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Egypt-o-Mania

05 November 2023
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A desert valley on the River Nile’s west bank near ancient Thebes, known today as Luxor, is the site of many hidden underground chambers of pharaohs. Chosen as the burial place for most of Egypt’s New Kingdom rulers (1550-1070 BCE), in the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens the tombs lie behind the site of the royal mortuary temples and beneath a pyramid-like natural mountain known as al-Qurn.

Following Napoleon Bonaparte’s expedition to Egypt in 1798, many European adventurers visited the region. Detailed maps and drawings of the pyramids, sphinx, and Valley of the Kings at Thebes were published, leading to ‘Egyptomania’ - a rivalry between European nations to acquire artefacts. This culminated in a race to build up Egyptian collections in museums around the world, where many Egyptian treasures are still held.]

Plate XI, view of the Royal Cemetery

The Tomb of Tutankhamen: discovered by the late Earl of Carnarvon and Howard Carter
H. Carter and A.C. Mace. London: Cassell, 1923, Volume 1
Macmillan Brown Library Rare Books collection, University of Canterbury
Bib# 259162

While the tombs of most of the pharaohs in the valley had been robbed since antiquity, when English archaeologist Howard Carter found the tomb of Tutankhamen it was largely intact. His discovery was one in a long line of searches for hidden underground tombs in the cemeteries of the ancient city of Thebes.Although Tutankhamen reigned for only ten years he has become celebrated in archaeology through the riches found in his tomb.

Several thousand objects of statuary, furniture, weapons, a gilded chariot, animal headed beds, chests, boxes baskets for food offerings, and his nested coffins of wood, stone and gold, containing the king himself wrapped in layer upon layer of jewellery - all the equipment the king needed for his passage to the afterlife.

The four-roomed tomb not only gave an insight into the wealth of Egyptian royalty but also gave a clue to their beliefs. Like the perpetually reborn sun, gold signified a place in the afterlife.

“Details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold
- everywhere the glint of gold."
Howard Carter, 1922

The Illustrated London News, March 10, 1923
London: The Illustrated London News & Sketch Ltd
Macmillan Brown Library Rare Books Collection, University of Canterbury
Bib#11863

The building of a personal tomb, in which the deceased pharaoh would be regenerated as a god, was one of the main preoccupations of the living king. 

The site was generally chosen early in the reign, and the architecture and decoration and equipping of the tomb was planned and executed with royal approval. The pharaoh's body would be preserved through mummification so that their soul would be able to reanimate it in the afterlife.

Pg 386 of the Illustrated News, 10 March 1923

There are 62 numbered royal and private tombs in The Valley of the Kings. Typically the tombs included a stairway, a long inclined rock passage linking one or more halls ending in a burial chamber built to contain the sarcophagus of the pharaoh. This was also the place where the king was transformed into a divine being. From here his soul ascended to rejoin the sun god Ra in heaven symbolically represented in the New Kingdom period by the curved ceiling of the room decorated with the sky godess Nut, with her wings spread out as if protecting the deceased.

JLMC 218.14 Ptolemaic funerary mask

Funerary mask from a sarcophagus
Egypt, Ptolemaic Period, 304-30 BCE
Donated by the PhiloLogie Society, 2014. From the collection of Maxwell Coulbeck 
JLMC 218.14

We don’t know whether this was a portrait of a specific young man, although funerary portraits on sarcophagi were popular at the time. The staring eyes may be due to an irregularity with the wood or they may convey vitality and alertness appropriate for a person who has entered a new life.

He is painted in gold and features wide apart staring eyes. Gold was associated with the sun god Ra who was a powerful symbol for rebirth and eternity. The head probably had a wig attached to show the transformation of the deceased into a divine being.

In a quirky tale of modern science, archaeologists Howard Carter and Flinders Petrie once bundled the mummy of Thuthmosis IV into the backseat of a taxi, and took it lying across their laps to what was then Cairo’s only xray machine in a nursing home.

Ptolemaic limestone inscription
Possibly from Leontopolis, Nile Delta, 221-204 BCE
Donated in honour of Miss M.K. Steven by friends and former students, 1978
JLMC 164.78

This building dedication stone was gifted by Horus an Egyptian priest to the Greek King Ptolemy and Queen Arsinoe. The building was for agricultural storage including threshing floors. The text reads:

'To King Ptolemy and Queen Arsinoe, divine lover of their father, the building and its appurtenances (are dedicated by) Horus son of Pharoüs, the priest.'

JLMC 164.78, Ptolemaic limestone inscription

 

JLMC 118.71, Stone heart scarab

Stone heart scarab
Egypt, 18th-19th dynasty, 1500-1300 BCE
Donated by Eleanor M. Grantham, 1971
JLMC 118.71

This scarab was meant to protect the heart in the afterlife. As the heart was left intact in the mummified body the scarab was needed to protect the heart which the Egyptians believed was the place of memory. It was feared that the heart could testify against the deceased during the weighing of the feather of truth when the deceased came before the god Osiris and the panel of judges to whom he had to deny guilt of various sins and misdeameanours while on earth. The base of the scarab is inscribed with the 30th chapter of the Book of the Dead. It reads;

'Spell of the Osiris, Royal Scribe and Overseer of Expeditions
Kaher, True of Voice; he says: “My heart of my Mother!
My heart of my mother! My heart of different Ages!
Do not rise up as a witness against me
Before the Keeper of the Balance; do
Not oppose me in the Great court,
For you are the ka [which was within my body] the Protector...'

Fragment of limestone relief
From El Amarna, Egypt, 1379-62 BCE
Purchased, 1983
JLMC 169.83

The story behind these three lines of hierolglyphs refer to a revolutionary cult of the period. It refers to the Pharaoh Amenhotep IV who introduced the worship of one god, the sun god Aten, in a society which had worshipped many gods. The hieroglyphics read:

‘[The living Aten, the Great One, Lord of the Sed-Festival, Lord of all that the Aten encircles] Lord of the Heavens, [Lord of the] Earth, whose temple is [in Akhetaten].’

JLMC 169.83, Fragment of limestone relief
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