It would not, perhaps, be out of place to make some special reference to the men who are doing so much to throw light upon the thoughts and lives of the old Egyptians; but here is need to tread as warily as may be, for these are a race apart. Charming companions they are, delightful hosts, brilliant guests, generous and painstaking to a degree when once you have presented your card and asked to be shown around. So clever are they that after a time one learns wisdom, and refrains from advancing theories in their presence as to how the old Egyptians cut and worked their diorite, granite, and other hard stones: what lights they used when making and painting the tombs in the Valley of the Kings: or what system of mechanics they employed in raising blocks of stone weighing many tons to the tops of the Pyramids, 480 feet up: if it was an inclined plane, cradles, or levers, or what it was? These men have seen many workmen hard put to it to pull a small granite statue weighing three or four tons up an inclined plane of less than 45 degrees. And yet what wonderful patience and courtesy most of these experts show to well-meaning but ignorant questioners, even when they are perhaps burning to be free to turn back more pages of hidden history.

There is something about them which seems strange to new-comers. Perhaps, indeed probably, it is the inhalation and absorption of the desiccated and pulverised remains of the ancient Egyptians which influences them. Every one knows that the dust from tombs produces irritation of the air passages, and possibly this also accounts for the divergence of opinion among them; for never yet have I known two Egyptologists agree absolutely upon a given subject. I have heard a story that two savants read an inscription, the one beginning from right to left, and the other from left to right, and both made sense of it.

PLATE XV.

I was somewhat surprised recently by the remarks of a learned friend to me.

“You are getting more and more like an Egyptian. I notice the change every time I see you,” he said. It may be so, although the idea is startling. We know that Continents produce types, of which fact a good example is America. Then add to this the daily dose of ancient Egyptian remains, and the mystery is one no longer, but the effect becomes possible if not probable. Among the savants some of the old characteristics reappear to-day. Listen to the speech of Amenemhat to his son, Sesostris, during the twelfth dynasty.

The spirit of these sayings creeps into the work, and excavators may be trusted to keep their own counsel. They will take immense trouble and pains in their explanations, and endeavour to render into popular language the hieroglyphics, and the meanings of the dead past; but let the ignorant only intrude upon a piece of their sacred earth, and “ice is not in it with them.” Once, while going through some excavations, a friend pointed out a small blue bead lying on the top of one of the low mud walls which separate tomb from tomb. “Shall I steal it?” he asked. Knowing the ways of excavators, I whispered a warning, “Better not.” A few steps further on the excavator turned round and explained pointedly, “Every article found in the diggings is taken note of; even a small bead” (here he paused, and we felt uncomfortable) “is placed on the top of the wall near where it was found, and is catalogued in its turn.” After this little admonition upon righteousness, we walked thoughtfully along, and my friend edged up to me. “Good job I did not steal it,” he whispered. “I am perfectly certain he” (indicating the excavator) “did not hear what I said to you, unless he has ears as well as eyes in the back of his head.”

Excavators are, as a rule, extremely good judges of humanity. They know that an ancient predatory instinct is present in most people of the Anglo-Saxon race, and who knows how many short lectures on honesty that one small blue bead gave rise to. But even excavators, or perhaps it is more correct to say some of them, have their failings. They are apt to look down from an immense height upon an amateur digger as something too ignorant for words; and a pained look comes over their faces when you mention the work done by So-and-so, and the conclusions to which he has come. “What is the country coming to?” their expression seems to say.

But the excavators have their trials too. Sometimes a digger has been working for weeks at some deep burial pit. Suppose now that “something” has been found. Perhaps a door is about to be opened. At the critical moment, some tourists appear on the scene. The unearthing or opening must stop, for who knows what may be found, and the greatest care must be taken to get full notes and photographic records, that nothing may be lost. The afternoon passes, and night begins to come on. It is too late now to open the find, it must wait, strongly guarded from thieves, till to-morrow; and the excavator passes an uneasy night, pondering and wondering what he will find, and saying evil things about those who hindered him in his work.

I have been in the habit of showing my forged antiquities to Egyptologists, not bumptiously, but humbly, and with a due knowledge of my own colossal ignorance. The specimen would be passed across the table in silence, accompanied by a magnifying glass. The expert would frown heavily, but the specimen and the glass would, in the end, prove irresistible. As I produced scarabs made more perfect, a certain uneasiness would be shown, and the question asked me, “Is this genuine or not?” To this I would never reply otherwise than to say, “I should be glad to have your opinion on the matter.” A very careful examination of the specimen would follow, and the reasons for considering it to be a forgery would be explained in terse plain language.

There is a certain disadvantage in collecting spurious antiquities and getting expressions of opinion upon them; for after a time your association with these forgeries causes an inclination in the expert to condemn off-hand any specimen you may submit to him. To meet this occasionally I would hand over a genuine scarab, which would be detected, and inquiry made as to “what I was up to now, or whether I had really bought this as a fraudulent antiquity?” Occasionally remarks would be pointed, and expressed in the bluff way which “hides a heart of gold.” This I always accepted humbly, conscious of my own inferiority.

These experts were goodness itself, and would spend hours over a close examination of a specimen submitted to them. On one occasion, when showing the figure seen on page 54, the excavator demanded “where on earth” I had obtained it? Filled with the spirit of mischief, I refused to answer, but dropped vague hints about black granite statues, life size; at which he turned round, saying crossly, “Really, I believe you are in league with every disreputable person in the country.” Modestly I disclaimed this, and pointed out that I was actuated simply and solely by a zeal for science. I asked him if he would be kind enough to read the inscription upon the tablet before him. This he was unable to do himself, but he made a copy which he took away for a friend to read. Day after day went past, and the translation did not arrive. After about a week or ten days, I reminded him, but for some reason or other, the translation was not forthcoming. Weeks after, I learnt that my friend had been afraid to hand the inscription to the man whom he knew could read it, lest it should be a further trick on my part, and should contain nothing more than a message of thanks from a grateful patient.

