Part 13 (1/2)
The pilfering of antiquities found during the course of authorised excavations is one of the most common forms of robbery. The overseer cannot always watch the workmen sufficiently closely to prevent them pocketing the small objects which they find, and it is an easy matter to carry off the stolen goods, even though the men are searched at the end of the day. A little girl minding her father's sheep and goats in the neighbourhood of the excavations, and apparently occupying her hands with the spinning of flax, is perhaps the receiver of the objects. Thus it is more profitable to dig for antiquities even in authorised excavations than to work the water-hoist, which is one of the usual occupations of the peasant. Pulling the hoisting-pole down, and swinging it up again with its load of water many thousands of times in the day, is monotonous work; whereas digging in the ground, with the eyes keenly watching for the appearance of antiquities, is always interesting and exciting. And why should the digger refrain from appropriating the objects which his pick reveals? If he does not make use of his opportunities and carry off the antiquities, the western director of the works will take them to his own country and sell them for his own profit. All natives believe that the archaeologists work for the purpose of making money. Speaking of Professor Flinders Petrie, a peasant said to me the other day: ”He has worked five-and-twenty years now; he must be _very_ rich.” He would never believe that the antiquities were given to museums without any payment being made to the finder.
The stealing of fragments broken out of the walls of ”show” monuments is almost the only form of robbery which will receive general condemnation.
That this vandalism is also distasteful to the natives themselves is shown by the fact that several better-cla.s.s Egyptians living in the neighbourhood of Thebes subscribed, at my invitation, the sum of 50 for the protection of certain beautiful tombs. When they were shown the works undertaken with their money, they expressed themselves as being ”pleased with the delicate inscriptions in the tombs, but very awfully angry at the damage which the devils of ignorant people had made.” A native of moderate intelligence can quite appreciate the argument that whereas the continuous warfare between the agents of the Department of Antiquities and the illegal excavators of small graves is what might be called an honourable game, the smas.h.i.+ng of public monuments cannot be called fair-play from whatever point of view the matter is approached.
Often revenge or spite is the cause of this damage. It is sometimes necessary to act with severity to the peasants who infringe the rules of the Department, but a serious danger lies in such action, for it is the nature of the Thebans to revenge themselves not on the official directly but on the monuments which he is known to love. Two years ago a native illegally built himself a house on Government ground, and I was obliged to go through the formality of pulling it down, which I did by obliging him to remove a few layers of brickwork around the walls. A short time afterwards a famous tomb was broken into and a part of the paintings destroyed; and there was enough evidence to show that the owner of this house was the culprit, though unfortunately he could not be convicted. One man actually had the audacity to warn me that any severity on my part would be met by destruction of monuments. Under these circ.u.mstances an official finds himself in a dilemma. If he maintains the dignity and prestige of his Department by punis.h.i.+ng any offences against it, he endangers the very objects for the care of which he is responsible; and it is hard to say whether under a lax or a severe administration the more damage would be done.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PL. XXIV. A modern Gournawi beggar.]
[_Photo by E. Bird._
The produce of these various forms of robbery is easily disposed of.
When once the antiquities have pa.s.sed into the hands of the dealers there is little chance of further trouble. The dealer can always say that he came into possession of an object years ago, before the antiquity laws were made, and it is almost impossible to prove that he did not. You may have the body of a statue and he the head: he can always damage the line of the breakage, and say that the head does not belong to that statue, or, if the connection is too obvious, he can say that he found the head while excavating twenty years ago on the site where now you have found the body. Nor is it desirable to bring an action against the man in a case of this kind, for it might go against the official. Dealing in antiquities is regarded as a perfectly honourable business. The official, crawling about the desert on his stomach in the bitter cold of a winter's night in order to hold up a convoy of stolen antiquities, may use hard language in regard to the trade, but he cannot say that it is pernicious as long as it is confined to minor objects. How many objects of value to science would be destroyed by their finders if there was no market to take them to! One of the Theban dealers leads so holy a life that he will a.s.suredly be regarded as a saint by future generations.
