Yesterday's News, Today
New Haven, Conn.—The next expedition to Peru, which will be made this year under the direction of Prof. Hiram Bingham of Yale, will not be geographical as in the case of the last expedition, It was announced at Yale, recently, but will concentrate its work largely in that region where the human bones were found under a glacial deposit which indicated a minimum age of 2,000 years.
BY GIDEON A. LYON
Photographs by the Author.
It would be interesting,” said a fellow traveler to me at our hotel in Cairo on the evening of our arrival at the Egyptian capital, “to know how many thousands of tourists have been drawn to Egypt since 1922 as a result of the discovery of the tomb of King Tut Ankh-Amon by Howard Carter. It would be even more interesting to know how great a treasure has been brought to this country through tourist expenditures here in consequence of the finding of that tomb and its rich contents.”
That thought recurred to me a few mornings later when I stood in front of the tomb of Tut Ankh-Amon and saw Howard Carter descend the steps leading down to the entrance. The tomb was closed to visitors, for Mr. Carter was engaged in superintending the removal of the remaining treasures. So all I got of King Tut’s last resting place was this glimpse of the back of the man who restored him to fame. Yet it was with a lively sense of the service Mr. Carter has rendered to Egypt that I saw him go down into the depths to carry on the work begun by him eight years ago.
Unquestionably many thousands of people have been attracted to Egypt by the discovery of this tomb. And practically all of them make the journey up to Luxor and across the Nile to the west bank and through the rocky defiles of the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings to the scene of the work of the Carnarvon expedition. They have, with few exceptions, seen nothing of the tomb itself. But they have had the satisfaction of glimpsing the forbidding area chosen by the monarchs of many centuries ago for the reposal of their mummies and the riches of their burial equipment.
Another Article on the Ancient Buildings of the Nile Country.
BY GIDEON A. LYON
Photographs by the Author
RETURNING to Luxor from the west bank of the Nile, after visiting the tombs and temples of the ancient “City of the Dead,” one sees in its fullest proportions the Temple of Luxor, earliest, it is believed, of the great religious structures of the east bank. It presents from this point of view more the aspect of an architectural unit than dees its greater and more celebrated neighbor, the Temple of Karnak. Yet it is sadly ruined and is, more over, marred by the intrussion within its very precincts of a mosque that, standing on higher ground, dominates the scene with its incongruous outlines.
According to accepted hypothesis, ancient Thebes, on the east bank, was regarded as the city of the living, while the Thebes of the west bank was known as the city of the dead. Thus the tombs are on the west bank, while the temples, with a few exceptions, such as the Der el-Bahri, the Medinet Habu and the Ramesseum, are on the east side of the river. Western Thebes was a necropolis, while Eastern Thebes was the city of splendor, of ceremony, of wealth, of active power.