Thebes, its Tombs and their Tenants Ancient and Present
Including a Record of Excavations in the Necropolis

An 1862 account of both archaeological discoveries and the reuse of the Theban necropolis as homes for modern Egyptians.

Alexander Henry Rhind (Author)

9781108076081, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 25 September 2014

374 pages, 9 b/w illus. 7 colour illus. 1 map
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.55 kg

His independent means as the son of a wealthy banker enabled Alexander Henry Rhind (1833–63) to devote his short life to antiquarianism. While reading for the Scottish bar, he studied and investigated Pictish remains, and pressed for the inclusion of archaeological sites in Ordnance Survey maps. On developing tubercular symptoms, he gave up his legal studies and passed the winters from 1855 to 1857 in Egypt, where he made the important studies and excavations recorded in this 1862 book. He focuses on the necropolis of Thebes, and in particular on the unplundered tomb of an eighteenth-dynasty official. Putting his work into the wider context of the history of ancient Egypt and the importance of the city of Thebes, he also describes the reuse of the necropolis ruins as homes for modern Egyptian peasants and as the centre of a thriving trade in antiquities, both genuine and forged.

Preface
1. Thebes
2. The necropolis
3. On the results of former sepulchral researches
4. The unrifled tomb of a Theban dignitary and its contents
5. A burial-place of the poor
6. Excavations among tombs of various grades
7. On the theories explanatory of Egyptian sepulture
8. The sepulchral evidence on early metallurgic practice
9. How the demand for Egyptian relics has been supplied, and its influence on the condition of the monuments
10. The present tenants of the tombs
11. The present tenants of the tombs and their rulers.

Subject Areas: Egyptian archaeology / Egyptology [HDDG]