Tutankhamun Uncovered (28 page)

Ugele shielded his eyes, temporarily blinded by the sun’s reflection from the barely translucent quartzite box. It was as if a celestial fire had been kindled inside the sarcophagus. The bodies of the goddesses, delicately carved at each corner, glowed golden with warmth.

“All is ready, my friends,” announced Ugele to his nine associates. “Let us get about our business.”

He marshalled the men around the sarcophagus. One stood at the head to ensure that the wooden rollers, placed on each step, would not dislodge as the heavy box descended. The others took the strain.

Before anything moved, Ugele raised his arm, signalling the men to hold.

“Just a minute.” He thought for a moment, miming the entry of the great stone box with his hands, turning his body this way and that. “Ah! I thought as much. The sarcophagus is the wrong way around. Once it is placed within the burial chamber, the goddesses will end up in the wrong positions. If we take it from here as it is, I am not sure there will be sufficient room to turn it about. To be on the safe side, we will have to turn it here first.”

With some difficulty the men managed to rotate the sarcophagus so that it was correctly repositioned above the stairway. Those above ground, including the Nubian, took their places on the ropes that surrounded the quartzite box. Their job would be to restrain the sarcophagus from sliding unrestricted down the stairway.

As the sarcophagus was levered up at one end, they took the strain and the great stone block crept over the lip of the first stair to begin its short journey into the darkness below. The operation went smoothly all the way down to the smooth floor of the entrance corridor. Then, suddenly, the upper rim became wedged against the lintel of the entrance door. The sarcophagus was too tall and too long to make the turn to the more gentle slope of the corridor.

Ugele yelled to the man at the far end, “Mose! Mose! What is the trouble?”

“It is almost within, Ugele,” replied the man trapped on the other side of the jammed sarcophagus. “Very little will have to be excavated to permit access. However, first you must withdraw it. There is no other way.”

This was not good news to the nine sweating men who now had to pull the great weight back up the stairs again.

“The casket is too heavy for us to pull it back up. We are going for help, Mose,” Ugele shouted. “We shall be some little time. Hopefully you are not in need of water, my friend. The water bag will not pass between the sarcophagus and the wall.”

This was not good news for Mose. In his impressionable mind, thoughts of his own personal entombment alive were quick to realise themselves. Shafts of light shone either side the gods faced façade which now stood between him and home, but there was no space to slide by. He heard the voices recede, then silence an awful silence. Although he had light enough to see by, it was ever so quiet there, in the depths, alone.

Buried alive! In Pharaoh’s tomb. There could be worse places. The thought was not comforting.

Mose began to fidget. He could feel his heart beating heavily and more rapidly. It was audible, echoing about the stark, flat walls around him. He felt like screaming. He held his head in an effort to suppress his feelings. The perspiration was running from him. If he remained in this place he would drive himself mad. In panic, he took hold of the lip of the sarcophagus and in a futile effort tried to pull the thing towards him.

Then a thought finally dawned. He could see there was sufficient room between the top of the sarcophagus and the roof of the corridor for him to climb in. Presumably likewise there was room at the other end also for him to climb out.

When Ugele and his men at last returned with reinforcements, Mose was sitting at the top of the stairs in the shade, much rested and relaxed after his ordeal.

“Mose!” Ugele cried on seeing him and with some relief. “Is this a miracle?”

“No more than my own ingenuity, Ugele. You give me up for lost too easily, I fear.”

“You do us wrong, Mose. You knew we would get you out. Just a matter of time.”

“A matter of time? Time enough for me to go mad! Thoughts of entombment before my time. A living hell. You could not understand this if you had not experienced lying within, like me, walled up and all alone in the darkness.”

“Enough drama,” said Ugele. “Let us to our task with some urgency now, before the light fades.”

There were now at least twenty hands on the ropes. It took some considerable effort to dislodge the box from its three point grip but ultimately muscle triumphed over dead weight.

With the massive object once more at the top of the stairway, Ugele and three others ran down to the bottom and cut away all the offending steps. To ensure that the next attempt would be successful, Ugele also instructed the men to remove the upper door lintel and cut away the doorjambs. All could be replaced later.

