An American archaeologist, Theodore M. Davies, has made one of the most interesting discoveries of recent years in excavating the tomb of Thothmes IV of the 18th dynasty. The tomb contained the chariot in which he rode at Thebes. Like other royal tombs it consisted of a gallery cut in the heart of the mountain. After sloping downward for a considerable dis tance it is interrupted by a deep square well; on one of the walls is a band of paintings. On the farther side.of the wall the passage turns back, and finally opens into a large chamber, at the extreme end of which is a magnificent sarcopha gus of granite covered with texts from "The Book of the Dead." On either side are smaller chambers; the floor of one of them was covered with the offerings made to the dead king, con sisting of mummified loins of beef, legs of mutton and trussed ducks and geese. Clay seals with the name of the Pharaoh had been attached to the doors of the chambers, and it is stated the raised portions of the seals had been smeared with blue ink before being pressed on the clay. A great many of the objects in the tomb of Thothmes were found to be broken, and this was explained by a hieroglyphic inscription on one of the paintings which adorn the walls of the vestibule to the chamber in which the sar cophagus was found. That inscription states that the tomb was plundered by robbers, but that it had been restored as far as possible to its original condition by Hor-em-heb, the reigning Pharaoh. The floor was covered with vases, dishes, symbols of life and other objects in blue faience. Unfortunately, nearly all of them had been wantonly broken, though in some cases the breakage had been repaired in the time of Hots em-heb. Equally interesting is a piece of textile fabric into which hieroglyphic characters of dif ferent colors have been woven with such won derful skill as to present the appearance of painting on linen. The chariot is one of the finest specimens of art that have come down to us from antiquity. Along with the chariot was found the leather gauntlet witk which the king protected his hand and wrist when using the bow or reins.
Later excavations at Abydos have brought to light the royal tomb of Menes, of the first dynasty, in which was found a large globular vase of green glaze, with Menes' name inlaid in purple. Thus polychrome glazing is taken back thousands of years before it was previously known to exist. There are also several pieces of delicately carved ivory of that age. One repre seats the figure of an aged king, which, for sub tlety of character, stands in the first rank of such work, and ranks with the finest work of Greece and Italy. A camel's head modeled in pottery takes back its relation to Egypt some 4,000 years. Hitherto no trace of the camel had appeared before Greek times. The ivory carv ing of a bear also extends the fauna of early Egypt.
Records begin to appear with the' 3d dynasty of Manetho. The Sphinx of Ghizeh is cer tainly older, but being uninscribed; it is not known to which Icing or dynasty it belongs. A few. stelw bear the name of Sondon (2d dy nasty), and the step pyramid of SaIdcarh pur ports to be the tomb of Tosiri (2d dynasty). These, however, are isolated instances and an unbroken line of monuments only begins under Snofroni, the last Pharaoh of the 3d dynasty, about (4300 ec.). From his time to the death of Pepi II (about 3800 e.c.) the necropolis of Ghizeh, Saklcarh, Dashour and Midoum, tombs of feudal families at Zawret-el-Maietin, at Sheik-said, the rock graffiti of Wadi-Magharah in the Sinaitic peninsula, furnish material enough to trace the succession of the kings and call back to life the whole civilization of those prima-val ages. The series brealcs off after Pepi II, but a few scarabs and other objects are the only records we possess of the Heracleopoli tan house. With the llth dynasty the monu ments came to light again in great numbers and are dispersed all over the Nile Valley, in the grottoes of Beni-Hasan, Bersheh, Siut, Assouan, in the tombs of Thebes and Abydos, in the temples of Nubia and in the Delta cities, in the Fayum pyramids and the inscriptions of Sinai. There are many inscriptions and statues of the 13th and 14th dynasties, and the area of ground they cover from the fourth cataract to the sea shows the extent of the Egypt of that day. The invasion of the Hyksos suspended for at least 400 years the production of monuments (about 2100 a.c.), and nothing remains of their ldngs except a few names scratched on the statues of the old Pharaohs. Egypt revived after their expulsion and the three Theban dy nasties of the New Empire (1750-1100 a.c.) en riched by the spoils of Asia and of Ethiopia, covered the banks of the Nile with temPles and palaces, the remains of which are counted to day in hundreds. The Roman Caesars con tinued the constructions and the reigns of the Flavians and Antonines are recorded by many monuments. The impulse died out about 250 A.D. ; Philippus is the last emperor whose name is engramed officially in the hieroglyphic char acter. The English have recognized French intervention in the direction of the Cairo Mu seum which has a right to one-half of all dis coveries of antiquities, etc., made in Egypt. Gaston Maspero was appointed director in 1899 of the Service of Antiquities, as this branch is known, and was succeeded in October 1914 by Pierre Lecau. Several permanent commissions are at work in various parts of the country. Consult Champollion, 'Monuments de l'Egypte) (1843) ; Mariette, (Monuments of Upper Egypt' (1877); Petrie, (History of Egypt' (1894); Rawlinson, (History of Ancient Egypt' (1881).