Gardiner MSS 47.08.06

of the king (and queen) are found? It looks as though the 

mummies had been cased in as by a series of those chinese^sic  

boxes you have often seen, each smaller than the last. We shall 

not know the answer to this riddle for another year at least.

          In the tiny space between the gold[?]/<outer> and inner golden shrine 

we could just discern marvellous things. Most delightful alabasters, 

one with a wonderful carved cat upon it, and another with a 

charming n/<N>ile-god. Over the inner shrine hang a pall of leather, 

tattered and torn. Had the robbers ceased their plundering just 

at this point, dismayed by the obstacle of a series of inner 

shrines? In the right hand corner were a number of sticks and 

staves of office, all ornamented with gold.

          But we had more yet to see, so as our visit was to be a 

short one, Breasted and I pushed on to the inner room. Here 

the sight was still more miraculous. Boxes everywhere, boxes of 

inlaid ivory, of ebony, of white wood – all deliciously carved. 

At the back of the room was a large golden shrine, somewhat 

after the style of the golden catafalque, and doubtless including 

the Canopic jars – the jars holding the viscera of the dead king. 

But the strangest and most novel feature of the golden Canopic 

chest was that all around it were carved golden statues of 

goddess^sic, holding their xxx[?] <arms out in the most graceful attitude> and coquettishly looking over 

their shoulders. Never could we have imagined that Egyptians 

would have invented such figures!

          Carter lifted the lid of one of the boxes, and there lay the 

Pharaoh's ivory fan, with marvellous ostrich featxxx[?]/<hers> in