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Where Have All The Pharaohs Gone?
by Anita Stratos
The mystery of the missing royal mummies sounds like the title
of a novel, but in this case, truth is stranger than fiction.
Since the 19th century, archaeologists have been
searching for the royal mummies of the New Kingdom – Ahmose the
Liberator, Thutmose III, Ramses the Great, and many more – some
of the greatest and most well-known rulers of ancient Egypt. Their
tombs were filled with lots of wonderful artwork and artifacts,
but their mummies just weren’t home.
Speculation abounded. Did looters steal these royal mummies?
Were they ground up along with so many others for medicinal
purposes? Or were their obvious tombs merely decoys for grave
robbers while the pharaohs themselves rested in another location?
For that matter, did they ever really exist at all?
The answer came from a most unlikely source. As fate would have
it, it took a grave robber to uncover the whereabouts of these
important mummies. And as luck would have it, he and his band of
thieves didn’t get all of the goods. Here’s how the story
goes.
It was 1871. Grave robbers Ahmed Abd el Rasul, his brother
Mohammed, and their accomplice were walking along a path on the
face of a cliff in Deir el Bahri, high above the ruins of Queen
Hatshepsut’s temple. Ahmed suddenly observed a dark area hidden
behind a large boulder. Upon closer inspection, he saw a small
opening that was exposed just enough to catch the eye of an
experienced tomb robber. The test he performed was simple enough:
He tossed a rock into the opening and was rewarded with a long
pause before hearing a far-off thud that confirmed his hopeful
suspicions. This was an ancient shaft that could lead them to
fantastic riches.
Once the men opened up the surface hole, Ahmed went down into
the shaft. Time passed, but the two thieves heard nothing from
their leader below. Suddenly a terrifying scream emerged from the
shaft, followed by Ahmed hastily clambering up the rope. Gripped
with fear, he told his cohorts of his brush with an afrit,
a malevolent demon that villagers believed sometimes dwelled in
ancient tombs. The looters left in a hurry.
Sure enough, proof of the afrit came the following day
when villagers detected a nauseating stench on that area of the
path, the telltale sign of an angry afrit whose resting
place had been disturbed.
During the course of several years following the incident, some
extraordinary artifacts slowly turned up at bazaars, auction
houses, and in private collections. This set off a stream of
rumors that someone must have discovered a treasure-filled royal
tomb. Some of the most remarkable artifacts being sold included ushabtis
(small blue statuettes) engraved with the name Pinedjem, a 21st
dynasty pharaoh, as well as illuminated papyri in unusually
impressive condition.
This, in turn, set off an investigation by Sir Gaston Maspero,
director of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, in the spring of
1881. An investigator disguised himself as a wealthy collector and
went to Luxor in an attempt to lure the looter out into the open.
Eventually, Mustapha Aga Ayat, a Turkish dealer, offered to sell
the investigator a royal ushabti, which obviously came from
a looted tomb. But justice did not yet prevail, as Ayat was
consular agent for Belgium, Russia, and Britain, giving him
diplomatic immunity. However, enough information was obtained to
lead the investigator back to Ahmed Abd el Rasul, and the trio of
thieves was arrested, questioned, and tortured. But even the
severe beatings didn’t shake them from their agreed-upon story
that on the night in question, they were merely looking for their
lost goat. No one knew about the ropes and digging apparatus they
had been carting along with them.
However, the torture managed to create discord among the
thieves, who argued about who was tortured the most, and was
therefore deserving of the greater portion of the treasure. Since
most of their neighboring villagers’ families had made a living
from robbing tombs for centuries, as had the Abd el Rasul family,
Mohammed feared that someone, including one of his partners, might
turn them in, and he could end up taking the blame. Shrewdly, he
decided that the only way to save himself was to be the one to
turn in his own partners, which he did in July of 1881.