Once more Mose descended to the entrance of the corridor and the rest of the team manoeuvred the great quartzite box towards and over the lip of the stairway. They took the strain of its weight on the ropes and let the sarcophagus creep slowly towards the darkness. This time it slid into and down the corridor without mishap, finally tilting onto the floor of the first room.

As it slid into the room, Mose placed wooden rollers on the floor beneath it. The team waited a moment to allow their eyes to become accustomed to the dim light and then Ugele instructed them to turn the great box to the right towards the lower part of the room that which was to become the burial chamber. The manoeuvre was more difficult than expected. Without leverage of some kind it proved impossible. Ugele sent for a stout pole. While this was being fetched, he took out his copper chisel and cut a small cavity at the base of the wall opposite the entrance. When the pole arrived, he stuck one end of it into the hole in the wall, brought the side of it against the corner of the sarcophagus and, with the help of four other men, levered the box towards the elbow of the L-shaped room. It was carefully manoeuvred down into the burial chamber, the goddesses facing in the directions set for them by religious law, and set upon four calcite blocks one at each corner. The great quartzite sarcophagus at last was in its final resting place.

Their last act was to bring in the broken sarcophagus lid, now repaired with a copper dovetail, and place the reconstituted piece against the wall at the head end of the stone casket.

When Ugele left the tomb that night he felt relief and, at the same time, loss. He had completed his assigned tasks successfully and on time. The inside of that holy place now awaited Pharaoh. Ugele himself would not set eyes on it again.

Horemheb, dressed in his official regalia, stood in the embalming room. He was there to preside over the wrapping of the mummy. By this time he had had quite enough. He looked forward to when all the formalities were behind him. To add to the general’s discomfort, Ay, who was to oversee the funeral ceremonies, had waited until this late stage in the proceedings to deliver a long list of disparaging comments. He grumbled about the size of the tomb. He criticised the unlikely second coffin. He pointed out the mismatched sarcophagus lid its obvious repair. He complained of the poor likeness in the canopic stoppers. Few details escaped his critical eye. The criticisms had been very public this, no doubt, to appease Ay’s new queen and the old man proffered no solutions.

It was all most irritating. After all, the general had toiled long and hard to ensure that everything was in readiness and on time. Perfection had been an impossible goal from the start and he had never promised it. Now this practically senile old man, shortly to be confirmed as Pharaoh, who had made no effort to help in the preparations, had the audacity to decry the general’s achievements in public.

Horemheb seethed to himself, ‘I’ll be glad when the dry, salty bastard is finally put away. Then, perhaps, this silly old man will turn what remains of his fragile mind to thoughts of his own passing, and I with securing the kingship for myself.’

The old man’s rantings had generated an impatience within the general that he knew he would have to take steps to control. If his involved conspiracy was to succeed, he may not indulge himself in this kind of emotion. He must avoid drawing attention to himself. He shrugged his shoulders and concentrated on the scene before him.

The salts had been removed from the king’s body. The cadaver lay between the two priests. It was totally naked but for a frail golden diadem encircling the dead king’s temple. The skin had taken on a bluish grey colour. As it had shrunk, it had wrinkled. The originally youthful features had taken on the appearance of old age.

Behind the priests, running parallel with the king’s stone embalming bed, there were two long tables. On one lay neatly arranged piles of papyrus and rolls of bandages of differing linens and widths. On the other lay a host of jewellery and golden decorations of various shapes and colours, large and small, from the complex to the simple, placed in rows, all arranged in the prescribed order in which they were to be applied to the body.

One of the priests cradled the boy king’s head in his hands. The other removed the diadem and placed it on the jewellery table. He picked up a linen skullcap of beads sewn together to form a frame of cobras and carefully fitted this over the shaven cranium. He secured it in place with a broad, flexible gold temple band which, with his fingers, he locked in place by gently but firmly bending it to the contours of the king’s head. A padded wig was placed over this and secured at the back of the head using perforations in the temple band to tie it in position. On the wig were attached the symbols of royal dominion the uraeus of the Lower Nile, with its long, snaking body and cobra head, and nekhbet, the vulture of the Upper Nile. A thin wrapping of bandage was placed over these and the diadem was replaced.

