Tutankhamun Uncovered (42 page)

Senet and Nefer made no sound. They had lost consciousness. Their sad forms hung there, bent over the pikes. Rivulets of blood spiralled swiftly down the stakes and matted the sand. Their wives wailed and rent their hair.

In the immediacy of the moment the assembled crowd took heed of the lesson. But memories are short.

The general was not a compulsive man. He would let some time pass before trying again. He knew very well that first there should be reparations a demonstrable effort to make amends. He gathered the most skilful artisans who had been involved in the creation of the funerary objects and took them to The Valley. They entered the tomb by the passageway created by the robbers and set about reorganising those grave goods that had been disturbed.

Of those repacking the caskets, few but the scribes were literate and most could not read the inscriptions on the dockets. Things got stuffed back into any old box. Meneg did his best to ensure they stacked all the objects where they had been placed originally, but he couldn’t answer for the caskets. There was so much to do and with such urgency mishandling was inevitable. Some of the objects were damaged. Many were misplaced.

“We have not the time to bother with the storeroom,” shouted Meneg. “It’s too much of a mess. Leave it the ka is gone, so there is no more need for the provisions.”

He urged his men out and was about to follow them himself when the tiny carving of the boy king’s head once more caught his eye. It was lying on its side on the bed. The jewellery had gone but the beauty of his work looked directly back at him. The temptation was too great. They will believe it to have been taken by the robbers, he thought, and he grabbed it at once, stuffed it under his clothing and climbed back into the tunnel. He scrambled back towards the sounds of his colleagues, but halfway along the tunnel he became wedged fast. It was the head. He looked forward into the daylight thrown from the entrance and realised that the tunnel became no wider as it rose. There was no time. He had to dump his possession. He backed down slightly until he had room to loosen his robe, allowed the head to drop out beneath him, and pulled himself reluctantly onward until he reached his friends.

No sooner had he emerged than the men at the entrance began the process of refilling the tunnel. A plasterer wriggled in with a few mud bricks to reseal the antechamber door. When he reappeared, another labourer set about repacking the tunnel with rocks. Finally the plasterer resealed the outer doorway. The stairwell was refilled quickly and the labourers left The Valley in peace.

The priestly guard re-established their positions high up on the ridge above the tomb entrance, out of sight but within earshot, and resumed their vigil.

Some months later the general decided that the time was right for another attempt. He carefully selected a second troop of tomb robbers by reputation most successful. He would be able to improve their chances of success if he could devise a way to divert the attentions of the queen’s priests for long enough to allow his men to complete their task.

It was the date wine that night that gave him the idea. He had drunk plenty and become so inebriated that he could not get up from his couch. The room was moving about him. The dancing girls, who were dancing, seemed to him to be in a state of suspended animation a blur of colour and shape that his mind could not lock down sufficiently to focus. As he struggled in his stupor to make some sense of the images before him, a strange feeling of benevolence began to absorb him. To the normal, sober, sane Horemheb this would have been totally out of character, but in his bath of alcohol it felt warmly comforting. The images in his mind turned to celebration a great celebration, a royal celebration in which the royal priests would be honoured for their good worship and appeasement of the gods all these years. An event that would be looked on by all the deities as a celebration of themselves a great demonstration of appreciation for their years of protection from bad harvest and pestilence, a great appeasement that would ensure that the new Pharaoh would live long and rule a fruitful reign maat would prevail. No priest could refuse the invitation. Ay would accede to the general’s request with enthusiasm while the aged Pharaoh contemplated death, he was at the same time fearful of it.

The images stayed with Horemheb all night and in the morning he awoke with his head thumping. Nevertheless, spirited to act on the concept seeded in his dreams, he rolled off his bed and struggled to find his footing.

“Dress me at once! I wish to be taken to the High Priest!” he shouted. “I wish to have counsel with Parannefer before the sun is overhead.”

Dressed in the regalia of his official office and imposing enough to deliver an impressive soliloquy, the general was brought to the high priest’s place of reception.