The sale of small antiquities to tourists on the public roads is prohibited, except at certain places, but of course it can be done with impunity by the exercise of a little care. Men and boys and even little girls as they pa.s.s will stare at you with studying eyes, and if you seem to be a likely purchaser, they will draw from the folds of their garments some little object which they will offer for sale. Along the road in the glory of the setting sun there will come as fine a young man as you will see on a day's march. Surely he is bent on some n.o.ble mission: what lofty thoughts are occupying his mind, you wonder. But as you pa.s.s, out comes the scarab from his pocket, and he shouts, ”Wanty scarab, mister?--two s.h.i.+llin',” while you ride on your way a greater cynic than before.
Some years ago a large inscribed stone was stolen from a certain temple, and was promptly sold to a man who sometimes traded in such objects.
This man carried the stone, hidden in a sack of grain, to the house of a friend, and having deposited it in a place of hiding, he tramped home, with his stick across his shoulders, in an att.i.tude of deep unconcern.
An enemy of his, however, had watched him, and promptly gave information. Acting on this the police set out to search the house. When we reached the entrance we were met by the owner, and a warrant was shown to him. A heated argument followed, at the end of which the infuriated man waved us in with a magnificent and most dramatic gesture.
There were some twenty rooms in the house, and the stifling heat of a July noon made the task none too enjoyable. The police inspector was extremely thorough in his work, and an hour had pa.s.sed before three rooms had been searched. He looked into the cupboards, went down on his knees to peer into the ovens, stood on tiptoe to search the fragile wooden shelves (it was a heavy stone which we were looking for), hunted under the mats, and even peeped into a little tobacco-tin. In one of the rooms there were three or four beds arranged along the middle of the floor. The inspector pulled off the mattresses, and out from under each there leapt a dozen rats, which, if I may be believed, made for the walls and ran straight up them, disappearing in the rafter-holes at the top. The sight of countless rats hurrying up perpendicular walls may be familiar to some people, but I venture to call it an amazing spectacle, worthy of record. Then came the opening of one or two travelling-trunks. The inspector ran his hand through the clothes which lay therein, and out jumped a few more rats, which likewise went up the walls. The searching of the remaining rooms carried us well through the afternoon; and at last, hot and weary, we decided to abandon the hunt.
Two nights later a man was seen walking away from the house with a heavy sack on his back; and the stone is now, no doubt, in the Western hemisphere.
The attempt to regain a lost antiquity is seldom crowned with success.
It is so extremely difficult to obtain reliable information; and as soon as a man is suspected his enemies will rush in with accusations.
Thirty-eight separate accusations were sent in against a certain head-watchman during the first days after the fact had leaked out that he was under suspicion. Not one of them could be shown to be true.
Sometimes one man will bring a charge against another for the betterment of his own interests. Here is a letter from a watchman who had resigned, but wished to rejoin, ”To his Exec. Chief Dircoter of the tembels. I have honner to inform that I am your servant X, watchman on the tembels before this time. Sir from one year ago I work in the Santruple (?) as a watchman about four years ago. And I not make anything wrong and your Exec. know me. Now I want to work in my place in the tembel, because the man which in it he not attintive to His, but alway he in the coffee....
He also steal the scribed stones. Please give your order to point me again. Your servant, X.” ”The coffee” is, of course, the _cafe_ which adjoins the temple.
A short time ago a young man came to me with an accusation against his own father, who, he said, had stolen a statuette. The tale which he told was circ.u.mstantial, but it was hotly denied by his infuriated parent. He looked, however, a trifle more honest than his father, and when a younger brother was brought in as witness, one felt that the guilt of the old man would be the probable finding. The boy stared steadfastly at the ground for some moments, however, and then launched out into an elaborate explanation of the whole affair. He said that he asked his father to lend him four pounds, but the father had refused. The son insisted that that sum was due to him as his share in some transaction, and pointed out that though he only asked for it as a loan, he had in reality a claim to it. The old man refused to hand it over, and the son, therefore, waited his opportunity and stole it from his house, carrying it off triumphantly to his own establishment. Here he gave it into the charge of his young wife, and went about his business. The father, however, guessed where the money had gone; and while his son was out, invaded his house, beat his daughter-in-law on the soles of her feet until she confessed where the money was hidden, and then, having obtained it, returned to his home. When the son came back to his house he learnt what had happened, and, out of spite, at once invented the accusation which he had brought to me. This story appeared to be true in so far as the quarrel over the money was concerned, but that the accusation was invented proved to be untrue.
