The New York herald., 1922-12-24
The Tomb of Tut-Ankhamen.

The finding of the tomb of Tut
ANKHAMEN at Thebes is TO the world
of archaeology and art what the dis
covery of gold in California was to
the fortune hunter. 1t is unexpected.
rich and believed to hide even greater
historic wealth than is visible. Ii
is not as epochal as the unearthing
OF the Rosetta Stone. which let the
modern world read the surviving
manuscripts OF ancient Egypt. but 1t
surpasses the discovery of the tomb
of TuoTHMEs Nv. II is as II, forty
centuries after the decay and disap-
pearance Of New York, scientist
from Tibet should lay bare some wing
of the Museum OF Natural History or
of the Metropolitan Museum OF Art
and place it's treasures at the dis
posal of the students Of A. ID. 60OO.
None could read Lord CARNARvoN's
description of the entrance of him.
self and the American Egyptologist
Howard CARTER into this treasure
house without a thrill. Even those
without reverence for the mysteri-
Gus past must have marveled at the
story. There, in the huge ante
chamber of the royal tomb, preserved
against the tooth Of time during
thirty centuries by the dry air of
Egypt, were all the luxuries which
followed a Pharaoh to his final rest
ing place. throne and chariot, beds
and chairs, boxes and vases, statues
and paintings. The robbers VINO
looted the, sacred place centuries be-
fore the Christian era had taken, 1t
would seem, only the huge vessels OF
gold and silver. What loot must
have been theirs when they could
leave such a remainder! Yet they
passed over what the scientist OF
to-day most desires.
No discovery in all the record
of Egyptian research goes so far as
this one to confirm the belief that
Egypt in the eighteenth dynasty
reached the artistic summit beyond
which it never passed. This, the
time of TUT-ANKDAMEN, was the
high tide OF civilization along the
Nile. The King himself was no great
figure in the royal procession that
ran from MESEs to CLEOPATRA. we
remember him as a son-in-law of the,
hereto AKHENAToN who would have,
destroyed the numerous gods OF MS
people and given them sun Worship
instead. TUT-AyKHAMEN. the her
etic's almost immediate successor,
not only restored the temple at kar-
max but put up new monuments TO
the old god Ammon. Small wonder
that the priests piled such riches in
his tomb!
Lord CAISAIvoN remarks that 'he
doubts whether any former discovery
exceeded this one in point OF magni-
tude. Indeed, the inventory OF the
riches uncovered reads like pages
from RIDER HAGGARD-gold and Sill
yer. ebony and ivory, porcelain ana
alabaster, carnelian and turquoise
except that no novelist could nave
imagined such extrinsic wealth as
that which has been rescued from
the royal metropolis Of the Theban
Empire. The throne is "one OF the
most wonderful works Of art ever
found" Nothing that can approach
the four alabaster vases ever came TO
light before. These are only exam
nies in a wilderness of gifts laid as
a tribute to the autocrat OF an en-
pire in the days of its greatest
wealth and its finest workmanship
Possibly a few of the treasures VIII
come TO New York and we shall see
some masterpiece that stood sentincl
for thirty centuries at the door OF a
dead Pharaoh.
Mingled with admiration for the
Englishman and the American VINO
] made such a great rent in the veil
| between past and present are
thoughts OF wonder and regret.
There Is the tomb Of an emperor.
There is the evidence of the high
plane of civilization his people had
attained. But the civilization and
the people-they are not herA why
is it that the Egyptian is dust while
the Angles. the Saxons, the Celts and
the Gauls, who were wild men in the
European forests when the Egyptian
proudly surveyed his record OF thou
sands of years of civilization, rule the
bigger and better world of to-day?
The people of the Nile Valley we're os-
tablished in religion, in the arts, In
government and in social usage five
centuries before CoyFUcIUs. They
had progressed in writing. architec-
ture, art, astronomy and mathe-
matics. They had public libraries,
schools. women's rights, even sports,
in the days OF Trr-ASKHAMrS.
Thebes was the intellectual center
OF the world; and now it is ruin
: upon which Arab lads fight for the
tourists aims.
The climate was one OF the causes
of Egypts rise and fall. It solved
easily the problems of food and