TAA i.2.1.37

Nov. 27.

Callender prepared the electrical installation for lighting the

Tomb. This was ready by noon, when Lord C., Lady E., Callender

and self entered and made a careful inspection of this first

chamber (afterwards called the Ante-chamber).

In the course of the afternoon the local Inspector, Ibrehîm

Effendi, of the Department of Antiquities at Luxor, came in the

place of the Chief Inspector - he being absent on a visit to

Kena.

It soon became obvious that we were but on the Threshold

of the discovery. The sight that met us was beyond anything

one could conce/<i>eve^sic {conceive}. This heterogeneous mass of material

crowded into the chamber without particular order, so crowded

that you were obliged to move with anxious caution, for time

had wrought certain havoc with many of the objects, was

very bewildering. Everywhere we found traces of disorder caused

by some early intruder, objects over-turned, broken fragments

lying upon the floor, all added to the confusion, and the

unfamiliar plan of tomb repeatedly caused us to ask ourselves

in our perplexity whether it was really a tomb or a Royal

Cache? As the better light fell upon the objects we endeavoured

to take them in. It was impossible. They were so many. Beneath

one of the couches, the Thoueris Couch in the S. W. corner, we

perceived an aperture in the rock-wall, which proved to be

nothing less than another sealed-doorway broken open as by

some predatory hand. With care Ld. C. and I crept under

this strange gilded couch, and we peered into the opening. There

we saw that it led into yet another chamber (afterwards

called the Annexe) of smaller dimensions than the Ante-chamber

and of a lower level. Even greater confusion prevailed here, the

very stones that blocked the Entrance, forced in when the breach

was made, were lying helter-skelter upon the objects on the floor

crushed by their weight. It was full of one mass of furniture.

An utter confusion of beds, chairs, boxes, alabaster and faience

vases, statuettes, cases of peculiar form, and every sort of thing

overturned and searched for valuables. The remaining portions

of the plaster covering the blocking of this doorway bore similar

seal-impressions as on the other doorways.

In neither of these two chambers could we see any traces

of a mummy or mummies - the one pious reason for making

a Cache. With such evidence, as well as the sealed doorway

between the two guardian statues of the King, the mystery

gradually dawned upon us. We were but in the anterior portion

of a Tomb. Behind that closed doorway was the tomb-chamber,

and that Tût-ankh-amen probably laid there in all his magnificent

panoply of death - We had found that monarch's burial place

intact save certain metal-robbing, and not his cache.

We then examined the plaster and seal-impressions upon the

closed doorway. They were of many types of seals, all bearing the

insignia of the King. We also discovered that in the bottom part

of the blocking a small breach had once be[en] made, large

enough to allow of a small man to pass through, but it had been

carefully reclosed, plastered and sealed. Evidently the tomb beyond