Tutankhamun Uncovered (32 page)

‘Nothing is forever’, he contemplated sadly.

Carter took out his notebook and walked into the library to begin cataloguing and valuing. He was by now far more knowledgeable than Lord Amherst himself, hence Carter’s selection as valuer and adviser to the auctioneers. The experience he had gained in purchasing antiquities on the Cairo market and his total grasp of Egyptian art and period made him eminently suitable to maximise the value of the collection for the forthcoming sale. It was, after all, the very least he could do for them. In the misery of bankruptcy, they needed to have someone they could trust working in their best interests. He attacked the task with energy and not inconsiderable sadness.

For the time being at least, he had forgotten Dorothy Dalgliesh. She knew he was in the country but had no idea where he was or what he was doing. She waited for a letter.

Chapter Eleven

By midnight, all the funerary barques had been assembled inside the processional harbour which lay before the great western pylon of the temple of Karnak. In the moonlight the graceful hooked prows cast dancing pale blue shadows on the water. Tall standards topped by long, narrow flags waved to the slow roll of the boats like a giant forest of papyrus reeds rippling in the wind. Other than the occasional creak of straining wood, the fleet kept its neatly tethered position in silence.

So did the palace guard. Early that morning, before sunrise, a large contingent of brightly tunicked warriors had assembled. They arranged themselves in double ranks, lining four avenues which, nearer the harbour, joined together and thereafter continued as a single corridor to the point of embarkation. The four avenues extended from different buildings, one from the temple of Karnak, a second from the foundry door, another from the structure which housed most of the funerary equipment, and the fourth from the temple of Mut which lay some four hundred cubits to the southwest.

The soldiers stood silent. A long duty lay ahead of them.

A long duty also lay ahead of the royal widow. In the early hours she was awakened by Tia. After refreshing her with incense, cooled water to drink and freshly peeled fruits, she preceded the queen to the bathing chamber where the junior maidservants would wash her and anoint her skin with softening oils and perfumes. Her makeup was simple just the customary dark outline to the eyes; the blackened eyebrows; and a delicate enhancement of the eyelid. Then her clothing two pieces of diaphanous white, pleated linen joined at the waist. The dress extended to her ankles, open at the front. The material was gathered tight about her waist with a broad, long, red linen sash tied in a bow and falling to her feet. The upper part fully covered her breasts, her back and her shoulders, draping to her elbows. Her forearms and a small portion of the left and right sides of her midriff remained bare. She wore nothing beneath. On her feet they placed gilded rush sandals. Then the wig her favourite wig, the black hair, natural, most of it her own and the remainder her mother’s, was plaited in narrow braids and gathered so as to fall over her head and hang naturally about it to her shoulders, leaving her ears visible and forming the perfect frame to her pretty face. To ensure the wig was secure, a narrow red sash was tied tightly about her forehead.

Then the jewellery. First, they set the royal diadem firmly on her wig. Large, gold, hooped earrings were threaded into her pierced ears. Slender tassels of varicoloured faience hung from each. The collarette of heavy gold and stones about her neck, normal at formal occasions within the palace confines, was today replaced by a light, broad collar of fresh spring flowers and leaves, delicately stitched together in colourful rows and tied in a knot at the back. Two glittering bangles encircled each of her forearms, two more on each of her wrists, and five gold rings on each hand.

The picture was complete.

Lit by a partial moon, the dark silhouette of the cliffs on the west bank stood out against the violet sky. As the sun neared the eastern horizon, the escarpment began to lighten, almost imperceptibly at first but later accelerating. With the break of dawn, the first long shadows stretched out towards the river in lean fingers, as if pointing the way.

Shattering the sleepy peacefulness of early sunrise, a cacophony of trumpets sounded from the temple pylon. Birds rose from their roosts it seemed from everywhere and filled the paling sky with chaotic, swirling, black swarms. The trumpets’ single, shrill note sawed through the air and echoed back from the west bank cliffs as if to awaken the innermost reaches of the necropolis itself. The note ceased as suddenly as it had come and, as the echoes faded away, with a loud creaking the huge cedar doors of the temples eased open.

