CHAPTER VIII

THE ETHICS OF DESECRATION

With the awakening of a world-wide interest in the tomb of Tutankhamen there has been a good deal of not altogether relevant discussion about the ethics of desecration, which is none the less unfortunate because it is inspired by ignorance of the real facts of the case. By inflaming feeling it may help to defeat the object everyone concerned is doing his utmost to achieve, that is, to secure the adequate protection and reverent treatment of the dead pharaoh and his fellow-sleepers. Hence it is necessary to put the issue in its true light.

It seems to have been overlooked by those who write about leaving the royal mummies in their own tombs that in the past only one of them was actually found in his own tomb, and that this pharaoh, Amenhotep II, was left there reposing in his own sarcophagus. It is equally important to note that it was Mr Howard Carter, who is in charge of the present work for the late Lord Carnarvon, who was at that time Inspector of Antiquities at Luxor and was largely responsible for this decision. Nor is it any secret that those responsible for the present work propose to leave the mummy of Tutankhamen in the tomb, provided that the risk of damage can be guarded against.

The issue raised by the oft-repeated protests against desecration is complicated by the fact that in every case the mummies of the pharaohs were plundered and grossly maltreated by their own subjects more than thirty centuries ago; and, except in two or three instances, were unceremoniously removed from their own tombs and hidden away in any place that happened to be convenient.

If archæologists did not open and examine these tombs there is no doubt that in time the native tomb-robbers of Luxor, the most experienced members of their craft to be found anywhere, would in time discover the hidden tombs, plundering them and destroying the historical evidence. There can be no question that the work of the archæologist when conscientiously done saves the ancient tombs from wilful destruction and gives the mummies and the furniture a new lease of assured existence. So long as these tombs are left alone there is always the risk that they will be desecrated at any moment.

The problem which the archæologist has to solve, once he has opened a tomb, is what is the proper course to take with reference to the mummies and the funerary equipment. It is claimed by many writers to the Press that at any rate the bodies of the kings ought to be restored.

But even if it were possible to replace the royal mummies in their own tombs, and to persuade the museums of the world to return their sarcophagi and funerary equipment, it would still be a moot point whether such procedures would save them from desecration. For, unless large sums of money are spent in equipping the tombs against the attacks of robbers and providing guards, such measures would defeat the purpose that prompted them. For the mummies would become the lure for the greed of the Theban population, which for sixty centuries and more has been habituated to tomb-robbing, and has shown little respect for the mummies of even the most famous of its rulers. In fact, the most powerful sovereigns of Egypt have suffered worst at the hands of the people of their own metropolis. The mummies of the greatest emperors and wisest statesmen of the eighteenth dynasty, such as Thothmes III and Amenhotep III, were stripped and badly mutilated; and it is more likely than not that the mummy of the famous Hatshepsut, the Queen Elizabeth of Egyptian history, was totally destroyed. Even when Amenhotep II (together with the mummies found with him) were left in his own tomb, it was not long before the tomb was entered by plunderers and wanton damage inflicted on the bodies left in it. In my volume of the Official Catalogue of the Cairo Museum, dealing with the royal mummies, gruesome evidence is given of the mutilation effected upon the bodies of a prince and two princesses in this tomb, both by ancient and modern robbers.

The moral of all this is that unless the tomb is rendered burglar-proof, and in addition is protected by adequate guards, it is inviting desecration to leave the mummies in them. Everyone immediately concerned with the problem of Tutankhamen’s mummy agrees that, if it is feasible, it should be left in its own tomb and adequately protected there after a thorough examination of it has been made, and all the information as to age and infirmities which the X-rays can afford has been obtained. The late Lord Carnarvon was strongly in favour of this course of action, and Mr Howard Carter has always been in favour of leaving the mummies in their tombs. But if this is done they must be adequately guarded. For it is not an exaggeration to claim that in the past the removal of the royal mummies to the Cairo Museum saved them from destruction, or from being broken up for disposal to tourists, as in former centuries some of them were sold to druggists. For, as Sir Thomas Browne expressed it two and a half centuries ago, “The Egyptian mummies, which Cambyses or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth. Mummy is become merchandise, Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams.”

But, apart from such considerations, the fact has not received due acknowledgment that the archæologists who are investigating the tomb of Tutankhamen are clearly not engaged in a work of destruction or of desecration, but are striving to preserve his remains and his treasured possessions, and to secure his name and his record from the oblivion which he himself and his representatives strove so hard to avert.

