they disposed of to the undertakers, they stripped the mummies also, and smashed the bodies in their efforts to secure the jewels; then, putting the remains together again, they rearranged the mummies afresh so cleverly that they can no longer be distinguished by their outward appearance from the originals, and the first wrappings must be removed before the fraud can be discovered.  From time to time one of these rogues would allow himself to be taken for the purpose of denouncing his comrades, and avenging himself for the injustice of which he was the victim in the division of the spoil; he was laid hold of by the Mazaiu, and brought before the tribunal of justice.  The lands situated on the left bank of the Nile belonged partly to the king and partly to the god Amon, and any infraction of the law in regard to the necropolis was almost certain to come within the jurisdiction of one or other of them.  The commission appointed, therefore, to determine the damage done in any case, included in many instances the high priest or his delegates, as well as the officers of the Pharaoh.  The office of this commission was to examine into the state of the tombs, to interrogate the witnesses and the accused, applying the torture if necessary:  when they had got at the facts, the tribunal of the notables condemned to impalement some half a dozen of the poor wretches, and caused some score of others to be whipped.* But, when two or three months had elapsed, the remembrance of the punishment began to die away, and the depredations began afresh.  The low rate of wages occasioned, at fixed periods, outbursts of discontent and trouble which ended in actual disturbances.  The rations allowed to each workman, and given to him at the beginning of each month, would possibly have been sufficient for himself and his family, but, owing to the usual lack of foresight in the Egyptian, they were often consumed long before the time fixed, and the pinch soon began to be felt.  The workmen, demoralised by their involuntary abstinence, were not slow to turn to the overseer; “We are perishing of hunger, and there are still eighteen days before the next month.”  The latter was prodigal of fair speeches, but as his words were rarely accompanied by deeds, the workmen would not listen to him; they stopped work, left the workshop in turbulent crowds, ran with noisy demonstrations to some public place to hold a meeting—­perhaps the nearest monument, at the gate of the temple of Thutmosis III.,** behind the chapel of Minephtah,*** or in the court of that of Seti I.

     * This is how I translate a fairly common expression, which
     means literally, “to be put on the wood.”  Spiegelberg sees in
     this only a method of administering torture.

     ** Perhaps the chapel of Uazmosu, or possibly the free space
     before the temple of Deir el-Bahari.

     *** The site of this chapel was discovered by Prof.  Petrie
     in the spring of 1896.  It had previously been supposed to be
     a temple of Amenothes III.