Page:The Pharaohs and their people; scenes of old Egyptian life and history (IA pharaohstheirpeo00berkiala).pdf/122

 herself and Thothmes were laid in due time, but none of these royal mummies have been suffered to remain in peace. To avoid violation and plunder, it became customary some centuries later to examine and to report upon the state of royal tombs and coffins from time to time, and to remove them occasionally to securer resting-places. Thus it came to pass in the great discovery of 1881, the empty coffin of Thothmes was found, together with the coffin and mummy of his son and successor, Thothmes

To the architect Semnut, who so successfully carried out the grand conception of the terraced temple, his royal mistress raised a memorial—a statue in black granite in a sitting attitude of calm repose; on his shoulder is the inscription—'His ancestors were not found in writing,' i.e. they were unknown men, a not unfrequent phrase in Egyptian inscriptions. Semnut is represented as saying, 'I loved him, and gained the admiration of the lord of the country. He made me great, and I have become first of the first, clerk of the works above all clerks. I lived during the reign of