Egypt's rich heritage of antiquities has often played a major role in the
country's political dealings, particularly with the west. This is
one reason British, French and American museums
are
filled with Egyptian artifacts. It was not all plundered as
such. Many antiquities were given as presents to foreign dignitaries.
In fact, a few late Egyptian kings worked very diligently to provide
visiting dignitaries with exceptional "finds". When Prince
Napoleon, cousin of Napoleon III of France decided to visit Egypt around
sometime after 1857, Said Pasha who then ruled Egypt "wanted every
step of the visiting price to sprout antiquities". This was not
left to chance. Auguste Mariette, one of the best known early
explorers of Egypt, but sometime of dubious fame in light of some of his
methods, was ordered to precede the prince's visit and dig for
antiquities. He was then to rebury his finds along the path of the
prince's intended itinerary.
Mariette set his men to work at several locations including Giza,
Saqqara, Abydos, Elephantine and Thebes. At Thebes, in an area known
as Dra Abu'l-Naga, a very simple burial was found that, while yielding a
few interesting artifacts, seemed otherwise of little interest. Only
later would the find's importance be discovered.
From
what appeared to be a poorly mummified body, a bronze and gold dagger, two
lion amulets and a cartouche-shaped box inscribed with the name of a king
were discovered. These would be added to the other discoveries made
by Mariette's men to "salt" the prince's path, but
unfortunately, at the last minute Prince Napoleon was required to cancel
his trip.
Nevertheless, Mariette, who certainly is not renowned among modern
Egyptologists, was a shrewd man. He provided Said Pasha with a
sampling of the artifacts, including those small items found at Dra
Abu'l-Naga, so that they might be sent to the prince. This would
assure Mariette the support of the French prince and Said Pasha in his
quest to be placed in control of all Egypt's antiquities, which he later
was.
Today the items from Dra Abu'l-Naga can be found at the Louvre museum,
but the stuccoed and painted sycamore coffin from the burial remained in
Egypt. In fact, it was placed in storage and forgotten about for the next
fifty years.
By
then, the Egyptian Museum's curator was George Daressy, and he
managed for the first time to correctly interpret the name on the coffin
as "King Kamose". Kamose was in fact a most important Egyptian
king, credited with having ejected the Hyksos from Egypt. The Hyksos
were foreign rulers during the 15th dynasty and Kamose who caused their
expulsion returned Egypt to Egyptian rule.
This was ironic because Mariette was much interested in this period of
Egypt's history. But to give the man some credit, the coffin was of
exceedingly poor quality and the name was written simply without inclusion
in a cartouche, as king's names usually were. Doubtless, this was not the
king's original burial.
Mariette was placed in charge of Egyptian antiquities by Said Pasha on
June 1st, 1958. Regrettably, his excavations were often carried out
with no supervision at all, and there was not a system in place to assure
any quality in his work. Tragically, even the records that he did
keep were destroyed when his house at Bulaq was flooded in 1878. His goals
seemed to be adding items to the national museum at a dizzying pace, which
he accomplished at the cost of considerable knowledge. Even the
"salting" technique intended for the French prince was repeated
in 1868-69 for the visit of Edward, Prince of Wales, who was to
"discover" a group of 30 coffins in the tomb of Amenkha at
Thebes.
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