Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1843 edition. Excerpt: ...mountains to receive their mummied dead. Though the primitive city of Thebes appears to have been on the right bank, the opposite range of hills, perhaps because nearer the river, was chosen for the Necropolis. At the northern extremity Sir G. Wilkinson thinks it was an artificial lake, the scene of the aquatic funeral processions represented in the paintings. TOMBS OF THE KINGS. 135 of the site of the ancient city this rocky barrier is intersected by a narrow valley, winding up spirally into the mountains, walled in by high cliffs, --a wilderness of sand and stone without one blade of vegetation. The termination or head of this gloomy ravine was the spot selected by the Theban monarchs for their long home. Here they hollowed out of the solid rock and elaborately decorated with painted sculpture, such saloons as almost realize the fabled palaces of the preadamite sultans. It was about an hour before sunset one evening that I set out from old Qoorneh to visit this celebrated valley of Biban el Molook, intending to pass the night in one of the royal sepulchres. On approaching the gorge, the first thing that struck me was the quantity of bones, fragments of mummies, rolls of mummycloth, and other relics of rifled tombs that strewed the ground. Princes, priests, and warriors, after reposing thousands of years in their grotto-graves are now dragged forth by poor peasants, and their bones lie scattered before the doors of their sepulchres. As night drew on the ravine looked still more drear and dolorous. It was dark when we reached the tombs, but the general features of the spot could still be made out. The narrow valley, inclosed by high cliffs, here branched off into several little dells. Broken stone and sand lay heaped around. We climbed..