Sometimes the peasants have such honest faces that it is difficult to believe that they are guilty of deceit. A lady came to the camp of a certain party of excavators at Thebes, holding in her hand a scarab. ”Do tell me,” she said to one of the archaeologists, ”whether this scarab is genuine. I am sure it must be, for I bought it from a boy who a.s.sured me that he had stolen it from your excavations, and he looked such an honest and truthful little fellow.”
In order to check pilfering in a certain excavation in which I was a.s.sisting we made a rule that the selected workmen should not be allowed to put unselected subst.i.tutes in their place. One day I came upon a man whose appearance did not seem familiar, although his back was turned to me. I asked him who he was, whereupon he turned upon me a countenance which might have served for the model of a painting of St John, and in a low, sweet-voice he told me of the illness of the real workman, and of how he had taken over the work in order to obtain money for the purchase of medicine for him, they being friends from their youth up. I sent him away and told him to call for any medicine he might want that evening.
I did not see him again until about a week later, when I happened to meet him in the village with a policeman on either side of him, from one of whom I learned that he was a well-known thief. Thus is one deceived even in the case of real criminals: how then can one expect to get at the truth when the crime committed is so light an affair as the stealing of an antiquity?
The following is a letter received from one of the greatest thieves in Thebes, who is now serving a term of imprisonment in the provincial gaol:--
”SIR GENERAL INSPECTOR,--I offer this application stating that I am from the natives of Gurneh, saying the following:--
'On Sat.u.r.day last I came to your office and have been told that my family using the sate to strengthen against the Department. The result of this talking that all these things which somebody pretends are not the fact. In fact I am taking great care of the antiquities for the purpose of my living matter. Accordingly, I wish to be appointed in the vacant of watching to the antiquities in my village and promise myself that if anything happens I do hold myself resposible.'”
I have no idea what ”using the sate to strengthen” means.
It is sometimes said that European excavators are committing an offence against the sensibilities of the peasants by digging up the bodies of their ancestors. n.o.body will repeat this remark who has walked over a cemetery plundered by the natives themselves. Here bodies may be seen lying in all directions, torn limb from limb by the gold-seekers; here beautiful vases may be seen smashed to atoms in order to make more rare the specimens preserved. The peasant has no regard whatsoever for the sanct.i.ty of the ancient dead, nor does any superst.i.tion in this regard deter him in his work of destruction. Fortunately superst.i.tion sometimes checks other forms of robbery. _Djins_ are believed to guard the h.o.a.rds of ancient wealth which some of the tombs are thought to contain, as, for example, in the case of the tomb in which the family was asphyxiated, where a fiend of this kind was thought to have throttled the unfortunate explorers. Twin brothers are thought to have the power of changing themselves into cats at will; and a certain Huseyn Osman, a harmless individual enough, and a most expert digger, would turn himself into a cat at night-time, not only for the purpose of stealing his brother Muhammed Osman's dinner, but also in order to protect the tombs which his patron was occupied in excavating. One of the overseers in some recent excavations was said to have power of detecting all robberies on his works. The archaeologist, however, is unfortunately unable to rely upon this form of protection, and many are the schemes for the prevention of pilfering which are tried.
In some excavations a sum of money is given to the workman for every antiquity found by him, and these sums are sufficiently high to prevent any outbidding by the dealers. Work thus becomes very expensive for the archaeologist, who is sometimes called upon to pay 10 or 20 in a day.