AN EGYPTIAN CITY OF THE DEAD.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2152, 23 November 1885, Page 2

AN EGYPTIAN CITY OF THE DEAD.

M Maspero, the conservator of the Museum of Boulaq, has just sent an interesting account of some recent archaeological discoveries he has lately' mado at Akhmin. The following is hia account of the hidden life so strangely revealed in these lonely hills above the Nile '.-Never did a cemetery deserve the name of necropolis better than this of Akhmin; it is really a town," whose inhabitants are counted by thousands, each day adding to their numbers; without any sign of nearing the end after the labors of fifteen months. 1 have explored the hill over an extent of of at least two miles

in length, and everywhere I have fonnd.it covered with human, remains. Not only is it intersected with pits and chambers, but all the natural fissures have been utilised to deposit corpses there. These pits are from forty-five to sixty feet deep", and have several floors, containing from eight to ten snail chambers piled one above the other, to admit a dozen coffins. Thefirst impression was that these wore family vaults; but the titles and genealogies inscribed on the lids indicate almost as many difforant families as there are mummies, and the successive generations of the same raco are disseminated over

different quarters. The grottoes, in particular, have the appearance of common I burial ground. The, simple mummies, swathed but riot coffined, are piled up' in layers 011 tho ground, like stacks of wood in a timber yard. Above these the cardbeard mummies have beon heaped up to the ceiling; all the objects belonging to them, bucli aB stools, pillows, shoes, per-' fume boxes, eye salve vases, &c., all, thrown pell-mell in the thickness of the layers; and, to lose none of the space, the last coffins were thrust in between the ceiling and the accumulated mass, without any regard to their being damaged or not. The first mummies discovered were those of the Greek epoch, and I thought in consequence, that the entire necropolis belonged to the period of the Lower Empire. But, as the explorations continued, we encountered more and more ancient tombsone of the sixth dynasty, several of the eighteenth, and ev<sn of the reign of the Heretic Kings. These latter had been violated from ancient

times, and presented the appearance of a charnel-house.' The inhabitants of Akhmin, like those of Thebes, made no scruple of dispossessing the mummies and the extinct families, to gain possession of their tombs, Most of the chambers must

have changed masters ten times'before receiving their present occupants, To sum up this was a cemetery of small people (lower classes), well-to-do citizens, priests of an inferior rank, and tradesmen.

The heaping-up of the bodies, and the small care with which these were treated, would not be easily explained, were it not that 'contemporary documents furnished us with the most

precise information as to the manner in which the preservation and -worship of the dead were regulated. Oniy the rich had the privilege of occupying a separate chamber, and of ensuring, by pious foundations, the prayers of a special priest. People of fortune, and belonging to the middle classes, entrusted tlio mummies to their defunct relatives to under-

takers or contractors affiliated with the clergy, who stored the bodies in "their

premises, and for tho payment of an annual rent, or a lump sum; undertook to look after their preservation, and celebrate the canonical ceremonies on the days appointed by the eeolesiastical law. Even the animals had their hypogea, mixed with those of human beings; here are liawks in hundreds in wooden boxes:

there we find jackals piled up in holes, The truth is, Egypt is far from being exhausted ; its soil contains enough to occupy twenty generations of workers, and what has come to light is as nothing.