The relatively slight disturbance of the antechamber holds out the prospect that the mummy also may have been spared that wanton destruction which was the fate of so many pharaohs of his dynasty, although it is to be expected that the valuable gold objects upon the body are not likely to have escaped the plunderers.

If the mummy is found, an examination of it by means of the X-rays will be made; but, whatever measures are adopted for wresting from it the story it has to tell, no one need be anxious about its desecration. No damage of any sort will be inflicted upon the body; but every precaution will be taken to assure that prolongation of its existence within its own sarcophagus which the embalmer of thirty-two centuries ago aimed at achieving.

In the commentary on the discoveries in Tutankhamen’s tomb I have dealt mainly with aspects of the new revelation of Egyptian customs and beliefs that to most readers may seem less impressive than the dazzling display of artistic treasures which has aroused in them an interest in archæology.

But to the student who is interested in tracing out the origin of the customs and beliefs which have shaped the fabric of civilization and influenced the trends of even our own thoughts, the objective expression of ancient beliefs displayed in Tutankhamen’s tomb is the most important outcome of Mr Howard Carter’s discovery.

For it enables us to realize more vividly than before the relentless and persistent logic with which the ancient Egyptian theologian strove by any and every device he could think of, to make as certain as any physical or magical procedure could make it, to give a new lease of life or existence to the dead. Many modern scholars object to the use of the word logic to apply to a series of procedures inconsistent the one with the other except in their ultimate aim, and are constantly emphasizing and marvelling at their lack of cogency and consistency. But the modern psychologist has recently been insisting that we ourselves, and, in fact, all mankind, are just as illogical as the Ancient Egyptian priesthood. In our everyday life we are hourly doing things as glaringly inconsistent the one with the other as anything that the Egyptians ever did. It is merely that our wider acquaintance with the nature of matter and the properties of living creatures enables us the more readily to hide our inconsistencies and rationalize our statements so as to hide our ignorance and lack of cogency.

In this connexion it is important to try and put ourselves in the position of the theologians of Tutankhamen’s time, and ask whether it is likely that they really imagined the ceremonial couches to be potent to transfer the dead king to the sky. They knew perfectly well that the couches could not effect this physical transference to a topographical heaven. But long usage had accustomed them to attach a definite symbolic meaning to the ceremonial practice of placing the mummy of the king upon such couches. This was supposed to confer upon the dead king immortality and divinity, to identify him with the sun-god Re in the sky.

The problem which is perhaps responsible for most disagreement between Egyptian scholars to-day is the relationship of the two gods Osiris and Re, with both of which the dead king was identified as a means of attaining immortality. The obvious connecting link between them is the rôle assigned to Horus, who, as the son of Osiris, is charged with the function of securing for the dead king the same boons which he was able to confer on Osiris. Yet as a sun-god, intimately associated with Re, Horus could also secure for him the solar heaven and enable him to dwell with Re, if not be identified with him, in the sun.

There is a profound difference of opinion whether Osiris or Re was the earliest god. Philologists like Professor Breasted and Dr Blackman, who derive their knowledge from the literary texts (which, however, were not put into writing until all thought and expression were dominated by the sun-cult and the Pyramid Texts were actually written by Heliopolitan priests) insist on the priority of the sun-god Re.

Ethnologists who know how relatively recent is the belief in a sky-world and in sun-worship insist upon the priority of the god Osiris, who was originally a king on earth. To my mind the whole conception of deity and the attributes of the earliest gods can be understood and explained only if we admit that Osiris was the first god and that Re acquired his reputation secondarily from Osiris.

In Tutankhamen’s tomb the one idea that informed the funerary ritual and equipment was this identification with Osiris, and the solar embellishments are clearly additions to the more ancient practices. I have entered in detail into the interesting problems of the funerary couches in order to bring out in a definite and concrete form the essential meaning of the whole equipment of Tutankhamen’s tomb.

What renders the obtrusiveness of the Osirian element in Tutankhamen’s ritual additionally significant is the fact that he had been a worshipper of the sun’s disc, the Aton, and had just been converted to that denomination of the Re-cult which was associated with Amen. But although these different forms of the sun-cult were in turn his confessed beliefs, it is a striking demonstration of the fundamental nature of the Osirian cult that it dominates the ceremonies of Tutankhamen’s death and burial.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Ancient Records of Egypt_, Vol. II. pp. 420-427.

