PAST CRIMESherdsman called Bukhef, who after being flogged, revealed a long list of names
of his accomplices. It is a shame that we do not know the rest of the story!
One case has been recorded in detail in a document in the British Museum
that dates to the reign of Rameses XI (1107─1078/7BC). It contains the
confession of a thief called Amenpenufer who robbed a pyramid. The thief
was a builder, and with a gang of seven other workmen, they decided to cut
into the underground passages of the pyramid. They found the sarcophagi of
the king and queen, which they opened, and they stole the golden face masks
from the mummies along with much jewellery and many precious objects,
setting fire to what they could not carry. They divided up the loot between
them, but soon Amenpenufer was arrested. He bribed a scribe with his stolen
gold and was released. His gang went on to commit a number of similar
robberies, but in the end three of them were caught. The others fled.
Amenpenufer himself was eventually caught, although we do not know what
happened to him. We do know his mother was exiled to Nubia.
Sometimes it was the priests themselves who robbed the tombs and
temples. A group of four priests is recorded as stealing a gold necklace from a
statue of a god, which they melted down and divided between them. Another
gang led by priests made a habit of stealing gold from the gods, but were
caught when a scribe overheard a row between them over the spoils, and
began to blackmail them.
Virtually every Egyptian pyramid or tomb discovered by archaeologists had
already been plundered in antiquity, and the problem was so well known and
acute that the designers of the pyramids and tombs themselves went to great
lengths to hide the entrances, to put in false corridors, dead ends and traps.
The Great Pyramid of Khufu, built around 2,560BC, included misleading
passages that could be blocked by great slabs of granite, secret chambers and
hidden entrances.
Even the most famous of all Egyptian tombs, that of Tutankhamun, had
been robbed not long after the death of the pharaoh, probably within
months, as some of the items stolen seem to have been perishable goods
such as flasks of perfume. After this the tomb was resealed, the entrance
corridor filled with rubble and the hole the robbers had made in the doorway
was plastered over. In a nearby pit, known as KV54, materials associated
with Tutankhamun were discovered, possibly the remnants of his embalming
and a funerary feast. Similar items were found on the floor of the tomb’s
corridor, and it is believed that the items in the pit were removed there after
the first robbery had taken place. However, a second robbery also occurred
at a slightly later date, during which much of the rubble in the corridor was