Read Online Tutankhamun Uncovered by Michael J Marfleet - Free Book Online
Authors: Michael J Marfleet
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trying to solve elsewhere. Carter respected this and would leave immediately it became obvious that Petrie had finished his dialogue. The young man’s display of early maturity did not go unnoticed.
For the few days that Newberry busily scurried about town continuing with his provisioning, Carter, at the time thinking that his trip to Egypt might be the one and only opportunity of a lifetime, was determined to see as much of Cairo as he could. One morning he took advantage of a horse drawn taxi waiting outside the hotel and was driven to the Cairo Museum.
He studied the poorly displayed treasures for at least six hours. All the time he was there he felt neither thirst nor hunger.
At three in the afternoon he took time for a cold lemonade at the entrance to the museum and then left for the pyramids at Gizeh. Initially he did not grasp the immensity of the three principal structures. But the closer he came, the huger they became. The great stone paws of the partially excavated sphinx emerged from slopes of sand and gravel. Behind the deeply scarred and eroded head the greater portion of its body still lay buried. Behind this, the two largest pyramids filled his field of vision. As he walked on, the great structures continued to rise in height before him. The clear, sandy horizon provided no scale. It wasn’t until he could make out the diminutive figures of one or two tourists and the odd Arab walking about the base of the largest pyramid that he could grasp any sense of perspective and appreciate the immensity of the massive stone structures planted firmly foursquare on the limestone plateau ahead.
He paid the entry fee and went inside. It struck him that the interior was not unlike the labyrinth within a natural limestone cavern. Though in part confining, after a while it opened up like the aisle of a colossal, inclined cathedral. That all this could have been built by the hand of man the enormity, complexity and magnificence of the building a mere tomb, a grave for one soul quite overwhelmed him.
Right now, just like the rest of them, he too was enjoying himself as a tourist. Tomorrow he would not be not ever again.
Even though it was nearly nightfall when they arrived, Carter eagerly scrambled up the slope ahead of Newberry. He was desperate to look inside one of the tombs. When he got there he found the interior was almost totally dark and stood for a minute hoping his eyes would become accustomed to the blackness. Faint images gradually materialised from the gloom the simple, elegant shapes he had become so familiar with at the British Museum here in place where they had always been. He breathed an atmosphere thick with the presence of long dead peoples.
These open, naked, rock cut tombs, high up on a terrace above a limestone escarpment in the desert, provided shelter for his body and much to absorb his mind. The shelter part, however, took a bit of getting used to the bedstead made of the branches of a palm tree; at night the bats wheeling noisily in and out of the tomb; the deep cold of the night following the scorching heat of the day.
But he quickly adjusted to his surroundings. He became infatuated with the gentle dignity and clarity of the art form and buried himself in the work as if he were one with the original artists.
His greatest discomfort was not physical, however, it was the method by which he had been instructed to copy the friezes. Newberry and copyists before him reproduced the works by tracing the scenes on paper with a soft pencil. Carter despised the technique. It was quick; it was accurate; but it lacked the life and personality of the original. On occasion he experimented with freehand copying, as he had done with the still lifes in the British Museum, a technique in which he was particularly talented. The watercolours were more lively and satisfying to his eye but he would show no one. He kept them hidden between the boards that supported his makeshift desk at camp. There would be a
For the few days that Newberry busily scurried about town continuing with his provisioning, Carter, at the time thinking that his trip to Egypt might be the one and only opportunity of a lifetime, was determined to see as much of Cairo as he could. One morning he took advantage of a horse drawn taxi waiting outside the hotel and was driven to the Cairo Museum.
He studied the poorly displayed treasures for at least six hours. All the time he was there he felt neither thirst nor hunger.
At three in the afternoon he took time for a cold lemonade at the entrance to the museum and then left for the pyramids at Gizeh. Initially he did not grasp the immensity of the three principal structures. But the closer he came, the huger they became. The great stone paws of the partially excavated sphinx emerged from slopes of sand and gravel. Behind the deeply scarred and eroded head the greater portion of its body still lay buried. Behind this, the two largest pyramids filled his field of vision. As he walked on, the great structures continued to rise in height before him. The clear, sandy horizon provided no scale. It wasn’t until he could make out the diminutive figures of one or two tourists and the odd Arab walking about the base of the largest pyramid that he could grasp any sense of perspective and appreciate the immensity of the massive stone structures planted firmly foursquare on the limestone plateau ahead.
He paid the entry fee and went inside. It struck him that the interior was not unlike the labyrinth within a natural limestone cavern. Though in part confining, after a while it opened up like the aisle of a colossal, inclined cathedral. That all this could have been built by the hand of man the enormity, complexity and magnificence of the building a mere tomb, a grave for one soul quite overwhelmed him.
Right now, just like the rest of them, he too was enjoying himself as a tourist. Tomorrow he would not be not ever again.
Even though it was nearly nightfall when they arrived, Carter eagerly scrambled up the slope ahead of Newberry. He was desperate to look inside one of the tombs. When he got there he found the interior was almost totally dark and stood for a minute hoping his eyes would become accustomed to the blackness. Faint images gradually materialised from the gloom the simple, elegant shapes he had become so familiar with at the British Museum here in place where they had always been. He breathed an atmosphere thick with the presence of long dead peoples.
These open, naked, rock cut tombs, high up on a terrace above a limestone escarpment in the desert, provided shelter for his body and much to absorb his mind. The shelter part, however, took a bit of getting used to the bedstead made of the branches of a palm tree; at night the bats wheeling noisily in and out of the tomb; the deep cold of the night following the scorching heat of the day.
But he quickly adjusted to his surroundings. He became infatuated with the gentle dignity and clarity of the art form and buried himself in the work as if he were one with the original artists.
His greatest discomfort was not physical, however, it was the method by which he had been instructed to copy the friezes. Newberry and copyists before him reproduced the works by tracing the scenes on paper with a soft pencil. Carter despised the technique. It was quick; it was accurate; but it lacked the life and personality of the original. On occasion he experimented with freehand copying, as he had done with the still lifes in the British Museum, a technique in which he was particularly talented. The watercolours were more lively and satisfying to his eye but he would show no one. He kept them hidden between the boards that supported his makeshift desk at camp. There would be a
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