Meanwhile we turned our attention to the objects which stood in the passage, having been placed there at the time of the funeral, owing to the lack of room in the burial-chamber.  Here a vase, rising upon a delicately shaped stand, attracted the eye by its beauty of form; and here a bedstead caused us to exclaim at its modern appearance.  A palm-leaf fan, used by the ancient Egyptians to keep the flies off their wines and unguents, stood near a now empty jar; and near by a basket of dried-up fruit was to be seen.  This dried fruit gave the impression that the tomb was perhaps a few months old, but there was nothing else to be seen which suggested that the objects were even as much as a year old.  It was almost impossible to believe, and quite impossible to realise, that we were standing where no man had stood for well over three thousand years; and that we were actually breathing the air which had remained sealed in the passage since the ancient priests had closed the entrance thirteen hundred years before Christ.

Before we could proceed farther, many flashlight photographs had to be taken, and drawings made of the doorway; and after this a panel of the woodwork had to be removed with a fret-saw in order that the lock and seal might not be damaged.  At last, however, this was accomplished, and the way into the tomb-chamber was open.  Stepping through the frame of the door, we found ourselves in an unencumbered portion of the floor, while around us in all directions stood the funeral furniture, and on our left the coffins of the deceased noble and his wife loomed large.  Everything looked new and undecayed, and even the order in which the objects were arranged suggested a tidying-up done that very morning.  The gravel on the floor was neatly smoothed, and not a speck of dust was anywhere to be observed.  Over the large outer coffin a pall of fine linen was laid, not rotting and falling to pieces like the cloth of mediaeval times we see in our museums, but soft and strong like the sheets of our beds.  In the clear space before the coffin stood a wooden pedestal in the form of a miniature lotus column.  On the top of this, resting on three wooden prongs, was a small copper dish, in which were the ashes of incense, and the little stick used for stirring them.  One asked oneself in bewilderment whether the ashes here, seemingly not cold, had truly ceased to glow at a time when Rome and Greece were undreamt of, when Assyria did not exist, and when the Exodus of the Children of Israel was yet unaccomplished.

On low tables round cakes of bread were laid out, not cracked and shrivelled, but smooth and brown, with a kind of white-of-egg glaze upon them.  Onions and fruit were also spread out; and the fruit of the dom palm was to be seen in plenty.  In various parts of the chamber there were numerous bronze vessels of different shapes, intended for the holding of milk and other drinkables.