On another occasion I made an experiment as to whether my association with modern forged antiquities would be sufficient to bias an expert in expressing his opinion as to the genuineness of articles of known antiquity submitted to him.

I obtained four specimens (see Plate XVI), of undoubted antiquity, although even these are examples made in or for Nubia about 3500 years ago of Egyptian Funerary objects of New Empire period (reign of Thothmes III).

The largest scarab is of very poor workmanship. The head, which took the unusual form of a sphinx, was badly made and proportioned, and was turned slightly to one side. The workmanship of the smaller scarab was also poor. The sacred eye was well made, of a beautiful blue, and looked as if it had only just left the workshop. The monkey was one of the most startling things I have ever seen found in an excavation in Egypt. The glaze was modern and the whole thing looked as if it had recently come out of a cheap bazaar. But there can be no question about the authenticity of these things, for they were found and taken out of the graves by the archÆologists of the Nubian Survey.

PLATE XVI.

On the mantelpiece of a house in Egypt stood a cheap ornament. This appears in No. 2, side by side with the monkey found in Nubia. The ancient specimen is much the better work, but the likeness between the two is so strong as to be absolutely bewildering.

[When the ancient monkey vase was first found it was shown to an eminent Egyptologist, not in the ordinary way as a valuable antiquity, but a few matches were placed in it (see No. 6), and it was put quietly upon the table in front of him in the evening when the party were smoking. However, he was not to be taken in, but at once recognised it as a valuable antica.]

Entering casually into conversation with my friend, I led up to the subject of antiquities. He was expressing his views freely, and I waited patiently. During a pause I slipped my hand into my pocket, brought out one of the specimens and pushed it across the table towards him. A scornful smile came over his face. “One of your forgeries, I suppose,” he remarked. I said, “I should like to have your opinion on the object.” He examined it carefully, and then laid it down. I passed another across to him, and then the remaining two. One by one he discarded them, giving it as his opinion that the large scarab was a forgery for the following very sound reasons, bearing in mind the excellence of the old Egyptians’ work. The inscription, he said, was not very well done: the two holes on the side were not usual in heart scarabs: the head was badly made and turned to one side; the work on the feet was clumsy. The small scarab he classed as imitation for the following reasons. The two antelopes are supposed to be alike, but one is larger than the other, and has a larger neck and ears. The branches of a tree over the back of the antelopes were irregular in size, one being small and one large. A round eye appears on the under surface of the scarab, which should have had a duplicate on the opposite side. The back and head, he decided, were very good.

The monkey, which was shown to him with a few matches placed in the receptacle before it, was declared to be a shameless fraud, and he wondered that I should take up my time in collecting such obvious imitations. When he was shown the photograph which had been taken of a common vase from the mantelpiece of a house, and compared it with the specimen he was examining, he sarcastically inquired if I bought all my antiquities in a cheap Jack’s booth at home. Meekly I produced the sacred eye, which he would scarcely deign to look at, contemptuously pushing it aside on account of a small white mark in the blue. “Have you got any more?” he inquired. Modestly I said that I had not, when, with some muttered remarks about the strangeness of the pursuits taken up by people with more time on their hands than sense, he strode away.

There had gathered round us a little silent group of listeners who seemed rather to sympathise with me, although, of course, thinking that I had brought all this upon myself.

Presently one of these bystanders said: “Does not a monkey appear in Plate 72, Vol. I., of the ‘ArchÆological Survey of Nubia?’” There was a dead silence, and many inquiring eyes were turned upon me. I said, “That is so.” Then another man said, “It is described as a steatite monkey holding a kohl pot, for I remember reading it with great interest. And the sacred eye is shown in Plate 79, Vol. I.” Now the interest became intense, and smiles began to appear on the faces of the bystanders. It was all true. The small scarab is shown in the second volume, and the large scarab is illustrated in the second report of the “ArchÆological Survey of Nubia.”

It was, perhaps, an unkind experiment to make, but yet it was necessary to know whether one’s association with admitted forgeries were sufficient to bias the mind of a clever man in giving his opinion on specimens submitted to him.

Ten years ago, when discussing with an eminent excavator the excellence of the fourth dynasty work, I said: “Here we have the climax, so to speak, of Egyptian culture—the period of the Great Pyramid of Cheops, which is so marvellous for the mathematical exactitude with which it is built. But where are the evidences of the evolution which preceded this period, the time when they were trying their dawning ideas? No architect would have dared offer to build Cheops a pyramid, the base of which should be thirteen acres in extent and 480 feet in height, were he not absolutely certain of his ability to overcome those mathematical and mechanical difficulties which would be met with in lifting heavy blocks of stone 480 feet. And then the sides face due North and South, East and West. Where is the period of evolution which preceded this excellence?”

The excavator’s reply was startling. “I do not believe that there was one,” he said. “The demand was made and met: the same would be the case to-day if a similar need arose.”

Perhaps this explains why Egyptians, without preliminary tuition in sculpture or painting, are copying the old work in such a way that only the most experienced are able to tell the real from the false.

Most excavators, however, have a sense of intuition which tells them if a thing is false or not. Not that they depend in any way upon this, for they weigh up the evidence in a strictly scientific manner, and give their decision backed up by reasons which are difficult to dispute.