The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1886. PICKLED POTENTATES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1351, 25 September 1886, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1886. PICKLED POTENTATES.

When the professional embalmers employed by the Court of ancient Egypt to preserve the remains of their dead monarchs wrapped the corpse of each successive Pharaoh in bandages saturated with aromatic and antiseptic oils and spices, they probably had no idea that after the lapse of nearly four thousand years the features thus hidden away from view would again be looked upon in the light of day. And yet this is exactly what took place at Boulak on the ist of June last in the presence of the Khedive, Mukhtar Pasha, Sir Henry Drummond-VVolfi, and a number of savants and high officials. The story as told in files by the mail is an exceedingly interesting one, bringing as it does before us with vivid reality events and personages whose personalities and performances are of a period so tar away in the remote past as to being rather to tradition than to history. It appears that two mummies recently found at Deir-el-Bahari, which were unrolled from their cerements on the occ -sion r ferred to, have proved to be the bodies, in remarkably excellent preservation, of the Kings Rameses II and 111. These distinguished monarchs, we are told, flourished somewhere about 3500 years ago, not very far from the lime of Moses, and the former, (Rameses II) “ is identified by Egyptologists with the Sesostris of the Greek historians. He reigned sixty-seven years, and extended his conquests to Ethiopia (the Soudan of those times), Syria, and Asia Minor. Rock inscriptions which are yet preserved near Beyrout attest his tiiumphs in Syria. He covered Egypt with temples and palaces, and was a great constructor of canals. Tradition records that he anticipated M. de Lesseps in the idea of connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean by f waterway, though he never sncceeded in carrying out bis project. The Third Rameses came to the throne about a century after his second predecessor of the name, and the exodus of two reigns. He was a conqueror likewise, but he achieved less illustrious victoiies, though he is said to have exceeded Rameses II in the pomp and splendor with which he was accustomed to surround himself.” The mummy of the second Rameses was the first examined, and that it really was that of that particular Pharaoh was shown by’inscriptions in black ink on the wooden lid of the coffin, which inscriptions were attestations to the identity of the body, signed by the high priests of the period, so plainly set forth and so easily decipherable that there was no difference of opinion as to their signification among the learned authorities present. Fold after fold of the wrappings, wound about the remains with so much care and skill thousands of years ago, wa» removed, and in about a quarter of an hour the features of the famous Sesostris were disclosed to the gaze of the onlookers. And so well had the embalmers discharged their duty, so completely had they succeeded in their task, that the body was found after all this lapse of centuries to be in sufficient!) good preservation to enable all this to be known of the distinguished dead—“ The body was that of an old man, for Sesostris had nearly completed a century of life when he ceased to reign, but of an old man still hale and hearty. His head, which was rather small in proportion to the size of the body, was quite bald on the crown, but the hair was abundant at the nape of the neck —white, no doubt, when the old King died, but turned to a bright yellow by the unguents employed by the embalmers. The King had small eyes, and a long slender nose, prominent cheekbones, thick lips, and his ears were pierced for earrings. The Biblical history of Joseph’s sojourn in Egypt, which belongs to a date not very far removed from the reign of Sesostris, informs us that when sent for to appear before Pharaoh he shaved himself, and it is of course, well known that the Egyptians were devotees of the barber’s art. The face of the mummy shows that

the beard and moustache had been! carefully shaven during life, but the hair had grown both on the upper lip and on the chin either during the King’s last illness, or possibly, as M. Maspero suggests, after his death. The skin was jofa dull yellow color siren ked with black. Judging from his physiognomy I King Rameses 11. was by no means an intellectual person. The animal propensities probably predominated, but he was evidently a high-spirited and obstinate man, and had an air of sovereign majesty which still shines forth through the grotesque surroundings of the embalming.” Of the other mummy, which was at first erroneously supposed to be that of Nofritari, wife of King Ahmes I, but which was indubitably proved to be that of Rameses 111. the last of his line, we are told that “ the face was found to be smothered with tar to such an extent that the features could not at first be clearly tiaced but a day or two later it was possible to make them out. The body proved to be not so well preserved as that of Rameses 11., but M. Maspero has not hesitated to reconstruct his character from the physiognomy. He was a smaller and less vigorous man than his predecessor, but without doubt more intellectual.” The M. Maspero here referred to is Director-General of Excavations and Antiquities in Egypt, and it is from an official paper from his pen that the following amongst other particulars are obtained. Researches of this kind are of the greatest possible interest, and the success which has attended antiquarian skill in the case referredto leads to th t hope that further investigations may help to throw very valuable light on long forgotten pages of the world’s history.