Firstly, it is to be remembered that without the excavation of the tombs a large part of the dynastic and industrial history of ancient Egypt could not be reconstructed; and the question thus largely resolves itself into the query as to whether the history of Egypt is worth studying or not. The ancient Egyptians buried in their sepulchres a great quantity of “funeral furniture,” as it is called: beds, chairs, tables, boxes, chests, vases, utensils, weapons, clothing, jewellery, and so forth. Almost all the objects of this kind which are exhibited in our museums have been found in ancient sepulchres, almost all the pictures which give us scenes from the daily life of ancient Egypt have been discovered upon the walls of the mortuary chapels; and if there had been no excavation of the tombs very little would have been known about the manners and customs of this antique race. It was the discovery of the body of Akhnaton, and the consequent determination of his age at death, that made the writing of his biography possible: it was upon the walls of a tomb that his great hymn was inscribed. The invaluable biographies of the nobles of the various dynasties of Egyptian history were mostly recorded upon the walls of their mortuary chapels and tombs; famous texts such as that upon the “Carnarvon tablet,” which relates a part of the history of the Hyksos wars, were found in the graves of the dead; the beautiful “Song of the Harper” was engraved upon the wall of a tomb; and so on. If a scruple had held the Egyptologist from interfering with the dead, these inscriptions would be unknown, and man would be the less understood.