[2] This was written in January 1923.

[3] See Egypt Exploration Fund publication, _Deir el Bahari_, II, Plate LI.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE EDINBURGH PRESS, 9 AND 11 YOUNG STREET, EDINBURGH

_BY PROF. G. ELLIOT SMITH, F.R.S._ ----------------------------------

=ELEPHANTS AND ETHNOLOGISTS.= With numerous woodcuts by A. H. GERRARD. Sm. 4to. [_May._

A series of remarkable woodcuts by Mr A. Horace Gerrard afford ocular demonstration of the fact that certain sculptures made in Central America between the fourth and ninth centuries A.D. were inspired by Asia. Unmistakable representations of the Indian elephant with a characteristically turbaned _mahout_ and certain arbitrary appendages distinctive of the Asiatic home of the designers are shown. Prof. Elliot Smith discusses the interesting psychological problem of the refusal of ethnologists to admit so patent a fact.

=THE DIFFUSION OF CULTURE.= [_In prep._

Explains the nature of the culture and its method of transition from Egypt over many parts of the world in ancient times.

=THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MYTHS.= [_In prep._

An account of the states of mind of ancient peoples and the myths they made.

• • • • •

_BY W. H. R. RIVERS, F.R.S., ETC._ ----------------------------------

=PSYCHOLOGY AND POLITICS.= 12/6 net. [_Ready._

Contains an important essay summarizing the evidence for the theory of Egypt as the ancient home of a culture (Sun-Worship, Megaliths, Mummy-Making, etc.) which spread thence over Oceania and the Pacific.

=CONFLICT AND DREAM.= 12/6 net. [_Ready._

The best scientific account of the psycho-analytical theory of Dreams, with a note by Prof. G. ELLIOT SMITH.

=PSYCHOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY.= [_In prep._

A description of the relation of these two sciences by an expert in both.

=THE PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL ORGANIZATION.= [_In prep._

Regarded by the author as his most important contribution to knowledge.

• • • • •

_BY B. MALINOWSKI, PH.D., D.SC., ETC._ --------------------------------------

=ARGONAUTS OF THE WESTERN PACIFIC.= With 65 plates, 5 maps. Royal 8vo. 21/- net. [_Ready._

“No better book about a savage people has ever appeared.”—_Pall Mall Gazette._

“This remarkable record of anthropological research.”—Sir J. C. FRAZER in the _Preface_.

• • • • •

=BOOKS BY= =SIR E. A. WALLACE BUDGE, LITT.D.=

KEEPER OF EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM

• • • • •

=AN EGYPTIAN READING BOOK FOR BEGINNERS.= 8vo, 16/- net.

=BOOKS ON EGYPT AND CHALDÆA=, the Archæology, History, Religion, etc., of the Egyptians, Assyrians and Babylonians. Illustrated. Printed uniformly in crown 8vo.

=Egyptian Religion.= 5/- net.

=Egyptian Magic.= 5/- net.

=Egyptian Language.= 6/- net.

=Book of the Dead.= English Translation. 3 vols., 21/- net.

=The Book of the Dead.= Egyptian Text. 3 vols., 21/- net.

=Vocabulary to the Book of the Dead.= 12/6 net.

=EGYPTIAN LITERATURE=:

Vol. I.: =Legends of the Gods.= 7/6 net.

Vol. II.: =Annals of Nubian Kings.= 7/6 net.

=FIRST STEPS IN EGYPTIAN.= [_New ed. shortly._

• • • • •

KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO. LTD. BROADWAY HOUSE: 68–74 CARTER LANE, LONDON, E.C.

• • • • *

Transcriber’s Notes:

- Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). - Text enclosed by equals is in bold (=bold=). - Blank pages have been removed. - Redundant title page removed. - Some hyphenation variations made consistent. - “Taurt” changed to “Tauert” for consistency, although both seem to be in use. - “The Tombs of Harmhabi and Touatankhamanou” changed to “The Tombs of Harmhabi and Touatânkhamanou” to match actual book title. - “The Life and Times of Akhanaton” changed to “The Life and Times of Akhnaton” to match actual book title.