The Book of Gates
9781465526984
418 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
The text of the "Book of Gates," printed in the following pages, is taken from the alabaster sarcophagus of king Seti I., B.C. 1370, which is preserved in the Museum of Sir John Soane, at 13, Lincoln's Inn Fields. This sarcophagus is, undoubtedly, one of the chief authorities for the text of that remarkable book; but before any attempt is made to describe the arrangement of the scenes and the inscriptions which accompany them, it will be well to recall the principal facts connected with its discovery by Giovanni Battista Belzoni, who has fortunately placed them on record in his Narrative of the Operations and recent discoveries within the pyramids, temples, tombs and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia, London, 1820, p. 233 ff. In October, 1815, Belzoni began to excavate in the Biban-al-Muluk, i.e., the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, on the western bank of the Nile at Thebes, and in the bed of a watercourse he found a spot where the ground bore traces of having been "moved." On the 19th of the month his workmen made a way through the sand and fragments of stone which had been piled up there, and entered the first corridor or passage of a magnificent tomb, which he soon discovered to have been made for one of the great kings of Egypt. A second corridor led him to a square chamber which, being thirty feet deep, formed a serious obstacle in the way of any unauthorized intruder, and served to catch any rain-water which might make its way down the corridors from the entrance. Beyond this chamber are two halls, and from the first of these Belzoni passed through other corridors and rooms until he entered the vaulted chamber in which stood the sarcophagus. 1 The sarcophagus chamber is situated at a distance of 320 feet from the entrance to the first corridor, and is 180 feet below the level of the ground. Belzoni succeeded in bringing the sarcophagus from its chamber into the light of day without injury, and in due course it arrived in England; the negotiations which he opened with the Trustees of the British Museum, to whom its purchase was first proposed, fell through, and he subsequently sold it to Sir John Soane, it is said for the sum of £2000. An examination of the sarcophagus shows that both it and its cover were hollowed out of monolithic blocks of alabaster, and it is probable, as Mr. Sharpe says, 1 that these were quarried in the mountains near Alabastronpolis, i.e., the district which was known to the Egyptians by the name of Het-nub, and is situated near the ruins known in modern times by the name of Tell al-'Amarna. In the Yet-nub quarries large numbers of inscriptions, written chiefly in the hieratic character, have been found, and from the interesting selection from these published by Messrs. Blackden and Fraser, we learn that several kings of the Ancient and Middle Empires carried on works in them, no doubt for the purpose of obtaining alabaster for funeral purposes. The sarcophagus is 9 ft. 4 in. long, 3 ft. 8 in. wide, in the widest part, and 2 ft. 8 in. high at the shoulders, and 2 ft. 3 in. at the feet; the cover is 1 ft. 3 in. high. The thickness of the alabaster varies from 21 to 4 inches. The skill of the mason who succeeded in hollowing the blocks without breaking, or even cracking them, is marvellous, and the remains of holes nearly one inch in diameter suggest that the drill was as useful to him as the chisel and mallet in hollowing out the blocks. When the sarcophagus and its cover were finally shaped and polished, they were handed over to an artisan who was skilled in cutting hieroglyphics and figures of the gods, &c., in stone, and both the insides and outsides were covered by him with inscriptions and vignettes and mythological scones which illustrated them.
