removed. One estimate suggests that about 60% of the jewellery that had
been deposited in the chamber known as the‘Treasury’had been stolen.
Tremendous curses were left in the tombs, aimed at deterring the robbers,
but it is clear these had absolutely no effect.
The ancient robbers had no respect, either, for the bodies of the dead. The
mummy bundles were ripped open to get at the jewels and amulets wrapped
into the bandages, with limbs broken off and tossed aside.
Grave robbing was a profitable business, and whilst generally carried
out in a clandestine manner, sometimes it was brazen–a stone tablet in the
Cairo Museum records a rebellion which occurred around 2,000 BC,
during which the peasants smashed open the royal tombs and stole the
jewels and gold objects buried inside. A papyrus in the same museum,
dating from the seventh centuryBC, records a case in Luxor. An official lay
an accusation against a colleague, accusing him of raiding the tombs in the
Valley of the Kings; the royal authorities set up an investigation, which at
first found the accused not guilty, but new evidence caused them to change
their minds, and the guilty man was sentenced to corporal punishment.
This, and earlier contradictory evidence from judicial commissions,
strongly suggests that there was a degree of collusion, graft and bribery
among the officials responsible for the protection, and investigating the
raiding, of the tombs.
It was not just in Egypt that tomb robbers were active. In 2012, Turkish
archaeologists working at a mausoleum at Knidos found that graves had been
robbed in the fourth centuryBC. This ancient site was an island connected to
the mainland by a bridge and causeway, and was used for graves and for
temples. The site’s origins go back to around 750BC, and it is currently
undergoing restoration and further excavation. Proof of the robbery included a
tiny gold ornament dropped by the thieves, and even a candle that they had
dropped while escaping.^4
Murder also occurred in ancient Egypt. In December 2012, it was
reported in the press that CAT scans of the mummy of the pharaoh Rameses
III had revealed a 7cm deep slash across his throat, that would have been
fatal. The damage had been hidden by a linen scarf which was too delicate
to move, and so had not been noticed until the scientific technique had
become available (Figure 8). It was known that in 1155BCthere had been
an attempted coup by Tiye, one of the pharaoh’s wives, abetted by his son
Pentaweret (or Pentawere), and that Pentaweret had been caught and
committed suicide. The CAT scan now suggests that the coup had been
successful in assassinating the king. Tests on an unidentified body of a
THE OLDEST CRIMES