discovery, in the Valley of the Kings, of the almost complete tomb of Amenhotep II, the son of Thothmes III. Tombrobbers had indeed entered the chambers, and had done some damage to the funerary furniture, and to some of the mummies; but the body of Amenhotep still lay in its sarcophagus, and beside it lay the famous bow of which he boasted that none could bend it but himself, and which bore the inscription "Smiter of the Cave-Dwellers, overthrower of Kush, hacking up their cities . . . the great wall of Egypt, protector of his soldiers." In the same tomb lay the mummies of another batch of Egyptian royalties-Ramses IV, Siphtah, Sety II, Amenhotep III, Thothmes IV, Setnekht, Ramses V, Ramses VI, and Merenptah. M. Loret was instructed to leave Amenhotep II to rest in his own tomb; one had almost said to rest peacefully, but that is precisely the wrong word. He has been left to become a raree-show to gaping tourists. "The royal body," says Mr. H. R. Hall, "now lies there for all to see. The tomb is lighted with electricity, as are all the principal tombs of the kings. At the head of the sarcophagus is a single lamp, and when the party of visitors is collected in silence around the place of death, all the lights are turned out and then the single light is switched on, showing the royal head illuminated against the surrounding blackness." effect," he adds, with singular simplicity, "is indescribably weird and impressive." Who was responsible in the beginning for this piece of indescribable vulgarity is not stated; perhaps as well for him, lest the dishonoured shade of the great soldier with his redoubtable bow should get upon

"The

his track. Even M. Maspero seems to have had his doubts as to the taste of the outrage. "And yet," he says, “I sometimes ask myself if these tombs, now so brilliantly illuminated, may not lose some small part of their attractiveness." The question is needless, in this case, at all events. To light empty tombs with electricity in order to show their reliefs and paintings without the smoke and soot of the candles whose use was rapidly destroying their beauty, is perfectly legitimate; but to make a show, with the most vulgar sensationalism, of a dead king, even though he died 3300 years ago, is a piece of bad taste unworthy even of a decent showman.

It was in 1903 that the American explorer Theodore M. Davis began in the Valley of the Kings the researches which have been crowned with perhaps the most remarkable series of successes which has rewarded any modern excavator. In the nine years from 1903 to 1912, he discovered the tombs of Queen Hatshepsut, of Thothmes IV, of SiphtahMenephtah, and of Horemheb, besides the two greater finds which have been of supreme importance to our knowledge, first of Egyptian arts and crafts, and next of the close of the life of the most interesting figure of Egyptian history.

It was on the 13th of February, 1905, that Mr. Davis discovered a roughly hewn and comparatively undistinguished tomb, without a trace of the carved or painted decoration in which most Egyptian tombs of any importance abound. This inconspicuous sepulchre, however, was to prove one of the richest storehouses of Egyptian art and

manufacture which has ever been opened. It proved to be the tomb of Yuaa and his wife Tuau, the parents of the famous queen Tiy, the wife of the magnificent Amenhotep III, and the mother of Akhenaten, and in all probability the prime moving force in the great religious revolution which her son set on foot, and which convulsed the whole Egyptian Empire.

Mr. Davis has published in sumptuous form the authoritative account of his finds, and the student of Egyptian art and craftsmanship must always turn to his splendid plates for first-hand information; but for the dramatic aspect of the discovery we turn to Mr. A. E. P. B. Weigall, who was present at the opening of the tomb as representative of the Service of Antiquities, and who has given us in his "Treasury of Ancient Egypt," a picture of the scene, drawn with the hand of a born romancer,-only in this case a romancer dealing with the truth which is sometimes, though not often, stranger than fiction.

"Imagine entering a town house which has been closed for the summer," he says: "imagine the stuffy room, the stiff, silent appearance of the furniture, the feeling that some ghostly occupants of the vacant chairs have just been disturbed, the desire to throw open the windows to let life into the room once more. That was perhaps the first sensation as we stood, really dumfounded, and stared around at the relics of the life of over three thousand years ago, all of which were as new almost as when they graced the palace of Prince Yuaa. Three arm-chairs were perhaps the first objects to attract the attention; beautiful carved wooden