Within the dromos of the great pylon of the temple of Karnak, utterly dwarfed by its colossal proportions, stood the slight figure of Ankhesenamun. Flanking her on one side was Parannefer. The high priest was clothed in a simple linen tunic. Completely covering his head was the black, fired clay, dog head headdress of Anubis. On her other side, her new husband the diminutive, bent Ay. He was cloaked in a leopard skin and made up in the likeness of the god, Osiris. Each cradled a small mummy casket in their folded arms Ankhesenamun’s two stillborn children had been retrieved from the dark niche within the palace where they had lain these last few years. They were to take their final resting place close by their father.

Some distance away, within the threshold to the temple of Mut, in full general’s ceremonial regalia stood the massive, oblate form of Horemheb.

A second blast from the trumpeters.

Soldiers pulled open the doors to the funerary stores and the foundry. In the dim light of early dawn, the glow of the dying fires still flickered from within.

A third note echoed across the river.

The processions began. The Karnak entourage was the first to move. Behind the chanting priest and the royal couple emerged the mummy bearers, four men in front and four behind, between them the large, open, four posted, gilded shrine supported on a wooden sled. The canopy above it was surrounded all about its top with repeated, brightly coloured cobra heads. The mummy lay open to view beneath, lying on a low bed. The brilliance of the golden mask on the mummy’s head was at first subdued in the shade thrown by the canopy. Its black eyes stared hypnotically skyward. Three necklaces of gold disks and beads of blue glass surrounded the neck. A crimson outer shroud now covered the mummy bandages. Securing the mummy shroud and equally spaced from the ankles to the chest were four bands of inscribed gold, inlaid with coloured glass and semiprecious stones. A broader fifth band extended the length of the body to the feet. Crossed on the chest were false hands of sheet gold enclosing the crook and flail within their clenched fists. Between them lay a large black resin scarab, a heron carved into its carapace. Below the hands lay the human headed, gold Ba bird with wings outstretched. Colourful garlands and bouquets of spring flowers, large and small, covered every part of the funeral cortège.

The shrine was followed by two lesser priests. They held a stretcher bearing several sealed alabaster jars, each containing holy fluids.

As the temple procession embarked on its journey down the corridor lined by the rigid palace guard, there was a fourth blast from the trumpeters.

Four bearers emerged from the funerary building. They carried a long, low, gilded shrine supported on two long horizontal poles, a bearer at each corner. On the roof of the shrine, lying elegantly with forelegs outstretched and head held erect, and with a crisp, white linen shawl about its neck, reclined the dark and unmistakable profile of the black jackal. As was the custom, Meneg walked in front. The honour was to the maker.

Behind followed the canopic chest borne on two cedar stakes, the brilliant whiteness of the calcite box hidden from view under a linen cloth. Behind this followed six stretchers, the first two with the gilded wood panels that would be used to construct the shrine over the canopic chest; on each of the other four, lying upon beds of linen, exquisite gilded statues of the four protective goddesses that were to surround the king’s organs with their embrace Neith of the north, Nephthys of the east, Isis of the west, and Selket of the south. Following them, a seemingly endless line of bearers carrying a multitude of articles wooden boxes, small wooden shrines, inlaid caskets, and a host of model boats of various sizes. At the rear of the procession was a large gilded head of the god Hathor, the cow, its long, curved, black horns contrasting starkly with the glittering gold. It, too, had a white linen scarf about its neck.

A fifth blast from the heralds on the temple pylon.

There was a brief sense of movement in the shadows within the foundry and then, as the first bearers emerged from the doorway, the early morning sunlight caught the roof of a diminutive golden shrine as it was carried out to begin its journey to the waiting flotilla. The gold sheeting that covered the tiny shrine had been engraved all over and the facets raised by the artist’s hand reflected the sun’s rays in starbursts, momentarily blinding any who took the time to steal a look. Within the shrine and, the doors now being sealed, hidden from view, stood that which Ankhesenamun had blessed the night before the pure gold statuette in the likeness of the boy king and, alongside it, the rolled papyrus containing ‘The Chapters of Coming Forth by Day’, the spells that Tutankhamun would need to guarantee his spirit’s safe passage through the tortuous labyrinth of the underworld.

