The Hartford republican. (Hartford, Ky.) 18??-1926, 1912-03-29
WONDERFUL
"'''''''' TREASURES ri
Of Ancient Egyptian Life
in Chicago Museum.
Boat Used $500 Years Ago is
One Of Most Cherished
Treasures.

recorded history possess a never end
ing fascination for the public. and the
hall is rarely deserted. No matter
how large the crowds, the room has a
tomb-lke silence. for it is noteworthy
that most of the sightseers come TO
ponder rather than to marvel. Visit
ors spend hours before the mummy
cases, lost in reflection, wondering
how the old world looked when the
swathed forms were living men and
women-Egyptian Hall is the hall of
retrospection.
The most cherished treasure in the
collection is an Egyptian boat that
was in use $500 years ago. 1t is one of
the Oldest five boats known to exist
and it was employed in an important
funeral ceremony in connection with
the belief of the ancients that the
soul, after leaving the body, traversed
an ethereal space where it would come
TO fields, rivers and canals. The VEN
cradle craft looks as if it might have
been the original ferry boat which
Charon operated on the Styx. Long
before Abraham with his flocks roam
ed the Chaldoan plains the old boat
was playing the Nile with it's cargo of
dead. 1t was an ancient craft ages be-
fore Joseph interpreted Pharaoh's
, dream of the seven fat kline and the
ment of governor over Egypt in recog-
milton of his services.
A thousand years before the days
of the Ramesses, a thousand years be-
fore Moses led the Israelites out of
bondage, the old barge was ferrying
mummies across the Nile. Before the
siege of Troy, before Athens was
founded or Greek civilization got its
start, epochs before Rome was built
and twenty-five centuries before Gaze
sar placed Cleopatra on the throne of
Egypt, the old boat perhaps. had long
been leaking in its seams and was an
abandoned hulk, rotting on the sands.
The barge is so ancient that its an
tiquity is perhaps most eloquenty en-
pressed by the pharises of d. c. Davis,
recorder of the museum: IT'S fright
fully 3D. appallingly antique"
The boat-it is known throughout
the museum as 1.-The boat'-was ex-
cavated with four others near the
Dashur pyramids, twenty miles from
Cairo and eight miles from the pres
ent banks of the Nile. 1t is built of
Cedar and nothing but wood enters
into it's construction, although the
museum has placed iron bands around
the hull TO keep the boards in place.
Wooden pegs of the double dovetail
type hold the barge together At the
left side in the stern of the boat is
the wide oar with which it was steer
ed. and on the bows is strip that
still retains paint, witness to the
efficiency of the pigment mixers of
those days. The length of the craft is
thirty-one feet nine and one-half in
ches, its width is eight feet and its
depth four feet. A few years ago an
officer in the United States navy spent |
several days making measurements of |
the boat. He pronounced its lines
perfect. The relic dates to the twelfth
dynasty, when Egyp first developed
into a mighty power, when hereditary
when Thebes became the chief city OF
the Egyptian empire, the arts and
science flourshed and large WORKS
were undertaken for the storage of the
Nile waters, such as the building of
ancient Moeris in the Faiyum.
Another remarkable relic is a cut
leather corset or apron that was worn
by a priest at Thebes in the sixteenth
century b. G. 1t was used during
ceremonies in the temple and is cut
rom leather. The apron in the Field
Museum and another similar one
.ound with il are the ouly known en-
implies of such leather work extant,
md the exquisite nicely with which
he ancient Egyptians worked in lea
her was unknown to archaeoogists ,
ntil the discovery Of the two speci-
mems. 1
Twenty-six centuries before the 1
'hristian era the false door of the !
omb Of the nobleman Unis-onekh \
'as erected in the cemetery of Mem b
his. Now. forty-five centuries dater, v
is one of the priceless treasures of
Ne Field Museum The ancient Egyp- II
ans put up these false doors on the C
,st sides of masonry tombs or within $
e chapel-room ON the inside. the be-
Il being that through this door the C
irit Of the dead could communicate G
in the living. The doorway Is sculp- h