Tutankhamun Uncovered (47 page)

“They’re in the burial chamber,” whispered Meneg. “They can’t have that much more to do.”

They saw the men place the coffin on a sledge made of poles slung behind one of the donkeys. As the robbers disappeared once again into the mouth of the tomb, Meneg turned to Dashir. “They will surely finish tonight. Why don’t we go home and return tomorrow night to examine what is left? Then we can ensure that the queen’s wishes are fulfilled.”

Each nodded eagerly and the party quickly scrambled back down the slope and made their way back to the river.

Despite the apparent good fortune of being relieved of all the hard labour and much of the risk, Dashir did not sleep soundly. He was troubled. He had already failed one of his queen’s orders. The tomb already robbed, likely he would not be able to bring her the gold effigy she had so vehemently demanded. The hopelessness of this failure would have kept him awake longer had his wife not awoken at his tossing and, gratified that he had returned late but sober this night, in her restlessness turned over and placed her hand directly between his thighs.

Afterwards he slumbered in peace.

The following evening, the small band of eight wound their way back into The Valley hoping that this time all would be quiet. Knowing now what they might come upon, they crept to the spot more carefully than they had done the night before, stopping every few steps to listen for voices. They heard nothing and arrived at the tomb entrance in total darkness no donkeys, not a sound issuing from the throat of the tunnel, and not the slightest glimmer of a light. They carefully filed down the entrance corridor and, considering themselves far enough inside, they lit their lamps. Emptiness glowed back at them. As they penetrated into the bowels of the tomb, they found only pieces of broken pottery, of wood, fragments of gold sheet, a few beads, and a smashed alabaster vase. Everything was gone but for the sarcophagus and the mummy.

The mummy, naked but for a few ragged bandages still clinging to its wrists and legs, lay inelegantly on its face in the corner of the burial chamber. The broken lid of the sarcophagus was lying upside down on the floor. They peeked inside. Even the coffin bed had gone. The entire tomb had been most effectively emptied.

Dashir was the first to speak. “Come, there is no time to lose. We are to destroy the sarcophagus and the mummy, and the name and any images of Pharaoh. Eternal death as the queen has ordered.”

“How do we do this, Dashir? The sarcophagus is massive and we have no tools,” said Meneg.

“There are eight of us. It should not be too difficult. Each of you take hold of the upper lip on this side. We shall push it over. The impact will break it.”

“No!” The voice was Enet’s, a relatively junior stonemason.

“You said we were to plunder. You never said we were to work havoc in this place. I made this thing with my own hands. I toiled on it for months. Perfect, is it not? Beautiful. A glorious and enduring statement to the gods. Do you realise how hard it is to carve a piece like this and avoid breaking it? And now all you wish to accomplish is its destruction. I will not let you do this.” He rushed around to the opposite side. “You must stop this foolishness.”

“Ignore him!”

The others pushed, it toppled, and a great echo resounded within the chamber as it fell on its side. The huge stone casket broke into three pieces over Enet’s toes. The mason let out an ear-splitting scream.

Enet fell, crying, to the floor, unable to move. Dashir asked his son to see to the bleeding and then turned to the others. He instructed them to continue pushing the pieces over and onto the fragments already scattered about until they were small enough for a single man to lift and smash them down on the floor. Soon, all was rubble.

As his colleagues laboured, Dashir picked up a piece of the broken wall of the quartzite sarcophagus that was small enough to use as a hand adze and set to chiselling at the paintings on the wall of the tomb wherever he saw the name or image of Ay. The soft limestone yielded to the quartzite easily and within a few minutes he had successfully removed all trace of the late Pharaoh from every text and panel. Meneg dealt the last blow to the sarcophagus, dropping one last large piece to the floor. The rubble scattered in all directions and the dust billowed around them, glowing eerily in the light of the lamps. A strange quiet descended on the emptied place. It was a solemn moment. They each felt it. A gnawing guilt for the desecration they had accomplished. They were this day, each of them, for the first time destroyers, not creators.

“Well,” started Dashir, aware of his colleagues’ feelings, “who has the most right to destroy? I ask you. Surely of all it is he who first creates.”

They stood in silence exchanging anxious glances. Enet’s whimpering brought them back from their thoughts.

