Tutankhamun Uncovered (21 page)

“I am coming, Sama. Be calm, I beg of you. And look where you are going or you may run into something!”

Outside the temple boundary, about one hundred yards ahead, Carter could see a dozen or so Arabs clustered about a small pit. Sama shouted to the group of bystanders as he approached and they moved apart to allow the inspector through. When Carter got to the edge of the shallow pit and looked down, his feelings of excitement were wiped out at a stroke. Lying in the pit was no two, three or four-thousandyearold mummy, rather a dead Egyptian and, judging from the lack of bloating, an Egyptian probably not more than twelve hours dead.

“God almighty!” exclaimed Carter. “Who could have done this? Summon the police, Sama, at once. Ghastly!”

Stunned and appalled by the sight at his feet, Carter took a little time to recover his composure. While he awaited the arrival of the local gendarmerie he examined the body. The corpse was grotesquely contorted. The unfortunate man had clearly suffered the most horrific torture that ultimately must have led to his death. His hands were manacled tightly behind his back by a pair of crude wooden rowlocks secured together by large nails that skewered his wrists. The arms were bent over and tied to a wooden halter which had been used to drag him along the ground behind a vehicle of some sort probably a horse. His torso was deeply incised from the dragging, sand and gravel virtually cemented within the dried blood and flesh of the open wounds. The legs were wide apart as if dislocated at the hips from the terrible physical punishment his body must have endured as he had been towed over the rough terraine. His tongue protruded from between his clenched teeth in a grimace of agonising death.

“Savages!” Carter swore under his breath. ‘No value to human life; no feelings; the like of wild beasts.’ The sight turned his stomach. He looked away and breathed deeply, filling his lungs with fresh, tepid air.

Presently two policemen arrived. “Who found the body?” asked one.

“Me, Effendi,” said Sama, coming forward from the crowd of onlookers.

“How?”

“There was a square depression in the ground. I thought it might be an opening to a shaft. I got down on my knees and scraped away at the sand with my hands and very soon came upon the man’s toes. I ran at once for Monsieur l’Inspecteur here,” he gestured towards Carter, “who was working in the temple over there. By the time we got back here the body had been exposed as you see it now.”

“By who?”

“By them.” Sama waved his arm at the surrounding rabble.

“The evidence is corrupted, then,” stated the policeman authoritatively. “The site is despoiled. There is nothing more we can do here. We will remove the body to the morgue. There is a tarpaulin on my horse. Fetch it.”

On the policeman’s directions the Arabs wrapped the body in the tarpaulin and secured it with some rope. An idle donkey was selected to carry the load. The policemen took the names of all those present and then set off back to their hut to do whatever they chose to do. ‘Surely as little as possible,’ thought Carter.

Carter made no attempt to interfere. He was not at all surprised at the lack of interest in the discovery and the absence of normal police procedure. Procedure meant responsibility and work, and the Arabs always looked for ways to avoid both. Besides, Carter had already recognised this horror as the handiwork of a former Moudir of the area. He was well known for his merciless treatment of the fellaheen. This barbarism had been a message to the rank and file that it was far less painful to yield to conscription.

Carter returned to his equipment in the great hall of the temple of Dendera. Try as he might, he could not summon the energy to draw. A long, frustrating and fractious winter season with Davis, the heat of summer, and now this gross obscenity. ‘Is there no hope for these people?’ It was as if the waters of the Nile itself had contrived to sap the last of his energy. He gave a long sigh, picked up his things, and left to return to Luxor to sleep; hopefully not to dream; and to forget. In the morning he would telegraph his personal report with his own thoughts on culpability to the Viceroy’s office.

The following season’s work revealed that the tomb entrance corridor just kept on getting deeper and deeper, and weirder. As it continued to descend, it curved in a lengthening sweep to the right until coming around to a westward direction, a full 180 degrees from where it had started at the surface.

Carter sensed they were nearing their goal west was the setting sun, west was death and indeed at this point they at last broke into the burial chamber. Clearing of the rubble fill was followed by the usual anticlimax devastation, fragments, rubbish, amongst which were the remains of a rifled wooden sarcophagus.

