Kings of 700 B.C.

Hokitika Guardian, 18 February 1922, Page 1

K ings of 700 B.C.

TOMBS UNEARTHED IN SUDAN

NEW YORK. Dec. 12

Tho tombs of 20 kings and 55 queens who reigned in Ethiopia about 700 years B.C. have been unearthed, .together with important evidence of a lost civilisation, by Professor C. A. Reisner, of Harvard University, who has just returned here after 10 years excavation in the Sudan. The excavations were made at Napata,

the ancient capital of Ethiopia, but now called Gcbal Baikal, at the foot of the Fourth Cataract. The royal cemeteries were found outside the city, where, from

a low knoll overlooking the Nile, the professor examined a group of pyramids which proved to hr' the tombs of the kings and queens of Ethiopia, most of whose names had been lost to history. The burial chamber of Tirhaqua, the King of Ethiopia mentioned in the book of Isaiah, was first discovered. Further excavations were marie at Nuri, to the south of Gebal Baikal, and four of the greatest kings of Ethiopia, who, like Tirhaqua, ruled Egypt as well as Ethiopia, were discovered. After this discovery it was found that the royal family of Ethiopia had sprung from a tribe of Lybian nomads who had entered the province, then a part of Egypt, about 900 B.C. WOMEN SACRIFICED. At Kerman, in the Northern Sudan, the excavator' uncovered the cemeteiy of an Egyptian garrison, in which soldiers were buried from about 1900 to 1000 B.C. The burial customs were apparently revolting, and in some eases the graves of Egyptian governors of the province were found to contain as many as two or three hundred persons, mostly women, who had been buried alive at the funeral in order that their spirits might accompany the spirit of the dead viceroy in the life after death. On the other hand, the tortoiseshellhandled swords, ostrich-feather fans, mirrors, razors, knives, sandals, and innumerable other objects, bear witness to a civilisation of remarkable quality. At Barkal, 200 miles south of Kertna and close to Nuri, the expedition found the remains of a great temple of Amon, which threw light on the history of a later occupation of the Sudan bv the Egyptians, about 1500-1000 B.C. There also the expedition first succeeded in penetrating the burial chambers of the Sudan pyramids.