The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1910-10-04
HOW OUR MODERN EXCAVATIONS
ARE UNEARTHING THE KINGS
WHO OPPRESSED THE ISRAELI
TIES

WHO OPPRESSED THE
TIES.
Old Rameses and His Queens
Travels Among the Mumn1es-
What It Cost to Be MuInmif1ed-
Some of Three-Ihousand- Year-Old
Babie-"The Book Of the Dead
The Origin of the Golden Calf Dis
Dug Up at Tflebes-Ancient JesEelry
and How the ~Isfaelites Spoiled the
Egyptians"
Copyright, 1910, by Frank G. Carpen-
teri
CAIRO.
How would you like to own al
Egyptian m n that OF q 81
mon-pure princess, perhaps two thou
sand years old l was offered one
at the Gizeh Museum today. The
price was just 500 in cash, and &C
complaining it was a certificate snow
ing it was not made III Germany. Inc
excavations which are now going on
in the valley Of the Nile are such
tina the museum has mummles ana
relics to sell. hundred Of n an
cient dead have been shipped to ali
parts Of the world, and the ghOul-ilke
officials are now adding TO fhelr reVe-
nues by dispoSing of their surplus
bodies of mobiles who lived and ruled
ages ago. In connection with the
mummy offered me was a cert11lcate
giving it's probable g The lady lay
in the clothes in which h was buried
She was wrapped around with llnen 2S
yellow as saffron, and her black face
appeared to smile as I looked. She
had been put up in spices, and 1t
seemed that / could almost smell the
perfumes with which she was cured.
Picking the Pharaohs.
During my stay in h museum L
heard much of the thousands of mum
mics which have already been found,
and of those which are now being dug
from the desert. A vast number have
been discovered in addition to those
Of the Pharaohs, and the actual bodies
of the greatest rulers of ancient Egg pt
are now on view. Many of these were
so treated by the embalmers of the
past that they are in excellent con-
dition today.
Take old Rameses, the king who
built Thebes, Karnak and other great
cities. He was the man who oppressed
the Israelites, although not the one
whom the Lord afflicted with plaques
and thereby caused the exodus. This
Harnesses was the Alexander of Egypt,
the Napoleon of the Nile valley Of
three th~ousand-odd years ago. He had
the countries about him and
vas rolling in wealth. He was as
great in the minds of the nations of
that time as Theodore Roosevelt is
IJOdy, and Ills DIOou Ilo~eu DIS Ii coIy
IJe now lies here, with none too poor
to do him reverence.
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
Ihebes. His enormous nose is still
prominent, and his white teeth have
lasted these three thousand years
without the use of a dentist. He has
his original hair, a little faded, per
haps, and his neck, Shrunken to the
size of my wrist, shows an Adams
apple as big as a golf bail.
Near this caSket is one containing
Seti L, the pharaoh who preceded
RameSes, another great warrior and
who is said to have made
a ana from the Nile to the Red Sea;
and nearby is the umm of Menep-
tab, the pharaoh who hardened his
heart against the Israe1ites and would
not let them go. Seti lies in his cot
fin with his black arms crossed and
his black head cushioned on yellow
grave clothes. His features are as
peaceful as in life and he appears to
sleep well.
some Female Mumnsies.
. How would you Ameri ~ lEiris
like to wear one suit of clothes for
three thousand years? That has been
the fate of the well preserved ladies
of this Egyptian Museum. The most OF
them are cad IN f1ne gauZe much like
linen or silk, and in some cases this
looks rs fresh as when it was made
1t was wrapped around their limbs
litter having been properly treated
with spices and pitch, and it c1ing>
to them more tightly tina the hobblt
skirt of today. / roticed one queer
with a necklace Of beads and another
who has a shawl around her head. A
third lies at full length in her coffir
with the m Of her baby at her
feet.
Another princess stands upright
against the side of the wall. Her face
is plated with gold, and her mumm,
clothes are embroidered. She j
wrapped round and round with cloths
and one might wrap up a girl of toda.
and make a similar bundle. Another
of these ladies has hair which
appears to have been done up in cur
papers, and strange to me, the hair j.