volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

360 'A Pre-dynastic Mummy Secured.
of the mummies were naked, but one was wrapped up
in a skin, and another in a large mat made of slim
bundles of reeds tied together ; and all the mummies
were lying on their left sides with their knees and hands
up to their faces. I knew that many pre-dynastic
antiquities had been found at Gebelen, for Mr. Greville
Chester had bought several and had sold them to the
Trustees. The native's information seemed so exact
that I set out with him that night, and reached Gebelen
two days later ; he guided me to the graves at once
and I saw that what he had told me was true.
One of the largest of the graves had been dug partly
under a small projecting spur of the hill, and it was
nearly covered over by two or three large lumps of
stone which seemed to have been placed there after
the burial of the body. These were tightly jammed
together, and to this fact the body in the grave owed its
preservation in a complete state. We removed some
small stones and sand, taking care not to disturb
the large lumps of stone, and then I saw lying in the
grave, with pots and flints about it, the body of a man
in the position which the native had described to me.
The body was quite naked and complete, and I decided
to acquire it, but the difficulty was to get it out of the
hollow which served for its grave. I was afraid to
attempt to remove the large stones lest one of them should
fall on the body and crush it. We therefore shored up
the stones, and then carefully dug a pit in front of the
grave, and when this was deep enough we dug inwards
under it. We broke away bit by bit the sandstone
bed of the grave, and thus the body dropped down by
degrees to the bottom of the pit we had made. We then
lifted out the body uninjured, and after that the other
contents of the grave. We found the body quite dry,
and some of its skin was cracked. We then turned
our attention to the other graves, and took out three
men with their flints and pots, and one woman. One
man was wrapped in a skin, a second in a mat of palm
fibre, and the third was rolled up in a reed mat. The
woman was without covering, and the only pot in her