Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/45

 Egyptian Civilization 21 single blocks of stone eighty or ninety feet high, weighing as much as a thousand tons. Nevertheless the engineers of the Empire moved many such gigantic figures for hundreds of miles. It is in works of this massive, monumental character that the art of Egypt excelled. 32. The Treasures of the Tombs. Across the Nile from Thebes, cut into the rocky cliffs which border the river valley, are hundreds of tombs in which the Pharaohs and the nobles of their time were buried. They are adorned with frescoes and sculpture, with pictures of the gods and scenes from the life led by the great of the time, interspersed with magnificent hieroglyphic inscriptions. They some- times contain the very furniture which their ARMCHAIR FROM THE HOUSE OF AN EGYPTIAN ]S T OBLE OF THE EMPIRE This elaborately decorated chair, with other furniture from his house, was placed in his tomb at Thebes in the early part of the fourteenth century B.C. There it remained for nearly thirty-three hundred years, till it was discovered in 1905 and removed to the National Museum at Cairo occupants had used, chairs covered with gold and silver and fitted with soft cushions, beds of sumptuous work- manship, jewel boxes and perfume caskets of the ladies, and even a gilded chariot in which a Theban noble took his afternoon airing thirty-three or thirty-four hundred years ago. Many of the articles have been removed to the museum at Cairo, and there is also a fine collection in the Metropolitan Museum of New York. The dead man's friends put into his mummy case rolls of papyrus containing prayers and magic charms to help him in