by Brian Fagan
THE RAPE OF THE NILE
THE RAPE OF THE NILE
TOMB ROBBERS, TOURISTS, AND
ARCHAEOLOGISTS IN EGYPT
REVISED AND UPDATED
BRIAN FAGAN
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Copyright © 2004 by Westview Press, A Member of the Perseus Books Group
First Edition published 1975 by Charles Scribner’s Sons; Second Edition published 1992 by Moyer-Bell, Ltd.; Third Edition 2004. Printed in the United States of America by Westview Press, 5500 Central Avenue, Boulder, Colorado 80301-2877, and in the United Kingdom by Westview Press, 12 Hid’s Copse Road, Cumnor Hill, Oxford OX2 9JJ.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fagan, Brian M.
The rape of the Nile : tomb robbers, tourists, and archaeologists in Egypt / Brian Fagan.— Rev. ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-10 0-8133-4061-6 (pbk.); ISBN-13 978-0-8133-4061-6
eBOOK ISBN: 9780786747283
1. Egypt—Antiquities. 2. Egyptology—History. 3. Archaeological thefts—Egypt. I. Title.
DT60.F24 2004
932—dc22
2004015150
Text design by Brent Wilcox
Set in 11-point Minion by the Perseus Books Group
But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour,
and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of
silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons,
and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians.
Exodus 3:22
For the Fox and the Vicar
With love and affection, and because of many good times.
Preface
The Rape of the Nile has a special place in my heart, for it was the first truly general book on archaeology that I ever wrote. It all began with an article commissioned by Archaeology Magazine about the theatrical strongman and tomb robber Giovanni Belzoni, one of the great adventurers of early archaeology along the Nile. Patricia Cristol, then an editor at Charles Scribner’s Sons, asked me to write a biography of Belzoni. I pointed out that there was already an excellent study in print, and, almost as an aside, offered a history of Egyptian tomb robbing instead. To my astonishment, she sent me a contract for such a book, which put me on the spot, as I knew nothing whatsoever about the subject. For two years, I found myself in a fascinating and long-forgotten world of heroes and villains, of larger-than-life figures whose antics seemed stranger than fiction. Writing The Rape (the title was Scribner’s Sons’ idea) gave me an abiding fascination with ancient Egypt and the archaeologists who worked along the Nile. The book appeared in 1975 to considerable acclaim, and has been translated into eight languages, as well as appearing in a reprint published by Moyer-Bell in 1992. I was nervous when the book appeared, for I assumed that Egyptologists would disapprove of a history written by an outsider. In the event, I have been flattered by their polite words and civilized tolerance of the errors that inevitably crept into the book. A colleague told me some months ago that the book was a “venerable classic” of Egyptology, which is both flattering and slightly alarming.
No question, however, that the original version and the reprint are entering their dotage. A great deal has happened in Egyptology since 1975— new discoveries, fresh insights, and a generation of important conservation work and basic research, combined with ardent specialization. When I wrote the original edition, the literature on the history of Egyptology was scattered in obscure journals and was relatively inaccessible. The past thirty years have seen a flood of biographies and historical studies, which throw new light on early Egyptology, especially during the nineteenth century. I was delighted when Karl Yambert of Westview Press asked me to prepare an updated edition. He gave me a chance to revisit one of the most fascinating projects I have ever undertaken. In the event, the task was a demanding pleasure that involved extensive rewriting and expansion of the original work.
I was pleased to discover that the basic narrative format worked well and that my original story was, on the whole, reasonably accurate. As a result, I decided to maintain the original structure, keeping Giovanni Belzoni’s remarkable career as the central part of the book. The major changes have been in the later chapters, where a new generation of research has produced fresh insights into such important figures as JeanFrançois Champollion, John Gardner Wilkinson, and Howard Carter. As before, I have made no attempt to be comprehensive, focusing on the high points and the major developments rather than describing every important archaeological discovery. I should also stress that this is a narrative of discovery, not of intellectual trends, which are of less interest to a general audience. I have added comprehensive notes to this edition, which provide a guide to further reading for each chapter, as well as references and occasional details on people and sites to provide richer detail to the narrative.
The Rape comprises three parts. Part I, “Tombs and Treasure,” begins with the Greeks and the Romans, with that gossipy traveler Herodotus, who wrote the first outsider’s account of ancient Egyptian civilization. I describe the thriving tourist trade in Roman Egypt and the activities of Islamic treasure hunters, as well as a long-lasting international trade in mummies, fueled by a belief that pounded-up ancient corpses were powerful medicine and an effective aphrodisiac. European travelers had sailed as far south as the Second Cataract by the late eighteenth century, and most of the major archaeological sites were known. However, Egypt was still difficult to access until General Napoléon Bonaparte and his savants revealed the glories of the ancient Nile to an astounded world in the first years of the nineteenth century.