“Holy one, you, the priesthood and your guard are summoned to Pharaoh’s presence to receive his gratitude for the years of bountiful crops and good fortune which have been bestowed on our land since the passing of the heretic and for your assistance to Pharaoh in assuring the return of maat. This has come to pass only through the integrity of your linkage with the gods. We thank you...” The general bowed. “...And remember, it is Pharaoh’s pleasure to entertain all the priesthood and all the temple guard this night at the palace. There will be two days and nights of revelry to celebrate your good works.”

The high priest backed away with a few appropriate words of gratitude and Horemheb turned and hastily disappeared through the chamber doors.

He returned to the palace. “Guard!” spat Horemheb, immediately he entered the great hall. “Get Minuit and his men to come to the foundry at midday. I have an assignment for them. Quick! Be about your business!”

When the three arrived, the foundry was closed and the furnaces were cold. The general was waiting for them. As the clandestine group gathered, thunderclouds were appearing on the horizon. It occurred to the general that Seth appeared pleased the inundation could be early this year.

“You have two nights and one day to complete the task of which we have already spoken. Do you understand that which I wish you to do?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Minuit.

He was a diminutive little man but he had stout arms. A little like a mole, thought the general. Built just right for tunnelling.

“This night is the first. All the guardian priests of The Valley will be at the palace receiving gifts from Pharaoh. Be gone, then. Do not return to me, ever. I shall know if your task has been completed successfully. You shall reap the reward.”

As the general left, it began to rain.

They waited until late evening to begin their assignment. They waited also to ensure that what Horemheb had said would actually transpire. The fates of their colleagues, Nefer and Senet, were still fresh in their minds. Their poor bodies, now picked clean by the buzzards of the desert, had become a pile of bleached, disaggregated bones lying on the ground beneath the pikes that had impaled them a lingering, awful testament to their crime.

True to the general’s word, there was a great feast that night. So far as they could tell from their vantage point far off, there were indeed many priests present; hopefully, as the general had promised, all of the priesthood. The infidels chose to embark on their task without further delay. Thirty-six hours was not long to complete a tomb robbery of this importance.

They stole across the river in their own boat, the continuing rain allowing them to row without fear of being heard, and moored at the head of the canal which lay closest to the entrance to the king’s necropolis.

As Minuit tied up the boat, there was a crash of thunder. One of the others grabbed his arm. “I do not have a good feeling about this. Seth travels the firmament this night! Who knows what he is planning!”

Minuit jerked the knot tight and shrugged his shoulders. “He troubles not over the likes of us. He prepares to dampen the general’s feast. On your way!”

They had walked some considerable distance into the throat of the valley, trudging through the slurrying mud, before they heard it. Beyond the noise of the rain lashing at their faces, there was indeed a perceptible sound of running water. But they saw nothing and did not fear it. As they walked on, the track narrowed and the valley sides steepened above them. Then, as they rounded the corner, in a flash of lightning they caught sight of the spot where the ground had been freshly disturbed, the rain already excavating a cavity in the softer soil. They increased their pace, keen to begin their work.

A split second before the tumbling water and bouncing debris hit them, Minuit heard the roar and realised what was happening. He gestured to his men to run in any direction to gain some elevation. But, as they turned, the wall of water rose up before them. The suspended rocks within its boiling froth immediately rendered them senseless. They tumbled before the torrent, their bodies torn apart by the boulders, their blood so diluted by the volume of the flood that it left no trace.

Unaware of the catastrophe in The Valley, Horemheb, just as he had promised, kept the festivities going the following day and into the following night. The Valley was left unpatrolled.

It mattered not. The gods had taken it under their own guardianship. As the sun broke over the cliffs and bathed the bottom of the damp valley in its midday light, a new carpet of rocks and mud had been laid along its length. Tutankhamun had been reinterred. This time for good.

