Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/370

 28o A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. whereabouts of the burial-places of those great sovereigns whose memory w^as a consolation to Egyptian pride in the clays of national abasement and decay. Provision had to be made, as in the case of the pyramids, against a forced entry into the gallery either by an enemy or by some robber in search of treasure, and we find that the precautions adopted were similar to those which we have described in noticing the royal tombs at Memphis. Let us take as an example the finest and most complete of all the tombs of the Ramessides, that of Seti I. After descending two flights of steps, and traversing two long and richly decorated corridors, Belzoni arrived, without discovering either sarcophagus or anything that looked like the site of a sarcophagus, at an oblong chamber 13 feet 6 inches by 12 feet. A wide and deep well, which here barred the passage, seemed to indicate that the extremity of the excavation had been reached. Belzoni caused himself to be lowered into the well. The walls were everywhere hard and firm, and without resonance, and there was no sign of a passage, either open or concealed, by which access to a lateral chamber, or to a second series of cralleries mio-ht be obtained. But Belzoni was too old an explorer to be deceived by such appearances. On his first arrival at the edge of the well he had perceived in the wall on the farther side of it a small opening, about two feet wide, and two feet and a half high. This had been made, at some unknown period, in a wall covered with stucco and painted decorations. Across the well a beam was still lying, which had served the purpose of some previous visitor to the tomb. A cord hung from this beam, and it was after discovering that the well ended in nothing that the screen of masonry on the other side had been pierced. Belzoni had therefore only to follow the road opened for him by earlier explorers. A plank bridge was thrown across the well, the opening was enlarged, and a new series of galleries and chambers was reached, which led at last to the sarcophagus-chamber itself^ Belzoni remarked that throughout the whole course of the excavation the doors of the chambers showed evidence of having been walled up, and that upon the first steps of one of the stair- cases a heap of stone rubbish had been collected, as if to dis- courage any one who might penetrate beyond the well and pierce the barrier beyond its gaping mouth. It seems likely that the ^ Belzonf, Narrative of Operations, G>r., pp. 233 r/. ?<-</.