We had just had an interesting thread on Tomb robbers in AE. Curiosity peaked, I've kept reading on them.

It seems the first record is King Scorpion's tomb circa 3,300bce, before the unification under Menes.

While I have no doubt the 1st Intermediary Period may have generated even more tomb robbing, I think I'll reiterate the first tomb robbers were probably hot on the heels of the first tombs.

Interestingly, they didn't find a handle on this till very late, the Last Dynasty tombs were constructed as a 30'x30'x90' deep straight vertical shaft, with a very heavy stone coffin and grave goods at the bottom.

When the body and grave goods were set, the attendants were pulled up by rope, and the entire shaft filled with sand.

A tomb robber faced the daunting task of removing 81,000 cubic feet of sand to rob a tomb and apparently a number of this style tombs have been found untouched.

Finally, there is a record of a work foreman (Semufret? I will correct misspelling as soon as reference available), who robbed multiple tombs
in the New Kingdom. He was apprehended multiple times, and bribed officials with a % of his take to get off. This indicates to me the same officials who were supposed to guard the King's afterlife may have also been the first/worst offenders. The foreman was supposedly eventually executed for sleeping with other men's wives.

I think the entire subject of those who made a livelihood out of pillaging other's afterlives fascinating. Anyone know of a book or articles published just on this subject?

Any one care to post thoughts or comments on the subject in general?

Jammer