TUTENKAMUN’S TOMB.

RICHES FOUND IN EGYPT.

After seven years of fruitless labour Lord Carnarvon and Mr. Howard Carter have brought to light, in the famous Valley of the Kings on the site of ancient Thebes, treasure beyond present reckoning. No part of Egypt has been more carefully surveyed and excavated than this. Indeed, all excavators but Mr. Carter seem to have abandoned the valley. The district is familiar to tourists, and the precise spot of the new discoveries, can be best indicated by stating that it is beneath the tomb of Rameses VI., of the Twentieth Dynasty.

Mr. Carter is not only an enthusiast, but a brilliant excavator. But even though he may have known that his patient work had at last disclosed a Royal tomb, he could scarcely bare guessed at the value and extent of the contents. Having come upon the outer doors, Mr. Carter telegraphed to Lord Carnarvon. Within the outer door they found sixteen steps. Descending these, they reached the sealed inner doors. It is not difficult to imagine the suppressed excitement beneath their outward scientific calm as they effected entrance, nor to picture their dazzled bewilderment as they looked upon such treasures as they scarce believed the eye of man would ever see. There-before their eyes was the state throne of King Tutenkamun of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Never before had a state throne been discovered, and here it was, of transcendent beauty.

The mere catalogue of the objects of art and beauty contained in the first chamber entered reads like a chapter from a fairy tale. The Times Cairo correspondent tells of three magnificent state couches, all gilt, with exquisite carvings and heads of Typhon, Hathor and Lion; of beds of carved gilt, inlaid with precious stones; of innumerable boxes of exquisite workmanship; of a gilt chair encrusted with turquoise, cornelian, lapis, and other precious stones, and bearing portraits of the king and his queen.

Also meeting the gaze of the astonished excavators were lifesized statues of the King, four chariots encrusted with stones and overlaid with gold, Royal robes, musical instruments, alabaster vases of hitherto unknown design, pottery, relics of war, and, possibly more illuminating than all else, a box containing rolls of papyri. So far nothing is known in this country of the further chambers beyond the fact that they are packed from floor to ceiling with similar treasures.