Chapter Fourteen

November was approaching and the days at Karnak were becoming noticeably cooler. The Great War was in its third year and with excavations still suspended Carter found the drafting sessions in the shade of the massive colonnade a wholly pleasing pastime. One afternoon, while well established at his easel with a thick, black coffee at his side and deeply engrossed in his tenth drawing, a cloaked Arab of obviously senior quality advanced on him in some haste. Carter recognised the man immediately.

“Sheikh Mansour!” he greeted, putting down his instruments and rising to shake the panting man by the hand. “Allah be praised. It is good to see you.”

“Mr Carter, sir.... Mr Carter...” The Arab gulped for breath before continuing. “I am so happy to have found you.... We need your help.... Now.... Tomb robbers have been discovered at work in the hills behind The Valley.... They are active as we speak.... Please say you will come.”

The thought of a new tomb discovery was music to Carter’s ears. “Of course. At once.”

“I have a boat waiting, sir. We can pick up your men when we get to the other side of the river.”

Carter lost no time packing his things. They both walked briskly to the river and embarked.

Once on the west bank, Carter ran up to his house and dropped off his drawing materials.

“Abdel!” he shouted. “Assemble my fellahs. I need them now!”

Sheikh Mansour called from the doorway, “Sir, you will need much rope. The tomb lies beneath a cliff and the only access is from above.”

A party of six, a donkey and mangy Gaggia left the house that evening and began the slow climb to the place where the tomb robbers had been spotted. Sheikh Mansour pointed it out as they walked up the path. Carter couldn’t see too well in the failing light, but what he thought he could make out was almost unbelievable. The cliff wall looked sheer. In the middle of the valley head towards which Sheikh Mansour was pointing there appeared to be a vertical gash running about halfway down the cliff from the top. Vertical scars such as this were common in these hills. They were lines of weakness in the rocks that had been exploited by flood waters during the infrequent downpours. They became the focus for short-lived waterfalls giant vertical tears gouged out in a geologic instant.

“You mean it’s at the bottom of that cleft?” he asked the sheikh, hoping he was mistaken.

“Yes, sir. At the bottom. They climbed down on a rope. Very brave rascals. But rascals nonetheless.”

The path took them by a circuitous route around the more gently sloping back of the hills and thence to the top of the cliff. Carter was quiet the rest of the journey he spent the time contemplating what might await him at the top and below. He had no congenital fear of heights, but the very thought of climbing down a rope in the darkness onto a den of iniquitous pirates was beginning to chill him to the bone. From this point on, their trudge up the track seemed unhelpfully short.

By the time Carter arrived at the place, it was midnight. As he moved carefully towards the cliff edge, he saw where the robbers’ rope was fastened. He used it to guide him to the cleft and gingerly looked down. In the darkness he could see very little. There was a faint glimmer below perhaps the robbers’ lamp shining from within the cavity and in the stillness of the desert he could hear voices. They were down there all right. He couldn’t make out their conversation. There were several voices talking at once and the sounds were far off and faint. It sounded like there were at least as many of them as there were in Carter’s party.

He sat back on his haunches for a moment and gathered his thoughts. Was his party sufficient in number to successfully see off the intruders? If he went down there it would be just him against all of them. In the hysteria of discovery and the surprise of being caught in the act they could get violent. Once at the mouth of the tomb, a small push and he would be sent tumbling to his death on the rocks below. Should he wait until the robbers themselves climbed back out of the tomb so he could confront them with lesser odds? But then the damage would have been done. Then again, it was almost impossible to believe that this could be a tomb at all. His brave efforts could all be in vain.

Sheikh Mansour whispered in his ear, “You must stop them, Mr Carter, sir. They will be damaging priceless objects. Better you get down there quickly before it is too late. I shall stay at the top to ensure your safety,” he said, and nodded a reassuring smile.

Carter was little comforted by the sheikh’s words and less so at his offer of help. But it was clear he had to steel himself to go down there before they did too much harm to whatever lay inside the tomb. From the sounds of their excited chattering, it seemed they could already be in amongst the booty.