 When the art of embalmins began no one knows, but 1t Is supposed to date back to the time of the Pyramids. We know that Joseph, when his father, Ja- cob, died down in Egypt, had him em- balmed and the Bible says It took 40 days to properly cure him. It also re- lates that when Joseph died the Esyp- tlons embalmed him and put him away in A coffin. Herodotus. who was one of the best travel writers of all times describes how embalming was done and tells all about the making of mummfes. He says the art was carried on by a special guild. whose members were appointed by the government and who had to work at fixed prices. The bodies were mummi- fled in three different ways. In the hrst and most costly method, the brains were extracted through the nose by means or an iron probe, and the intestines vera taken out through an incision made in the side The intestines were then cleaned