DIGGING UP ANCIENT HISTORY

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 181, 2 May 1925, Page 18

DIGGING UP ANCIENT HISTORY

T : — MORE FINDS IN EGYPT Three mouths ago I stood in the moonlight on the border of the area enclosed by the Boston-Harvard Expedition for its excavations at Gizeh. "They have only scratched the surface as yet,” said the archaeological friend who had motored me out from Cairo, in allusion to the removal of some thirty thousand tons of debris. "There are finds to be made here which will rival that of I utankhamen’s Tomb.” The fulfilment of his -words has apparently begun. I say "begun,” because the discoverv of the tomb of- King Senofru, or Sene'feru—if, indeed, it proves to be his tomb which the expedition has now brought to light—will almost certainly be followed by others of the first importance. The historv of Egvpt’s 18th Dynasty is being unve’iled at Luxor, 450 miles up the Nile, but. the historv of the 'Third and Fourth Dynasties, which is 2000 to 3000 years older, is being uncovered within six miles of Cairo itself, on ground which, because of its very familiarity, the majority of people had come to treat with something like contempt. The Tourists’ Track. The scene of the latest find is only three or four hundred yards eastwards from the Great Pyramid. Tourists ou their way to the Sphinx pass it on their immediate left. The Arab village of Kafr (whose name, by the way, is really that of Khafra-ankli, a priest of the Second Pyramid) lies close at baud, A group of rock-hewn tombs has been visible here for many years, but recent work has laid bare what seems to.have been the Royal Necropolis of the Fourth Dynasty, Senofru is sometimes regarded as the first king of this dynasty, hud sonic, times as the last of the Third. In either case the records of his time are extremely vague, and we may be on the -point of gaining knowledge which will even clear up the mystery of niyslevies—the problem cf the land whence lhe oldest Egyptians originally cpme, the sacred land of Punt. A Welcome Boom. Other excavations are being >carried out on the Gizeh. plateau, notably in the space between the Sphinx and' the Second Pyramid, and here also a number of rock tombs, with some beautfo ful carving, have been found. The o'ne light visible in the whole-eerie stretch of sand and stone as I looked down upon it that night, camp from the lonely hut in which lives the young Egyptian engineer in charge of the work. He, too, believes that great finds are impending However that may be, the news from the Pyramids will mean a welcome end-of-the-season boom in Cairo. 'The trams and the taxi-drivers (Cairo, let it be said, has the best taxis of any capital I hive visited) will be reaping a rich harvest in a week which the elections might otherwise have made a dead period.—Hugh Redwood, in the "Daily News.”