Evening star., 1923-02-08

How much harm is It doing? Consid-
er1ng only the strictly archaeological
and scientific aspect ought not this
chamber to be cleared before opening
the sealed door of the inner chamber
penlnd which, at least. things are as
safe from the action Of the atmosphere
as they have been for 5000 years?
Work of Months.
But this will be the work of months
ana Lord Carnarvon and Mr.. Carter
are only human. Daily that sphinx
like sealed door with its twin guar
In the face and they have already
amazingly curbed their curiosity.
They must also, In some degree con-
slider the rest of the world. and from
the present symptoms. as conveyed
in letters. kilograms. etc, it seems
that half the world will go mad from
sheer suspense. II the Crucial step is
much longer postponed.
One should add to all these further
cons iderations that the present lab.
to overlooking. They cannot go annex
Ing all the tombs in the valley indefi-
nitely rs workshops.
There is already visible through
that hole more stuff than can possibly
be stored anywhere until the present
contents OF the laboratory have been
sent to Cairo. And what is TO be
done with them when they arrive in
Cairo? No one Seems to know. Never,
surely. was there such embar-ass-
ment Of riches, and one sympathizes
with Lord Carnarvon in his difficulty.
Seals Are Re-Exnmined.
In the meantime a further exami-
nation of the seals adds nothing to
the conclusion reached by Mr. Carter
and the other experts at the first
, investigation that the inner chamber
has not been .opened since very
inc T>,,ta ,lrt, n ~.
death. Reports that the seals in
Guided some as late as those of the
Rameses are unfounded. There is
nothing later than the seals of the
as late as Horemheb. who came to
the throne within three or four years
! after the death Of Tutankhamen-
mat is to say. the robberies must
! nave taken place very soon after the
kings burial and the door now con-
fronting US has been undisturbed
since. Conjecturally. we may put the
unit at SIX or eight years after the
+, body was first deposited.
Ihe great interest of this rests on
the following historical facts: We
have good evidence that tomb rob-
ping went on Immediately after Tut
! ankhamen's time, and X was then
that the present tomb suffered. These
robberies. during the eighteenth dy-
nasty and early in the nineteenth
dynasty, however. were mere petty
, pllfering compared with the syste-
matte plundering which continued
perhaps for centuries, after the COL
lapse Of the empire, when the re-
/ straints of law and Of strong author
| ity were removed. 1t is this late
wholesale plundering which prarti-
cally emptied the tombs hitherto dis
covered. And this tomb Of Tutankh-
amen escaped.
Examination Lnborioua.
The examination of the seals is
sufficiently laborious. because they
are very numerous and the inter-
position of other objects has made
inspection difficult The seals were
also very badly applied. appa rently
being done hastily without proper
busting to permit adhesion. Con-
sequently the face Of the plaster has
generally come away with the die and
the impressions are very imperfect.
This Tomb Alone Escaped Later
A careful collation. however, shows
the results stated above. King Tu-
tankhamen's tomb alone as far as we
know. among those OF the old kings,
did not suffer from the wholesale
pfundering which began about 1.1OO
B. c.. and l. has been undisturbed for
nearly three thousand years.
1t can have escaped only because
the robbers did not know its location.