EGYTOLOGY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2379, 21 August 1886, Page 2

EGYTOLOGY.

The head is long and small in proportion tu the body. The forehead is low and narrow the brow-ridge, prominent, the oyes are small and closo, together. The nose is long, thin, and looked like the noßea of the Bourbons. The jaw-bone is nuwsivo and strong, the chin very prominent, the mouth small but. thick-lipped. The expression is unintellootnal, perhaps Blightly animal; hut there is plainly to be seen an air of sovereign majesty, of resolve and pride." We wonder how many guesses it would be safe to allow the raoßt industrious student of history, in chal> lenging. him to name the deceased Monarch of whom this is a description. Supposing him to givo it up, it would bo interesting to ascertain how near ho could go to tho mark, in an endeavor to fix approximately the <|ate of tho potontato's reign and decease. On one point only would the guesser be apt to express himsolf with confidence; that from, the minute portrait above given of the dead King—a portrait- which preserves not only the conformation of countenance, but the actual expression—it is to be inferred that his death must have beon recent. Our seeker after truth would probably reckon the period since that event in terms of days, less probably in weeks or months, far less probably in years, certainly not in centuries; and, as to tens of centuries the suggestion sounds, like lunacy. Yet the last and most ambitious guess of all would be the right one. The King whose' description we have quoted departed this life considerably mora than throe thousand years ago; that "air of sovereign majesty" Bits on the prominent browridge', and dignifies the small but thicklipped mouth of Kameaea 11. The Court painter to whom we owo the portrait is. no less a.person than Professor Maaporo, Director-General of the Excavations and Antiquities of Egypt; and the studio iu which it was taken is known as tho "Hall of Royal Mummies" in the : Museum of Boulak, There, on the second of last month, by order of the Khediv#, and iu the presence, among other-distincriijshed personages, oi her Britannic Majeity'i

ffijh Cqmmissionerj Henry D'tuoi mon.d Wolff, the is. also thd ; eiiriy-llairi«s(ii ll,'was solenMytettovoi from his; Klaaß..«ase and unwound, with .the result 'of •leihibiting, tp "(beVutroundmg spectators-we! ejtoji His Majesty's. pardon v the : , assetcS®! , Court — Kojal dountetomcijJ;and.'.pr«v setice above described. The unkndaginj of thia. august ." preparation" leu than a quarter of an hour, and,' after a 'pause"of a/few. moments, M. Maapero proceeded to disrobe a companion mummy whoso identity, unlike that of the former, was unascertained, but, who ( had 'been conjectiirally ideiitified 'with.- .Noftetari, the wife of; King Ahmes, tha Eighteenth Dynasty. I" Oil '-the enquiry about to be ijjithis case much depended; for INofretari; as' Mj Maspero rcminffil the Khedive : is represented upon certain monuments as of.black complexion, while upon othotf monuments she is seen with a yollow skin,'and with tho soffc hair of an Egyptian . !woman. Hence arose intorminablt) contrijverayamong Egyptoldgißts, some affirming that tbo Queeli was a uegroes, jhile others maintained that the black tint of her face and body was " a fiction originating with the priests" —as might bo supposed by way of , poafehumpUß ■ deii egrat i'oiiT-if!; "i ptwtltamoufl 1 ' »Ppli^k'an"Bgy^n : 'feummyj ; '1» not an Egyptian, bull— inflicted in rerenija for her having shown Erastian loadings in ecclesiastical matters, in order ifier deification .under ; one; bf of Hathor, the'black of Death aridef the Shades. - A few minutes, it was supposed, would" 1 — determine the voxed historical .question for over; aiid wo can well understand the breathless interest with.;'which the

result was awaited. - It. wasjiestiped to prove a bitter dissiippointiftoiit,;, The " orange • eolored; winding • sheet" was removed, and on the wrappor beneath it was road tlie Mowing tion: "The year XIII., tho sefeoud month of Shoraeu, the 28tti day,, the First Prophet of Amen King of the' Gods, Pinptem, sun of the First -Prophet of Amen, Piauhki tlie.Sovibe of tlie Temple Zoaorau'-Khonsou, and the Scribo' of tho Necropolis Boutchamou, proceeded to restore the defunct King Ra-usor-niamor-Anion,' and to establish -him for eternity." TMb as will be seen at a glance, was con* elusive. The mummy long supposed to be that of the "most venerated Queen of the Eighteenth Dynasty," 'was, iii reality, that of " one of the groat conquerors . of history.''— My Telegraph. / ; :• '