Part II, “The Great Belzoni,” tells the story of a circus strongman who became an adept tomb robber and nascent archaeologist by accident. His flamboyant career along the Nile has all the ingredients of high adventure: diplomats competing for antiquities, loyal followers and ruffians, fisticuffs and gunfire. The tall Italian found the tomb of the New Kingdom pharaoh Seti I, cleared the entrance to the Abu Simbel temple, was the first modern visitor to enter the pyramid of Khafre at Giza, and removed obelisks, statuary, papyri, and small artifacts by the ton, thanks to his expertise with levers, weights, and “hydraulics” perfected in acts of legerdemain on the stage. Belzoni towers over Egyptology as a larger-than-life figure. His adventures, which ended with his lonely death in Benin, West Africa, are the stuff of which archaeological romance is made. At the same time, Belzoni’s discoveries inadvertently helped lay the foundations for the scientific Egyptology of today.
Part III, “Birth of a Science,” begins with the decipherment of hieroglyphs by the French linguistic genius Jean-François Champollion, and the arrival of a small group of antiquarians and artists in Egypt who were interested not in looting, but in copying and inscriptions. Notable among them was John Gardner Wilkinson, who lived in an ancient tomb at Thebes and wrote a classic, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, in 1837. His book could be purchased in railroad bookstores and made the pharaohs accessible to all. We trace the stirrings of an a
rchaeological conscience along the Nile, epitomized by the frenetic activities of Auguste Mariette, Egypt’s first director of antiquities. Tourism became big business during Mariette’s time. We witness the tourist experience through the eyes of novelist Amelia Edwards, who wrote A Thousand Miles up the Nile (1877). The scenes of destruction in temple and tomb so moved her that she devoted the remainder of her life to campaigning for the saving of ancient Egypt. Chapters 15 and 16 carry the story from the beginnings of scientific excavation by Flinders Petrie and others in the 1880s to the climactic discovery of the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun in 1922. This discovery changed the landscape of Egyptology, as Egyptians started to play an increasingly aggressive role in research, conservation, and interpretation of the world’s longest-lived civilization.
This, then, is an adventure story replete with interesting characters and bold deeds. The stage is set, the players are in the wings. Let the play begin!
Brian Fagan
Santa Barbara, California
Acknowledgments
Patricia Cristol, then of Charles Scribner’s Sons, commissioned this book in 1973 and nursed it to gestation, in the process changing my life forever. The debt I owe her is immense. I am grateful to Karl Yambert of Westview Press for commissioning this revised edition and for arranging for the scanning of the original book, which saved me months of work. Many colleagues, too numerous to mention, answered questions, corrected factual errors, and sorted out knotty details for me, notably Donald Reid, Ronald Richey, and Stuart Smith. Steve Brown drew the map and tables with his customary skill.
Acknowledgments for photographic credit are given in the legends. While every effort has been made to locate copyright holders, queries in this matter should be addressed to the author.
Finally, thanks to Lesley and Ana, also the Great Cat of Re, for tolerating my long hours at the computer.
Author’s Note
All measurements are given in meters, with equivalents in miles, yards, feet, and inches, as is now common archaeological convention.
Spellings of ancient Egyptian names follow the most common usages in the literature, but you should be aware that there are numerous variations—for example, Rameses or Ramesses, Giza or Gizeh—but in most cases they are obvious. Modern names follow conventions in the Times Atlas of the World.
Egyptologists argue continually about the chronology of the pharaohs and of ancient Egyptian civilization. I have followed the most widely accepted time scale, used in most reference books on ancient Egypt, of which there are now too many to list.
As seems obvious, but it is surprising just how many people become confused, spellings and terms quoted from other people’s writings conform to those used by the original writers. This includes English spellings, as in “traveller” instead of the American “traveler.”
PART ONE
TOMBS AND TREASURE
What of their places?
Their walls have crumbled,
Their places have gone,
As though they had never been!
A HARPER’S LAMENT, C. 2000 B.C.
Miriam Lichtheim, ed., Ancient Egyptian
Literature: A Book of Readings
1
Plundering the Pharaohs
Hail to you, Re, perfect each day
Who rises at dawn without failing . . .
When you cross the sky, all see you. . . .
HYMN TO AMUN-RE, THE SUN GOD.
Miriam Lichtheim, ed.,
Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book of Readings
“One can imagine the plotting beforehand, the secret rendezvous on the cliff by night, the bribing or drugging of the cemetery guards, and then the desperate burrowing in the dark, the scramble through a small hole into the burial chamber, the hectic search by a glimmering light for treasure that was portable, and the return home at dawn laden with booty.” So wrote the British Egyptologist Howard Carter soon after he had discovered the magnificent tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun in 1922. “We can imagine these things,” he added, “and at the same time we can realize how inevitable it all was.”1
Howard Carter was writing about the Valley of the Kings, the desolate and rocky valley to the west of the Nile, across from Amun the sun god’s city, Waset, known to the Greeks as Thebes and today as Luxor.2 The arid canyon served as a royal burial place for the Egyptian rulers for at least four hundred years after the sixteenth century BC. The pharaohs of the Eighteenth to Twentieth Dynasties lay in secret rock-cut tombs with meticulously concealed entrances. Their elaborate mortuary temples stood overlooking the Nile floodplain. The dry climate of Thebes has preserved for us—and generations of tomb robbers—the rich furniture of the royal tombs of the New Kingdom, including inlaid furniture, ceremonial thrones, thousands of funerary statuettes or shabtis, magnificent sarcophagi, and fine alabaster vessels. Children’s toys, jewelry, regalia of state, even linen shrouds throw a fascinating light on the daily life of the long-dead kings.
