The Glory of the Pharaohs by Arthur Weigall

When a great man puts a period to his existence upon earth by dying, he is carefully buried in a tomb and a monument is set up to his glory in the neighbouring church. He may then be said to begin his second life, his life in the memory of the chronicler and historian. After the lapse of an eon or two the works of the historian, and perhaps the tomb itself, are rediscovered; and the great man begins his third life, now as a subject of discussion and controversy amongst archeologists in the pages of a scientific journal. It may be supposed that the spirit of the great man, not a little pleased with his second life, has an extreme distaste for his third. There is a dead atmosphere about it which sets him yawning as only his grave yawned before. The charm has been taken from his deeds; there is no longer any spring in them. He must feel towards the archeologist much as a young man feels towards his cold-blooded parent by whom his love affair has just been found out. The public, too, if by chance it comes upon this archeological journal, finds the discussion nothing more than a mental gymnastic, which, as the reader drops off to sleep, gives him the impression that the writer is a man of profound brain capacity, but, like the remains of the great man of olden times, as dry as dust.

There is one thing, however, which has been overlooked. This scientific journal does not contain the ultimate results of the archeologist's researches. It contains the researches themselves. The public, so to speak, has been listening to the pianist playing his morning scales, has been watching the artist mixing his colours, has been examining the unshaped block of marble and the chisels in the sculptor's studio. It must be confessed, of course, that the archeologist has so enjoyed his researches that often the ultimate result has been overlooked by him. In the case of Egyptian archeology, for example, there are only two or three Egyptologists who have ever set themselves to write a readable history, whereas the number of books which record the facts of the science is legion.