Carter pursued clearance of the chamber with his usual attention to detail until every scrap of evidence had been sifted from the dirt and faithfully catalogued. Little more was found until one day, while Carter and Davis were taking a lunch break outside the tomb entrance, the reis summoned them back into the tomb. With difficulty, they once more made their way down the long, narrow and precipitous corridor until they reached the burial chamber. Barely half of the floor had been cleared, but in the far right-hand corner of the squarish room the top step of another staircase had been uncovered. Carter and Davis’s excitement regenerated, but the two did not wait around while their men cleared the staircase. The atmosphere was stifling and only partly relieved by the air pump. They were compelled to climb back out for some fresh air.

The new and last room to be discovered in this strange tomb yielded a pair of open but complete and relatively undamaged yellow quartzite sarcophagi. One was oblong, the other fashioned in the shape of a cartouche. Carter lowered his oil lamp into one of them and a glow of yellow lit up the translucent hull. As he withdrew it, the lamp accidentally struck the inner wall. The sarcophagus rang like a great cathedral bell, startling everyone within earshot.

A quick inspection of the names on the two sarcophagi confirmed that they had been intended for, and probably originally had received, the mummies and nested coffins of Hatshepsut and her father. The evidence that may have appeared coincidence at first was now beginning to make sense to Carter, at least. This last tomb not only had contained the body of the female Pharaoh, and not only was its location close to that of the inner sanctuary of Hatshepsut’s temple outside The Valley, but also its architecture was based on the same geometric system used to construct that temple. Her father was buried with her this was reflected in the reliefs that memorialise the two of them together in life on the massive walls of her temple complex. The fit was as complete as Carter could have hoped. He was well satisfied with his conclusion, particularly after all the miserably hard work and the odious fights with his patron.

Davis was ecstatic with the outcome of the project and he pressed Carter into publishing an account of the discovery. Edouard Naville himself supplied an historical narrative on Hatshepsut. The publication would be put together abroad during the summer recess.

For Davis, there were many years and considerable money left to search out more treasures in the Egyptian dust and he was keen to get on with it; but he would not work with Carter again. The inspector of modest means had had quite enough of the wealthy lawyer. Their parting was mutually and willingly agreed with no embarrassment on either side. There were others available to help Davis accomplish his goals. For him the best was yet to come.

For Carter, there would be years yet, too. For him, alike, the best was yet to come and the worst. With his tenacious regard for principle, his respect for his Egyptian employees and his personal pride, he was developing a stubborn complacency that would, in times of crisis, cause him to forget that to successfully achieve his ends he was and always would be entirely dependent on the goodwill of others considerably more well-to-do than he. That was a fact. Alas, he would blind himself to it.

Chapter Seven

Ipay reached a vantage point from which he could survey the length and breadth of the wadi. He looked back to check for telltale signs of dust that might indicate he was being followed. There was a haze but for all he could make out, squinting southward with the sunlight across his face, no dust. He rode on a little further to take advantage of the shade provided by some large boulders. This was far enough. He could wait here until he spotted the approach of the Hittite prince and then take off towards him to arrive sweating as if he had galloped all the way from Thebes without stopping. There could be little danger to travellers this far from habitation. Ipay sat down to rest.

The ground surface was uneven and he had to push a few of the larger stones out of the way before he could lie down without too much discomfort. He pulled off his goatskin water bag and laid it down as a headrest on the shaded rocky surface. He eased back until his head and neck made contact with the cool surface of the water bag. A soothing sensation ran through his senses. He had another bag date wine and settled down to drink a little.

Ipay awoke to the sawing cries of buzzards. The shadows had gone and the full force of the late afternoon sun shone down directly and reflected off every facet of rock about him. The gaunt birds’ dark forms wheeled overhead and flashed occasional menacing shadows across his eyes. By now the temperature of the water in the goatskin was the same as that of his body. He felt the sweat curling down his cheeks. Discomfort compelled Ipay to get up.

