Chapter XXXI: Letter XXIX

THEBES, QURNA. _January 8, 1845._

We have lately received the cheering intelligence that our colossal Ram and the other Ethiopian monuments have arrived safely at Alexandria. From here, too, we shall bring some important monuments; amongst them a beautiful sarcophagus, of fine white limestone, and partially covered with painted inscriptions, belonging to the Old Empire, the earliest era of the growing power of Thebes.[93]

I have succeeded in making another conquest to-day, which causes me double pleasure, as I had inexpressible difficulty in attaining it, and as it has restored a monument to the day in the greatest perfection, and which will scarcely find its equal in any of the museums. In a deep shaft which has lately been excavated, a tomb-chamber has been found, full of interesting representations of kings, which we have drawn; hence a narrow passage leads deeper down into a second chamber, which is completely painted like the first. The spaces are hewn in a most crumbling rock, which falls in great pieces from the ceiling on the slightest touch; the rock-caves were therefore formed into cylindrical arches with Nile bricks, covered with stucco, and painted. On the sides of the inner door King Amenophis I. is represented on the right, and on the left his mother, Aahmes-nufre-ari, highly reverenced even at a much later period. Both of them are painted on the stucco to the height of four feet, and preserved in the freshest colours. These figures, which took up the whole wall, I wished to remove. But for this purpose I was obliged to break through the brick walls around, and then take away the bricks behind the stucco singly with the greatest care. Thus I have to-day succeeded in the laborious work of laying down the whole of the stucco, only of the thickness of a finger, on two slabs made of planks, and cushioned with skins, linen, and paper, and bringing it out of the half-filled narrow tomb-grotto.[94]

Our plaster-casts, to my great joy, are again cared for. Five hundred-weight of gypsum, which M. Clot Bey has granted us from a quantity ordered from France, has lately arrived, and I have found and taken into our service an Arab, who at least knows enough of the manner of using gypsum and taking casts.