“I will not further illustrate this theme; but the case is the same in every branch of Egyptology.  In each, the day of rapid results is at an end, and the monotonous time of special studies has begun.  Hence I would beg the Academy not to expect sensational discoveries from their new associate.  I can only offer what labor improbus brings to light, and that is small discoveries; yet in the process of time they will lead us to those very ends which seemed so nearly attainable to our predecessors.”

The German school may perhaps be said to have devoted its time especially to labours upon Egyptian grammar and philology, while the French school is better known for its excellent work on the history and archaeology of ancient Egypt.  On these topics the leading authority among all the scholars of to-day is the eminent Frenchman, Professor Gaston C. C. Maspero, author of the first nine volumes of the present work.  He was born at Paris, June 24,1846.  He is a member of the French Institute, and was formerly Professor of Egyptian Archeology and Ethnology in the College de France, and, more recently, Director of the Egyptian Museum at Bulak.  His writings cover the entire field of Oriental antiquity.  In this field Maspero has no peer among Egyptologists of the present or the past.  He possesses an eminent gift of style, and his works afford a rare combination of the qualities of authority, scientific accuracy, and of popular readableness.

Some extraordinary treasures from tombs were discovered in the year 1881.  At that date Arabs often hawked about in the streets what purported to be genuine works of antiquity.  Many of these were in reality imitations; but Professor Maspero in this year secured from an Arab a funeral papyrus of Phtahhotpu I., and after considerable trouble he was able to locate the tomb in Thebes from which the treasure had been taken.  Brugsch now excavated the cave, which was found to be the place where a quantity of valuable treasures had been secreted, probably at the time of the sacking of Thebes by the Assyrians.  Six thousand objects were secured, and they included twenty-nine mummies of kings, queens, princes, and high priests, and five papyri, among which was the funeral papyrus of Queen Makeru of the twentieth dynasty.  The mummy-cases had been opened by the Arabs, who had taken out the mummies and in some instances replaced the wrong ones.  Many mummies of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties had been removed to this cave probably for safety, on account of its secrecy.  Out of the twenty-nine mummies found here, seven were of kings, nine of queens and princesses, and several more of persons of distinction.  The place of concealment was situated at a turn of a cliff southwest of the village of Deir-el-Bahari.

The explorers managed successfully to identify King Raskamen of the seventeenth dynasty, King Ahmosis I., founder of the eighteenth dynasty, and his queen Ahmo-sis-Nofritari, also Queen Arhotep and Princess Set Amnion, and the king’s daughters, and his son Prince Sa Amnion.  They also found the mummies of Thutmosis I., Thutmosis II. and of Thutmosis III. (Thutmosis the Great), together with Ramses I., Seti I., Ramses XII., King Phtahhotpu II., and noted queens and princesses.