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Ahmose I
(1570-1546 BC)
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Seti I
(1291-1278 BC)
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Ramses II
(1279-1212 BC)
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Ramses III
(1182-1151 BC)
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Ramses IX
(1126-1108 BC)
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Tuthmosis I
(1524-1518 BC)
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Tuthmosis II
(1518-1504 BC)
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Tuthmosis III
(1504-1450 BC) |
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Some of the Mummies Found in the Shaft |
Mohammed told the local Qurnan governor that Ahmed had found
the royal burial site. He confessed that he and Ahmed had created
the foul smell of the afrit by killing a donkey and
throwing its carcass into the tomb in order to keep other
villagers, as well as their partner, away. Mohammed and Ahmed had
been looting valuable artifacts from the tomb since then,
occasionally putting a few at a time on the market in order to
keep suspicions down and prices up.
A heavily armed official from the Antiquities Service feared
for his life when he traveled to Luxor to survey the scene,
knowing full well that he could trust no one in the small village,
since every villager would have gladly killed him rather than lose
such a valuable cache. Even after all of the looting committed by
the Abd el Rasul brothers, the tomb still contained incredible
riches including more ushabtis, alabaster vessels, papyrus
scrolls, trinkets, and much, much more. But the real treasure of
the tomb shocked the official even more – clusters of enormous
royal mummy cases belonging to both male and female royalty
haphazardly leaning against walls and lying on the floors of the
chambers. His state of shock intensified when he read the names
inscribed on the cases, which included Seti I and Ramses the Great
– all together, approximately forty of the greatest pharaohs of
the 18th and 19th dynasties along with
princes, princesses, court officials, and royal grandchildren. To
say this was an important find would be an understatement.
Knowing he could not leave this cache unattended, the official
hired a crew of over 300 workers to empty the galley and chamber.
Some of the mummy cases were huge and very heavy, as in the case
of Queen Ahmose Nefertari, whose ten foot long mummy case required
16 men to lift and carry it. At one point, much of the crew tried
to fearfully desert their tasks when the mummy of Ramses I was
left in the strong Egyptian sun too long, causing its arm to
contract and raising its hand into the air.
After five days the tomb was cleared and the mummified royals,
along with their artifacts, began their long journey down the Nile
toward Cairo. By now everyone had heard about the cache, and the
Nile was lined with men and women saluting the passage of their
3,000 year old pharaohs.
While Mohammed may have thought that crime paid, he soon found
out that being a stool pigeon paid even better. He was given a
sizable reward and then hired by the Antiquities Service as a
foreman. However, years later, when he showed archaeologists a
site containing 150 mummies of high priests belonging to the great
temple of Amen-Re at Karnak, he was fired. Authorities believed
that he already knew about the tomb and had been looting it for
some time. So much for Mohammed’s honorable career.
But why were all these magnificent royal mummies hoarded away
so unceremoniously? Well, for one thing, tomb robbing was nothing
new. Stealing riches from tombs began almost as soon as the dead
were buried along with valuable treasures. Therefore, a pyramid
was like a beacon to tomb robbers, marking an opportunity for
great riches. Not one royal tomb that has been found thus far has
escaped the hands of looters, some of whom broke in only days
after tomb entrances were sealed.
Looting had become so commonplace that at the end of the 20th
dynasty, most of the treasures buried with the pharaohs had
already been stolen, and mummy cases had been desecrated. In some
of the worst cases, the mummies of royal children were used as
torches by looters. So the problem now was how to protect the
actual mummies so their souls would be guaranteed survival in the
afterlife.
The solution was reached and carried out by a group of
officials and devoted priests. They gathered every royal mummy
they could find in the Valley of the Kings and crammed them into a
tomb in Deir el Bahri that had originally been created for an 18th
dynasty queen, but was abandoned. Still others were put into the
tomb of Amenhotep II, which remained secure. The mummy cases were
piled up any which way just to keep them safely hidden, where they
remained for 3,000 years.
Of course, every great discovery must have its share of
opposition, and in the case of the royal mummy cache, some
individuals have challenged whether or not these mummies actually
are the remains of dynastic royalty. Opponents have cited a lack
of facial resemblance to other family members within dynasties,
age differences of the deceased versus known ages of kings,
improper arm placement (some mummies’ arms are pendant at a time
when rulers were embalmed with their arms crossed upon their
chests), and claims that positive identification was impossible
because some cases were reinscribed and some mummies were
allegedly rewrapped. However, these challenges are inconclusive
and experts say further evidence is required from more refined DNA
tests and potential discovery of a third royal mummy cache, which
is expected to house many other New Kingdom rulers.
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