FIGURE 1.1 Map showing the major sites and other locations mentioned in the text. Some minor sites have been omitted for clarity.
The pharaohs lay in distinguished company. Princes and high officials were laid to rest near the Valley of the Kings. Other illustrious personages sought eternity in nearby side valleys and in the adjacent hills. The tombs of the nobles were in the cliffs and hills facing the Theban plain. Their bodies, and those of hundreds of other more privileged Egyptians wealthy or important enough to be buried with the prospect of an afterlife, were buried in rock-cut tombs, caves, or clefts in the rocky hills in brightly painted mummy cases.
An almost hereditary group of necropolis workers labored on royal tombs, living in a special village at Deir el-Medina, close to the desert hills. They were a feisty bunch. There are records of strikes and pay disputes, of absenteeism and family quarrels. Other artisans prepared the tombs of nobles. Their villages are still almost unknown to archaeologists. The royal families, the nobility, and those able to afford it spent lavish sums on their journey to eternity, on the afterlife. By 1070 BC, untold wealth lay below the ground in the Theban necropolis. With so much gold with the dead, looting was inevitable. The rape of the Nile began with the Egyptians themselves.
::
Tomb robbing was a well-organized pastime in the Theban necropolis in ancient times. Cunning and well-armed grave robbers ransacked the tombs of the pharaohs for their treasures. The thieves often worked in close collaboration with corrupt priests and well-bribed officials. Professional robbers had opened most of the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings by the end of the Twentieth Dynasty (ca. 1070 BC). Most of the royal treasures vanished forever long before the antiquarians and archaeologists came to Thebes and completed the work of destruction.
The royal burials of the Valley of the Kings remained in comparative peace during the reigns of the great pharaohs of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties (1570–1180 BC), kings such as Seti I and Rameses II, who ruled Egypt and a large foreign empire as well. A closely supervised officialdom maintained the royal tombs and prevented much large-scale looting. By 1000 BC, the pharaohs were much weaker, petty officialdom less thoroughly watched. The custodians of royal tombs and cemeteries were lax in their duties, and a wave of tomb robbing began. During the reign of Rameses IX (1126–1108 BC), a major law case involving tomb robbing was heard in the courts at Thebes, the records of which survive on fragmentary papyri.
FIGURE 1.2 Chronological table of ancient Egyptian civilization.
The case involved the mayors of the two Thebes. Paser, the mayor of eastern Thebes, was an honest but rather officious local bureaucrat who became concerned at the constant rumors of royal-tomb robberies that floated across the river from Thebes of the Dead on the other bank of the Nile. Perhaps he was anxious to ingratiate himself with higher authority or to discredit his hated rival, Pawero, mayor of the sister community where the royal graves lay. Whatever his motives, Paser started an official investigation into tomb robbing, a subject that officially l
ay outside his responsibilities. Soon he uncovered all manner of disturbing testimony, including eyewitness accounts of royal-grave robberies. Various witnesses supplied graphic details of surreptitious robbery under torture. They described how they pried open the entrances of royal tombs: “Then we found the august mummy of the king. There were numerous amulets and golden ornaments at his throat, his head had a mask of gold upon it, and the mummy itself was overlaid with gold throughout. . . . We stripped off the gold which we found on the august mummy of the king and the amulets and ornaments, and the coverings in which it rested.”3
Paser took his damaging testimony to Khaemwese, the local provincial governor, and demanded an official inquiry into the state of the royal tombs. Governor Khaemwese sent an official commission on a tour of inspection. They found that one royal grave, that of Sekhemre Shedtowy, son of Re Sobkemsaf, had been violated as well as some priestesses’ tombs. Paser’s witnesses were questioned anew. They now protested their innocence and denied their earlier testimony. The result of the inquiry was a disaster for Paser, who had underestimated the extent to which Pawero controlled the thriving robbery business. The governor dropped all charges against the tomb robbers, probably with relief, as it seems certain that he was up to his neck in the racket as well.
Pawero rejoiced at his easy victory over his rival and gloated quietly at home for a while. Then a few months later he collected together “the inspectors, the necropolis administrators, the workmen, the police, and all the laborers of the necropolis” and sent them to the east bank for a noisy celebration. The crowd marched up and down in raucous triumph, paying special attention to Paser’s house. The unfortunate mayor ignored the disturbance with a dignity that well became him. Eventually, his impatience got the better of him. He rushed off to complain to the pharaoh’s butler, who resided at the temple of Ptah nearby. Paser poured out his troubles, reiterated his charges, and claimed he could prove them. Then he lost his temper and threatened to take his story directly to the king. This was a grave mistake, for his threat involved a gross breach of bureaucratic etiquette that implied that the governor himself was involved in the robberies. The butler carried the story to Khaemwese, who promptly convicted Paser of perjury and told him to stop making a nuisance of himself.