Following behind, each preceded by a massive, gilded, bestial bed dragged on a sledge by two men, advanced the three great coffins. The first of these was brilliantly gilded and so large as to appear cast for a giant. The second was encrusted with a complex mosaic of varicoloured glasses inlaid in gold. Then came the last: although the smallest of the three, it took eight strong men to bear it. The massive casket of solid bullion rested on a stout wooden stretcher. Dashir, as master goldsmith the artisan responsible for most of the workmanship, walked in the place of honour at the front.

The engraved and inlaid gold shone bright orange in the morning sun. About the torso two vultures, brightly coloured with glass cloisonné, held the arms and shoulders in a protective embrace. Below the hips, two goddesses held the legs close within their spread wings. A third kneeled at the foot, raising her wings in protection.

These three pieces their regal beauty, the riches and artistic skill that they embodied were but a theological normality to the community that fashioned them; splendour beyond all comprehension to those who had not.

The last pieces in this column were the huge dismantled panels that would ultimately form the four protective shrines nested one within the other over the sarcophagus itself. Twelve walls, four sets of doors, and four roofs of gilded wood were supported on individual stretchers, the last of these bearing the parts of a frame that ultimately would support a gold studded linen pall.

As the foundry doors closed behind the coffin procession, the trumpeters sounded yet again. Once more birds swarmed into the sky in all directions.

The patiently waiting entourage at the temple of Mut at last began its slow walk along the avenue leading to the southern pylons of Karnak. Beside the general walked Vizier Nakht and behind them marched a troupe of nineteen young female dancers, one for each year of Tutankhamun’s life, and a smaller group of musicians, each rhythmically shaking a tinkling sistrum. Apart from their dark wigs and colourful necklaces, the dancers were naked to the waist.

Horemheb had picked them out from the palace entertainers himself. He had taken some considerable time to delicately match their heights, slim waists and small, firm breasts. His attention to their beauty in the pageant was secondary. He had promised that, should their artistry please he would honour each of them with a summons to dance privately before him in his chambers, followed no doubt by a night in his bed. This was not necessarily all bad. It had occurred to most that the lustful union could result in their bearing a child, the offspring of a high official no less, perhaps ultimately even Pharaoh himself, thereafter to enjoy the favoured status that came with that lucky outcome.

The girls wore simple, unpleated, white linen skirts, translucent in the twilight of early morning, and brightly coloured, thonged sandals. Each carried a small basket of flowers and garlands. They swayed as they marched, tossing the long tresses of their wigs from side to side in unison, one with the other.

Horemheb glanced back at them and smiled contentedly. Some pleasure awaited at the end of these tedious celebrations, if only he could keep himself from growing too tired.

The rear of the procession was brought up by officials, each bearing gifts for the future life of the departed king: Nakhtmin, Horemheb’s second in command; Maya, the court treasurer and highly respected architect of Tutankhamun’s funeral; Usermont and Pentu, the prime ministers of the Upper and Lower Nile; a number of other dignitaries; and ten men carrying platters and parcels of vegetables, bread and fruit, with an equal number of older women balancing pitchers of wine, beer and water on their heads.

The procession continued towards Karnak.

With a final blast from the heralds, and another flock of frantic birds, another line of bearers was dispatched from the funerary stores. Leading the column was an upright life-size statue of a sentinel bearing a gilded royal headdress and wearing a gilded tunic. Contrasting starkly with the gold, the unclothed parts had been repainted with a thick black resin symbolising death.

Following this some on stretchers, some suspended either side of yokes stretched across the strong backs of scantily clad workers were beds, chariots, more caskets, ornamental objects, games, boxes, bows, boats, pots and jars of alabaster and calcite, baskets, staves, weaponry of many kinds, seats and thrones. Most glittered with gold. The objects were those that would have accompanied the king in his normal daily life, here and now all brought together for him to draw on as his needs required during the life that was to follow. One after another, the stretchers all neatly stacked with the stuff of life came out of the funerary stores and snaked slowly between the columns of soldiers on their way down to the wharf side. At last the final stretcher emerged, bearing a second sentinel in most details identical with the first.