Dows Dunham Recollections of an Egyptologist

An Interlude in Chicago
In the summer of 1916 I returned to the Boston Museum, and in September
of that year I went to Chicago to study at the Oriental Institute
with Professor J. H. Breasted as a special student of Egyptian. While I
gained much from the concentrated study of the Egyptian language, I
was not happy in Chicago. World War I had been gaining in intensity,
and my stay in Egypt and the Sudan, where sympathy with the Allies
had been very strong, had greatly affected my own attitude toward the
conflict. At this time the atmosphere in Chicago was markedly pro-
German, and I found it increasingly difficult to be completely detached
from the problems of war and to devote my thoughts to my studies. At
Christmas I left Chicago and joined the American Field Service as an
ambulance driver in France, and, after the United States entered the war
in 1917, I served as an officer with the American army. Thus, from
January 1917 until the late spring of 1919 my career in archaeology was
suspended.
Return to the Sudan
After being demobilized I returned to Boston briefly and then, in 1919,
rejoined the Harvard-Boston Expedition at Gebel Barkal. The early
Kushite cemetery at El Kurru had been excavated in 1918-19 while I
was still in the service in France. During the season 1919-20 we
completed excavation of the temples at Gebel Barkal as well as of the
great Kushite cemetery at Nuri. By this time the expedition had set up
its camp at Barkal, not far from the great temple. We had tents as
sleeping quarters and a larger tent for eating, but the workroom, in
which most of the recording was done, was a roughly constructed
building of mud rubble, consisting of a storeroom, in which to keep the
smaller finds, and a sort of veranda open on the south side, with matting
on the floor and a large table on which to keep the records. There I spent
much time in drawing, recording, and keeping the diaries up to date.
The veranda gave shelter from the sun and from the prevailing north
wind, and when the temperature was high, as it usually was, it was a
reasonably comfortable place. I remember an incident that occurred
here while I was working late on the records. It was a particularly hot
evening, and I was wearing the minimum of clothing, with my bare
feet thrust into a pair of Arab slippers. Suddenly, I felt something moving
across my instep, and, since I knew that there were poisonous
snakes about, my first thought was that one was on the floor. I froze,
wondering what I should do. After a moment I again felt a slow movement
across my bare instep, and I was now convinced that it was a
snake, although I could see nothing from where I sat, and I dared not
move. Again came the feeling of movement on my foot. Very carefully
I braced my hands against the edge of the table, then with one rapid
motion I leaped back and away. At a safe distance I lifted the lamp from
the table and looked beneath. There was nothing there except a long,
loose strand from the floor matting, which, as I watched, waved gently
back and forth in the slight breeze that blew through the veranda from
time to time. I have never forgotten that moment, for I had always had
an unreasoning fear of snakes ever since the time, as a small boy running
barefoot, I jumped down a bank and landed squarely on top of a
long, fortunately harmless snake.
The great Kushite cemetery at Nuri lay a mile or so east of the place on
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