Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/368

 2/8 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. But the task of hewing out the tomb was a very different one. For long years together he pursued his enterprise in the mystery and shadow of a subterranean workshop, to which all access was no doubt forbidden to the curious. He and his assistants cut and carved the living rock by the light of torches, and his best ingenuity was taxed to devise means for preserving from the sight of all future generations those works of the best artists of Egypt with which the walls were to be covered. Those prodigies of patience and skill were executed for the benefit of the deceased alone. Important though it was that the sepulchre of a great man should be ornamented to the greatest extent possible, it was of still greater moment that his last resting-place should not be troubled by the visits of the living ; and the more completely the mummy was concealed, the greater were the deserts of the faithful servant upon whom the task had been placed. In order that this blessing of undisturbed peace in his eternal dwelling should be secured, the royal tomb seems to have been con- structed without any such external show as would call attention to its situation. The tombs of private individuals usually had a walled courtyard In front of them to which access was obtained by a kind of porch, or tower, with inclined sides and crowned by a small pyramid. But the explorers, Belzoni, Bruce and others, who disengaged the entrances to the royal tombs, found them without propylsea of any kind.^ The doorway, cut vertically in the rock, is of the utmost simplicity, and we have every reason to suppose that, after the introduction of the mummy, it was carefully masked with sand and rocky debris?' ^ The existence of the temples in the plain made it unnecessary that the tombs themselves should be entered after that final 1 In many cases the sites are wanting for such external constructions. The fine tomb of Seti I., for instance, opens upon a ravine which is filled with the waters of a mountain torrent at certain seasons. 2 When Belzoni's workmen found the entrance to the tomb of Seti, they declared that they could not advance any farther, because the passage was blocked with big stones to such an extent as to be impracticable {^Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, d^r., /;/ -Egypt and Nubia, 1820, 4to). Mariette also believed that as soon as the mummy was in place, the external door was closed and earth heaped against it in such a way as effectually to conceal it. It is thus that the clashing between the tomb of Rameses III. and another is accounted for. The workmen did not see the entrance of the latter, and were, in fact, unaware of its existence until they encountered it in the bowels of the rock. [Voyage dans la Haute-Egypte, t. ii. p. 81.)