“The Stele, or record, which had its place low down on the western
wall, was so remarkable that we examined it minutely, even before going
on our way to find the mummy which was the object of our search. This
Stele was a great slab of lapis lazuli, cut all over with hieroglyphic
figures of small size and of much beauty. The cutting was filled in
with some cement of exceeding fineness, and of the colour of pure
vermilion. The inscription began:

“‘Tera, Queen of the Egypts, daughter of Antef, Monarch of the North
and the South.’ ‘Daughter of the Sun,’ ‘Queen of the Diadems’. “It then set out, in full record, the history of her life and reign. “The signs of sovereignty were given with a truly feminine profusion of
adornment. The united Crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt were, in
especial, cut with exquisite precision. It was new to us both to find
the Hejet and the Desher—the White and the Red crowns of Upper and
Lower Egypt—on the Stele of a queen; for it was a rule, without
exception in the records, that in ancient Egypt either crown was worn
only by a king; though they are to be found on goddesses. Later on we
found an explanation, of which I shall say more presently. “Such an inscription was in itself a matter so startling as to arrest
attention from anyone anywhere at any time; but you can have no
conception of the effect which it had upon us. Though our eyes were
not the first which had seen it, they were the first which could see it
with understanding since first the slab of rock was fixed in the cliff
opening nearly five thousand years before. To us was given to read
this message from the dead. This message of one who had warred against
the Gods of Old, and claimed to have controlled them at a time when the
hierarchy professed to be the only means of exciting their fears or
gaining their good will. “The walls of the upper chamber of the Pit and the sarcophagus Chamber
were profusely inscribed; all the inscriptions, except that on the
Stele, being coloured with bluish-green pigment. The effect when seen
sideways as the eye caught the green facets, was that of an old,
discoloured Indian turquoise. “We descended the Pit by the aid of the tackle we had brought with us. Trelawny went first. It was a deep pit, more than seventy feet; but it
had never been filled up. The passage at the bottom sloped up to the
sarcophagus Chamber, and was longer than is usually found. It had not
been walled up. “Within, we found a great sarcophagus of yellow stone. But that I need
not describe; you have seen it in Mr. Trelawny’s chamber. The cover of
it lay on the ground; it had not been cemented, and was just as Van
Huyn had described it. Needless to say, we were excited as we looked
within. There must, however, be one sense of disappointment. I could
not help feeling how different must have been the sight which met the
Dutch traveller’s eyes when he looked within and found that white hand
lying lifelike above the shrouding mummy cloths. It is true that a
part of the arm was there, white and ivory like. “But there was a thrill to us which came not to Van Huyn! “The end of the wrist was covered with dried blood! It was as though
the body had bled after death! The jagged ends of the broken wrist
were rough with the clotted blood; through this the white bone,
sticking out, looked like the matrix of opal. The blood had streamed
down and stained the brown wrappings as with rust. Here, then, was
full confirmation of the narrative. With such evidence of the
narrator’s truth before us, we could not doubt the other matters which
he had told, such as the blood on the mummy hand, or marks of the seven
fingers on the throat of the strangled Sheik. “I shall not trouble you with details of all we saw, or how we learned
all we knew. Part of it was from knowledge common to scholars; part we
read on the Stele in the tomb, and in the sculptures and hieroglyphic
paintings on the walls. “Queen Tera was of the Eleventh, or Theban Dynasty of Egyptian Kings
which held sway between the twenty-ninth and twenty-fifth centuries
before Christ. She succeeded as the only child of her father, Antef. She must have been a girl of extraordinary character as well as
ability, for she was but a young girl when her father died. Her youth
and sex encouraged the ambitious priesthood, which had then achieved
immense power. By their wealth and numbers and learning they dominated
all Egypt, more especially the Upper portion. They were then secretly
ready to make an effort for the achievement of their bold and
long-considered design, that of transferring the governing power from a
Kingship to a Hierarchy. But King Antef had suspected some such
movement, and had taken the precaution of securing to his daughter the
allegiance of the army. He had also had her taught statecraft, and had
even made her learned in the lore of the very priests themselves. He
had used those of one cult against the other; each being hopeful of
some present gain on its own part by the influence of the King, or of
some ultimate gain from its own influence over his daughter. Thus, the
Princess had been brought up amongst scribes, and was herself no mean
artist. Many of these things were told on the walls in pictures or in
hieroglyphic writing of great beauty; and we came to the conclusion
that not a few of them had been done by the Princess herself. It was
not without cause that she was inscribed on the Stele as ‘Protector of
the Arts’. “But the King had gone to further lengths, and had had his daughter
taught magic, by which she had power over Sleep and Will. This was
real magic—“black” magic; not the magic of the temples, which, I may
explain, was of the harmless or “white” order, and was intended to
impress rather than to effect. She had been an apt pupil; and had gone
further than her teachers. Her power and her resources had given her
great opportunities, of which she had availed herself to the full. She
had won secrets from nature in strange ways; and had even gone to the
length of going down into the tomb herself, having been swathed and
coffined and left as dead for a whole month. The priests had tried to
make out that the real Princess Tera had died in the experiment, and
that another girl had been substituted; but she had conclusively proved
their error. All this was told in pictures of great merit. It was
probably in her time that the impulse was given in the restoring the
artistic greatness of the Fourth Dynasty which had found its perfection
in the days of Chufu. “In the Chamber of the sarcophagus were pictures and writings to show
that she had achieved victory over Sleep. Indeed, there was everywhere
a symbolism, wonderful even in a land and an age of symbolism. Prominence was given to the fact that she, though a Queen, claimed all
the privileges of kingship and masculinity. In one place she was
pictured in man’s dress, and wearing the White and Red Crowns.