ed, the toilet
utensils, and parts of the shrine, all of which we found in the
burial-chamber.

CHAPTER IX.

THE TOMB OF HOREMHEB.

In the last chapter a discovery was recorded which, as experience has
shown, is of considerable interest to the general reader. The romance
and the tragedy of the life of Akhnaton form a really valuable addition
to the store of good things which is our possession, and which the
archaeologist so diligently labours to increase. Curiously enough,
another discovery, that of the tomb of Horemheb, was made by the same
explorer (Mr Davis) in 1908; and as it forms the natural sequel to the
previous chapter, I may be permitted to record it here.

Akhnaton was succeeded by Smenkhkara, his son-in-law, who, after a brief
reign, gave place to Tutankhamon, during whose short life the court
returned to Thebes. A certain noble named Ay came next to the throne,
but held it for only three years. The country was now in a chaotic
condition, and was utterly upset and disorganised by the revolution of
Akhnaton, and by the vacillating policy of the three weak kings who
succeeded him, each reigning for so short a time. One cannot say to
what depths of degradation Egypt might have sunk had it not been for the
timely appearance of Horemheb, a wise and good ruler, who, though but a
soldier of not particularly exalted birth, managed to raise himself to
the vacant throne, and succeeded in so organising the country once more
that his successors, Rameses I., Sety I., and Rameses II., were able to
regain most of the lost dominions, and to place Egypt at the head of the
nations of the world.

Horemheb, "The Hawk in Festival," was born at Alabastronpolis, a city of
the 18th Province of Upper Egypt, during the reign of Amenhotep III.,
who has rightly been named "The Magnificent," and in whose reign Egypt
was at once the most powerful, the most wealthy, and the most luxurious
country in the world. There is reason to suppose that Horemheb's family
were of noble birth, and it is thought by some that an inscription which
calls King Thutmosis III. "the father of his fathers" is to be taken
literally to mean that that old warrior was his great-or
great-great-grandfather. The young noble was probably educated at the
splendid court of Amenhotep III., where the wit and intellect of the
world was congregated, and where, under the presidency of the beautiful
Queen Tiy, l