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Contemporary Correspondence, Diaries & Notes

Letter from Joseph Lindon Smith to Corinna Putnam Smith, pages 1, 2 and envelope

Luxor, 12th February 1908

Dearest Corinna,
Last night I left Cairo, in the eight o'clock train and had a compartment to myself all the way after Wasta and this morning at 9.30 arrived in Luxor and Arthur there to meet me - I had telegraphed him I was coming.
I woke up through the night at some of the various towns so well known to us now. Beni Suef. Feschn (?) where we missed Ticking (?). Abu Girgeh - where you all met me once. Siut and Nag Hamadi where I joined you for Christmas - all the dear old familiar little Nile towns with every one of which we have so many associations.
I cannot get it out of my head that you and the nest are not somewhere on the river - slowly coming up to meet me and a dozen times to-day I have noticed that a good sailing breeze was blowing from the North and have found myself saying 'they'll come along well to-day'.
Arthur's welcome and Hortense's was real and warm and has made me feel very gay and cheerful and when I get to work tomorrow morning I shall not be realizing so much how mich I miss you.
Luxor is much the same - a picket fence has been built all along the river bank on the edge from the Mission School past the Post Office to the Anglo American steps and then on again to the Cook's Landing.
Davis has gone up to Assouan - Ayerton found some beautiful jewelry 18th Dynasty and Davis is greatly set up and pleased.
Dal. has left also for Assouan, with the Tiffany's. I'm afraid I shall miss her.
Arthur's mother is her here - she is very nice and the baby is a nice little man. Hortense thinks she will send him back to England with Arthur's mother when she goes in about two weeks from now. All the servants here and the temple guards and the antiquity men and boys ask after you and the others. They all seem delighted to see me, as I certainly am to see them.
Not a single dahabeyah at Luxor.
Prof. Sayce left yesterday for Cairo, his old boat looking badly - Lord and Lady Carnarvon have just arrived and have begun work - Arthur went over to see them this afternoon - they are just as wild and exotic as ever.
Tyndale is over at Deir el Bahri doing some painting and Curelli (?) has been here but there is no excavation being done there this year - nor at Abydos either. "Wretched Jones" is with Lythgoe at Licht I believe.
Carter has been here all through the Summer - and is far from well, and in low spirits again Arthur says - they gave him the 'Service' home - where the Quibells were. He has been doing some of 'my subjects' as Henry Newman would say - but I'm afraid he can't do the trick yet. It don't come in a years work - or five either. Tyndale has written a very readable book on Egyptian subjects and well illustrated it. He devotes an interesting chapter to the discovery of Queen Tii's tomb, and puts in the item that Mr J. Lindon Smith, the American artist, was engaged to paint etc. etc. and was in the tomb once a week before others were admitted - and that he stopped daily at their camp at Bahri on his way home to Luxor, and whetted their curiosity by his descriptions - tho entombed in a death chamber for so many long hours, his spirits were not terribly affected and he remained one of the most amusing companions I ever met, etc etc.
I shall stay on here working until the Cuttings turn up and then on with them to Assouan and Abu Simbel.
Arthur is wild to have me make a camel trip with him to some wonderful remove place little visited - he wants me to go with him when I return from Nubia.
Nothing is to prevent me from painting at least ten good pictures, and then if there is a chance I might think of it. There might be lecture material forthcoming.
The season has been only moderately successful this year, a great scarcity of American visitors being noticed - but people are plentiful here in Luxor - and tho a short one they think it will be successful.
Mr and Mrs Ayer of Chicago are on a Nile steamer coming up.
I have been through the Antikas shops and there is nothing in quality (mi...)table (?) which is a comfort.
Arthur has grown a little fat. He says not and his mother thinks not but he looks so to me - he is looking very well however. They wanted to know all I could tell them about you and wished me to send you their best love and also to Grandma and Grandpa.
No more now - I am crazy to get one from you. There may be a letter to-day but it has been a long time to wait - from the 25th of Jan to February 12th - you I expect had to wait about 16 days for my first communication.
Lots and lots of love, dearest little Mama,
Joe

Theodore M. Davis, The Tomb of Siptah (1908), 31-32

The Unnamed Gold Tomb (Tomb No. 56.)

About the 3rd of January, 1908, the natural course of our work led us to explore the small side valley which leads to the tomb of Amenhotep II. We had already explored the south side of the valley, and, beginning now at the western extremity, we dug along the north side of the mound of rook which is already occupied by the well known tomb of Rameses VI (No. 9).

At tlie depth of thirteen feet below the present surface of water-laid rubbish we found the mouth of a vertical shaft. For a depth of five feet this was cut through debris, which was held back on three sides of the shaft by roughly built walls of limestone chips, the third side being formed by the rock itself. Below this it was cut vertically to a depth of fifteen feet in the solid rock of the valley bottom.

At the bottom of the shaft (8 feet long by 5 feet 6 nches broad by 20 feet 4 inches deep) a doorway (4 feet 7 inches broad by 6 feet 11 1/2 inches high) opens to the north into a large room of a curious shape, the north wall having been cut with several corners as if the chamber were unfinished.

The room is 25 feet 2 inches in breadth, the length along the west wall is 19 feet 0 1/2 inch, in the centre 14 feet, and along the east wall 19 feet 4 1/2 inches. The height of the chamber is 19 feet 1 inch on the south to 10 feet 5 inches on the north. The shaft was entirely filled with washed-in debris, and we found on removing this that the chamber was more or less filled with the same material to a depth of forty-one inches against the west wall. Beginning on the west we removed this rubbish in level layers until we came to within a few inches of the rock floor. Here, against the west wall, we first found a large pottery vase and two vases in alabaster, one of globular shape and the other a pointed vase with cylindrical neck, and handles in the form of deer heads. Part of a stand, also of alabaster, still adhered to the bottom of the latter. The pottery vase, which was cylindrical in shape with long wide neck and two handles was filled with fragments of vases of white glazed composition, inlaid in purple glaze with the cartouches of Setui II and fragments of three alabaster vases, one with the cartouches of Setui II and another with those of Rameses II. Slightly to the north and at a level of six and a-half inches from the ground was a stratum about a half-inch thick of broken gold leaf and stucco, covering an area of some four square feet. On the southernmost edge of this was an indiscriminate heap of gold and silver ornaments, beads, and small stone objects.

To the right and left of these were scattered numerous small curls in blue glazed composition, and some large plaques of the same material with modelled undulating lines. These are all probably part of a woman's wig. These glazed objects were also scattered over the greater part of the stucco surface.

To the east of this, and at a level of twelve inches from the ground, waslying a plain rudely cut alabaster ushabti.

Against the south wall, at the same level, was a vase, bearing both cartouches of Setui II inlaid in blue, and against the north wall, also at the same level, was a large pottery cylindrical vase with long wide neck and handles, full of rubbish and a few ashes.

Almost opposite tlie doorway, and at a level of nine and eight inches respectively above the floor, were the remains of a similar pottery vase, and an alabaster vase with the throne name of Rameses II inlaid in blue. All the objects found are dealt with in detail below by M. Daressy.

The upper rubbish in the chamber consisted of limestone chippings and mud, evidently washed in by water; but the lower level on which the objects rested (six to twelve inches above floor level) was, apparently, lighter dust consolidated by water. And it seems probable that the tomb had remained open for some time, during which this light dust had accumulated on the floor before the various objects were deposited here, and that later the heavier rubbish had been washed in and effectively concealed the entrance to the shaft. Whether the objects were deposited here on the usurpation of Tauosrit's tomb by Setnekht, or are part of a robbers' haul, it is impossible to say.