Part 4 (1/2)
”Is he going to make Egyptology his profession?”
”I don't know--I don't think so. I'm afraid it's just another bit of Mike's drifting.”
”What a pity!” Margaret was practical.
”I tell him it's time lost--at his age he ought to be at the job he means to succeed in.”
”Isn't he taking this up in earnest? He seems to love the life.”
”He does love the thing, but the detail of the work, with all its exact.i.tude and rules and regulations, bores him. You'll understand better later on.” Freddy opened a copy of the annual report of the British School of Archaeology in Egypt and pointed to pages and pages of written records, outline drawings, measurements and diagrams and plans of tombs and excavations, even accurate copies of small pieces of broken vases and plates and jars--almost everything which had been dug up was carefully recorded; nothing seemed too small or incomplete to be of value.
Margaret looked at it wonderingly. What was all the labour for? Some day would she, too, understand the meaning of it and the use of such sc.r.a.ps and atoms of ancient pottery? Freddy digging out beautiful objects for the British Museum, statues and scarabs, wonderful jewels and necklaces of mummy-beads, was what she had visualized, but of all this she had never dreamed.
She put her finger on the outline drawing of a small fragment of pottery with the tracing of a tiny sprig of some plant on it. Her eyes said ”What good can that be?”
Freddy read her meaning. ”That small piece of pottery may have shown that foreign vegetation was introduced into the district. It is a new leaf, not met with before. It was probably sent for identification to the Botanical Department of University College in London. Sometimes little things like that give rise to heated discussions and theories.
Some excavators won't draw on their imagination--they will have nothing but hard facts; others start a theory which sounds far-fetched--often it comes out correct.”
”Realistic and Imaginative Schools!”
”That's about it. The middle way is generally the soundest. The excavator without imagination never gets very far, whereas the man who is apt to let his imagination run wild gets on the wrong track and it's hard to get him off; he overlooks things that won't fit in with his theory.”
”I had no idea archaeology involved all this--you're awfully clever, old boy.”
”It's unending work and extraordinarily far-reaching, as it's done to-day. In the early days the horrors that were committed in the way of excavating were too awful.”
”You work like detectives now, it seems to me, following up the smallest threads and links.”
”That's it,” Freddy said. ”We are just a body of intellectual detectives, running to earth the history of Egypt and the story of the ancient world. We're really far more interested in finding connecting links and establis.h.i.+ng disputed facts, than in unearthing statues and figures which please the public. Egyptologists have unearthed the private lives of Egypt's kings and queens.”
”I suppose your friend Mike only enters into the artistic side of it?”
”Not altogether--he's awfully keen about Egyptian history and mythology, but he hates detail too much to give his mind and time to all the hard grind of the thing--he likes to study the history we unearth.”
”I'm afraid I shall be like him. I want to enjoy the results without the dull labour of digging.”
”It's a sort of thing that's born in you, I think.”
”You love it, Freddy?”
”Rather! I couldn't stick any other work now.”
”You're looking awfully well.”
”Never felt fitter.”
”The skulls and mummies under your bed haven't done you any harm. Poor aunt Anna, how she dreads them! She always imagines that everything Egyptian has the most malign powers. She's sure some mummy will take its revenge on you for disturbing it.”
”Poor old Anna! I suppose she thinks we are the first people who ever thought of disturbing these tombs! She little knows how rare a thing it is to come across one which was not robbed thousands of years ago of all that was worth having. If Egyptian amulets and mummies had such terrible powers, you may be very sure that the modern Arabs, who are the most superst.i.tious people in the world, would not touch the work, and the ancient s.e.xtons or guardians of the tombs, who were even more superst.i.tious, wouldn't have dared to disturb the last slumber of a lately-buried Pharaoh. They plundered and sacked the tomb just as soon as ever they could. The tombs were first built up in this valley with the hopes of hiding them; they were built here to get away from the wretches who plundered the cemeteries on the plains. I suppose the Pharaohs who were having their tombs built hadn't discovered that the other tombs had been robbed by the very guardians who were set to watch them. It was left for us to discover that.”