An epitaph

"May your spirit live,

May you spend millions of years,

You who love Thebes,

Sitting with your face to the north wind,

Your eyes beholding happiness."

A small cutting from a newspaper fell out of one of my old notebooks recently with this lovely epitaph to someone. I had no idea where it came from. A quick google revealed that it's an inscription on a wonderful alabaster cup from Tutankhamun's tomb:


Howard Carter had to step over it as he entered the antechamber of the tomb for the first time, and it forms his own epitaph too.