Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/381

 The Tomb under the New Empire. 291 have caused them to abstain from expending time and trouble upon a futile precaution. These tombs seem to have varied greatly in size from reasons similar to those which determined the dimensions of the pyramids, namely, the length of reign enjoyed by their respective makers. Cheops, Chephren, and Mycerinus continually added to the height and mass of their tombs until death put an end to the work. In the same way, Seti and Rameses never ceased while they lived to prolong the quarried galleries in the Bab- el-Molouk. As these galleries w^ere meant to be sealed from the sight of man, this prolongation was caused, no doubt, by the desire to develop to the utmost possible extent those pictures which were to be so powerful for good over the fortunes of the defunct in the under world. Apart from the question of duration, reigns which w^ere glorious would give us larger and more beautiful tombs than those which were obscure and marked by w^eakness in the sovereign. The three great Theban dynasties included several of those monarchs who have been called the Louis the Fourteenths and the Napoleons of Egypt, ^ and it was but natural that they should employ the crowd of artificers and artists which their enterprises gathered about them, for the excavation and decoration of their own tombs. Either for this reason or for some other, there is an extraordinary difference between king and king in the matter of their tombs. Even when we admit that a certain number of royal sepulchres have so far escaped discovery, it is difficult to find place for all the sovereigns of the nineteenth and twentieth dynasties in the two Valleys of the Ki7igs. Many things lead us to believe that several of those princes were content with very simple tombs ; some of them may have been merely buried in the sand. Thus Mariette discovered, at DraJi-Aboii l-Neggah, the mummy of Queen Aah-hotep, of the nineteenth dynasty, some few feet beneath the surface. The mummy chamber consisted of a few ill-adjusted stone slabs. Like other mummies found on the same place, it seemed never to have been disturbed since it had been placed beneath the soil. It was gilt all over, and was decorated with jewels which now form some of the most priceless treasures of the Boulak Museum. The private tombs in the Theban necropolis, which are much ^ A. Rhone, l Egypte a petitcs journecs^ p. 104.