Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

688 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
valuable remains which were unrolled at the wish of the
Khedive in 1875, and to keep them for posterity.
Here must also be mentioned another common grave
which was found by Grebaut in 1881, close to the lowest
terrace of the temple at Der el-Bahri, and from which nearly
one hundred and fifty mummies were brought to light.
Most of these were found lying in double coffins, the lids
of which were in the form of a mummy. They all belonged
to the priests of Ammon of Thebes and their relatives, and
were buried here in the time of the Twenty-second Dynasty.
The coffins are for the most part older, but through changing
the names written upon them they were used for new
bodies. Here also were found numerous deposits such as
sepulchral figures, earthen jars, papyri, etc., a perfect mass of
material for information concerning the burial customs and
the history and art of the Twenty-second Dynasty.
The tombs of the Pharaohs of the Eighteenth and
Twentieth Dynasties are known to exist in two lonely
ravines, that branch off from a valley of the Libyan mountains
to the north of Drah Abu'l-Nagga. Strabo knew
of forty royal tombs "worth seeing " which were cut out of
the rock. The scholars attached to the French expedition
mentioned eleven, to which at the beginning of the first decade
of the last century fourteen others were added by different
travellers, so that up to recent times twenty-five were
known. The oldest of these was that of Amenophis III.,
which lies in the western valley; the latest belongs to Rameses
XII., the last of the Ramesides, and is
situated in the eastern
valley. All these tombs, as has already been stated,
were broken into and plundered in ancient times, and nowhere
is there found the mummy of a Pharaoh in its coffin.
Of the forty tombs mentioned by Strabo fifteen remained unknown,
and all attempts to discover them had been fruitless.
In the year 1898 the director-general of Egyptian antiquities
began again to examine " the Valley of the Kings," and