Horemheb shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. The process was interminably slow. But he was responsible for ensuring absolute adherence to custom and the security of the dead king’s grave goods. He whispered a sigh. This was but one of several distasteful duties he must fully endure.

The priests turned to the feet. A wrapping of linen was applied to each toe and then golden toe stalls, engraved to the likeness of the toes themselves, were placed on each and gently squeezed to grip the linen. The feet themselves were then wrapped and gold sandals carefully placed on them, the front of the pointed soles bent upwards to help keep the toe stalls in place.

The two priests moved to the hips. One took hold of the shrivelled penis. He extended it forwards while the other took care to bandage it delicately but sufficiently robustly to ensure it supported itself erect. (Ithyphallic symbolism is an essential element of deification. The Pharaoh is, after all, a creator of gods.)

The process continued in ordered stages decoration for a limb, a bandage enclosing it, a bangle and a dagger laid on the bandage, another strip of linen to enclose the pieces, another gold plate on this, and another bandage.

As the work proceeded, the lesser priests, standing in the background, read incantations and spells from the texts of the great papyrus, ‘The Chapters of Coming Forth by Day’. These lessons would help lead the king through the long and dangerous road to his eternal paradise.

The general tensed the muscles in his back and shifted his position once again.

The two priests by the bed continued the ritual. In part intended to suppress the king’s lifetime indiscretions, in part adding to the strength of the spells, each additional piece placed within the mummy wrappings became symbolic protection for the king’s trials during his forthcoming journey through the underworld.

Horemheb, resigned to his duty, moved his feet further apart, folded his arms across his chest, closed his eyes, and bowed his head.

Picture it...

Eight amulets in chased sheet gold are laid on the chest, these fastened by strings about the neck: two human headed, winged serpents, one uraeus, one doubleuraeus, and five vultures.

A wrapping of linen. More amulets in the form of holy symbols: two in green feldspar, one in blood red carnelian, one in sky-blue lapis lazuli. A wrapping. Three amulets: two golden palm leaf symbols placed either side of the neck, and a serpent of chased gold. A wrapping. Four amulets: one of red jasper, one of gold, one of green feldspar, another of gold inlaid with coloured glass. A wrapping. A double headed falcon collar is placed so as to enclose entirely the chest and the shoulders: The collar of Horus in chased sheet gold. A wrapping. Three pectorals: a scarab, an eye and a falcon, gold, enamelled and inlaid with coloured glass. On the chest, an elaborate collarette of tiny blue glass and gold beads. A wrapping. Three pectorals: ornately crafted in gold and glass inlay and arranged across the chest, to the right, one of the falcon, to the left, the scarab in the name of the king with the wings of a falcon, and in the centre, hung on a bead necklace, an eye pendant.

Horemheb adjusted his stance once more, pressing his hands into the small of his back. The readings from the great papyrus paused for a moment. He nodded at the priest to continue.

A wrapping. Another pendant: three large, brilliant blue, gold backed scarabs, marguerites and lotus blossoms in glass hanging beneath, the entire creation hanging from a necklace of five rows of coloured beads secured by an elaborate gold clasp. A wrapping. A gold pendant: Nekhbet with her wings at rest suspended from an intricate gold and lapis chain link neckband, the pendant inlaid with green glass, lapis and carnelian, orbs of carnelian clasped in her gold talons. A wrapping. Two great collars: one with the bodies of the vulture and the serpent and, laid on this, another of the vulture, both of these backed with a multitude of engraved gold tiles, each infilled with coloured glass. A sheet of papyrus. A large chased gold pectoral: a serpent with huge enclosing wings which are bent by the priest to enfold the neck of the king and fix the massive breastplate in place. Several wrappings. Three gold bangles: decorated in semiprecious stones, these are laid on the stomach and on the chest, again secured from the neck. A large pectoral of a hawk: this in chased sheet gold with two gold amuletic knots laid either side. A wrapping. A golden pectoral of Horus: this positioned in the centre, entirely embracing the chest with its wings and inlaid with hundreds of tiles of coloured glass. A papyrus sheet. Another pectoral: a falcon in chased sheet gold.