volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

344
Destruction of Demotic Papyri.
sovereigns, and began to lay them out in rows on a large
handkerchief stretched upon the ground. Whilst this
was being done the sound of the paddle-wheels of a
steamer reached them, and the owner of the papyri
jumped up in an excited manner, and ran out to the river
bank, which was close by, to see what the steamer was,
and whether it was going to stop at the village. A few
minutes later he ran back in a more excited state than
ever, and told the dealers that the steamer belonged
to the Service of Antiquities, that it was coming downstream,
and was coming to the village. And he said
that he was sure that officials of the Service of Antiquities
were coming to seize his papyri and arrest him. The
dealers laughed at his fears, and urged him to close
with their offer, but the man lost his head and stamped
about his house in a distracted state. Suddenly
he turned round, snatched up the box in which the
rolls of papyrus were lying, and thrusting it tinder
his feet, crushed it fiat ; the result of this was that the
rolls of brittle papyrus were broken into innumerable
small fragments. He then picked up "the box, ran out
to the river bank, and emptied its contents into the river.
When he returned the dealers cursed him for his folly,
and asked him why he had been such a fool. In reply
he told them that a few weeks earlier the officials of the
Service of Antiquities had raided a neighbouring village
by night, and had carried off all the antiquities they
found in the place, and the police, who were with them,
arrested their owners and put them in prison. Therefore
he was afraid to sell the papyri or to keep them.
A somewhat similar fate befell a box of demotic
papyri which was found at Madinat Habu (Western
Thebes) in 1898. The box was put "into the hands
of a native of Luxor, who was told to deliver it to me
in Kana, where I was working for a few days. He
set out on his journey in a large sailing boat, and when
the boat was nearing Nakadah, about 12 miles downstream
of Luxor, he saw the steamer of the Service
of Antiquities lying there. The captain of his boat,
for some good reason undoubtedly, steered his craft