He drew himself back to the shaded side of the boulder he had used for shelter and searched the northern horizon for some sign of movement. It took his sleepy and still somewhat drugged eyes a moment or two to accustom to the light. There was nothing no sign of motion. He turned to look south. There was some haze, or was it dust? In the distance there was just a suggestion of a shimmer. Could he have missed him? By the angle of the sun he estimated he could have been asleep for at least half the day. The Hittite prince could have passed well by in that time. An intensity began to build within his head, soon maturing to a sense of panic.

‘The queen will have me put to death! The gods will execute my spirit! There will be no afterlife!’ The visions and his pounding heart compounded within his mind until the pressure on his temples felt like it would cause him to go blind.

The dust that he had seen to the south might have been nothing more than another traveller. Nevertheless, he had to check, just in case. Pulling his horse behind him he stumbled down from his vantage point and made chase. Ipay galloped as fast as his horse would allow him. The dust was so far away, he might never catch up in time. And if it were not the prince, then he would have to turn once again and go back. His panic grew all the greater. His mind wheeling, Ipay jabbed his heels into the horse’s flanks. Then, all of a sudden the animal faltered, pitched headlong, and fell to the ground. Ipay was thrown forward and came to an inelegant stop face down, spread-eagled across the desert gravel. The startled horse leapt up, cantered off a short distance, then stopped and began grazing on the spare desert scrub.

Ipay looked up. He was sore. He turned over and examined himself. What a sorry sight. His palms, his forearms and his chin were grazed and bleeding where he had connected so unceremoniously with the coarse gravel. He removed the cloth that he used to shield his head from the sun and dabbed at the bloody scores on his arms. The grit partly came off with the congealing blood but not all of it. He lamented his disfigurement and began to worry about possible infection he had always had a personal tendency towards hypochondria. He yielded up a quick prayer to Isis.

Ipay drew himself up to a seated position and, for the first time, looked back at what had caused his headlong tumble. It was a broken spear a freshly broken spear. His preoccupation with his personal wellbeing was immediately extinguished. The icy chill of deep fear descended on him. He looked all around. To his horror, there were the bodies of soldiers, three of them, scattered about in the dust. To the left lay a dying camel, a pike through its neck, still struggling for breath. Its decorative saddle ware lay crushed under the weight of its own body.

Ipay stood up and limped over to the animal. He was no longer conscious of the pain from his injuries. In his worst fears he knew what he would find inside the broken canopy. He raised one of the decorated curtains. A dark-skinned youth half of him trapped under the beast, his upper body only showing from beneath the belly of the camel, a virtual mat of congealed blood covering his neck and chest, the fear still showing in his open eyes lay frozen in death. By his clothing the young man was clearly a person of some importance and definitely not Egyptian. Ipay at once knew he had failed. His future was sealed in the drying blood of the young, dead Hittite. So was Ankhesenamun’s.

Unable to return to the palace with this dreadful news and unwilling to face his family, for one final moment of pleasure Ipay took a northern village prostitute for the evening. Following that moment he rolled onto his back. Holding an effigy of Min close to his chest he asked the girl to hand him the beer he had poisoned.

When he was discovered, his penis was still erect. A poison of passion no doubt. His wife thought he had died coupling with the gods no better end for any man. Feeling a curious mixture of joy and sadness, she hurried to prepare for his embalming.

General Horemheb received the news with characteristically suppressed gratification. He had had the assassins jailed and beheaded that same evening for sundry crimes against the community, most of which they had indeed committed. That night he slept a deep and most satisfactory sleep.

The following morning he remained in bed until late, reflecting on his future. Reclining in the cushions, he gazed up at the ceiling. He had goals: he would be Pharaoh. He would have a long, peaceful and comfortable reign. He would die while on the throne and would be entombed in the largest and finest tomb yet created within the holy bowels of The Valley of the Kings. Eternity as Pharaoh then would be assured. He did not seek the people’s adoration. He just did not want to be disliked so much that every waking hour he might fear for his life.