“Quick,” said Dashir. “Meneg and Ugele, take Enet by the shoulders and ankles and carry him out of here. You two bring the mummy. You others bring some scraps of wood.”

He was determined not to carry the mummy himself. It was still greasy with the unguents that had only recently been poured over it. The sickly sweet odour turned his stomach.

Dashir carried the oil lamps outside and gestured to his men to dump the body on some rocks. Using the shards of wood they had brought from the tomb, they built a fire base under it. Dashir touched the oil lamps to the bandaging. The cloth ignited immediately and within seconds the wood was crackling. A strong glow burst beneath the pathetic remains of the king. It lit up the valley sides around them, throwing their wavering shadows grossly long against the rocks.

Now the men’s dilemma was to incinerate the body without producing so bright a fire that the glow could be seen from the far side of the river. As the flames took serious hold and grew higher, Dashir took off his robe and handed one side of it to Meneg. The two brought it down over the fire with the edges to the ground, briefly smothering the flames.

“Up!” shouted Dashir as he saw his robe begin to char, and they drew the cloth away allowing the fire to breathe again.

The fire quickly grew intense once more. They had to repeat their manoeuvre many times. By the time the body was in ashes, three of their party, including Dashir, had lost their robes to the inferno. As the dying embers signalled the final success of their mission Dashir observed an expectant look on the faces of the two who, like he, were now without night clothing.

“Fear not, my friends,” he chuckled, “our queen will compensate us for the loss.”

And so she did. Indeed, when they returned in the early hours of the third morning her plaudits were unconstrained, notwithstanding the absence of the trophy. The men departed relieved and content.

Once the crime had been discovered, Ankhesenamun eagerly took part in the royal visit to the site. She publicly demonstrated her shock at what had transpired to so noble an old man her late departed second husband. And for the benefit of all those around her, including Horemheb, she damned those infidels who had perpetrated this horrific act.

Her final official function as the departing queen was to preside at the coronation celebrations of the new pharaoh. The very thought of Horemheb taking the title that her Tutankhamun had so briefly held enraged her to such an extent that she knew she would be unable to disguise her distaste in public. On the night immediately preceding the ceremonies, at the stroke of midnight, accompanied by Tia and what remained of her faithful palace entourage, she silently stole away towards the lands of the Hittites, her boy king’s effigy safely secreted within her quarters in the barque.

Queen Ankhesenamun as a mortal disappeared from her Egypt forever.

Firmly established on the throne of the Upper and Lower Nile Horemheb’s objective was to rid his country once and for all of the memory of the Aten cult and firmly re-establish the old ways. The act would be well received by his subjects and would doubly reinforce his position as Pharaoh.

He had the great avenue of sphinxes that flanked the processional way to the Temple of Amun in Karnak, which at the time of his coronation alternated with the heads of the heretic and his principal wife, re-sculpted to anonymity with the heads of rams. He ordered the razing of Akhetaten and the removal of all references to Akhenaten, Smenkhkare, Tutankhamun, Ay and their families from the great temples and obelisks of Thebes and from the king list. He began an ambitious and complex building programme. He ordered the construction of new pylons at Karnak, liberally sculptured in reliefs attesting to his grandeur, and he had the bodies of the pylons ballasted with dismantled stonework from the temples at Akhetaten, the beauty of their sculpture and the vivaciously painted friezes becoming sealed for ever as disembodied fragments within the cores of these massive, processional gateways.

His was to become a long and glorious reign. Although he lived barely long enough to celebrate his first Sed Festival, wealth and stability nevertheless returned to the great land that straddled the beneficent Nile. The people would rejoice in the newfound harmony of their old ways. There would at last be true maat. Horemheb would be worshipped by the faithful. The general was a very happy man.

Chapter Sixteen

The earl arrived in the middle of winter, 1920. Long before the visit, Carter had been busy in The Valley. He was keen to have the operation looking as practised and as neat as possible for the arrival of his patron, and had hoped to come across a small discovery or two to add some lustre to the forthcoming visit.

Luck was on his side. Shortly before Carnarvon and his daughter arrived in Luxor, Carter’s men came across the remains of some artefacts used in the burial of Ramses IV. These included some tools, a few blue glass plaques, several beads and one or two models of animal parts; not a great deal to write home about, but nevertheless a timely find of some archaeological importance. Practically any find of interest, if not of value, would favourably punctuate the tedium of what otherwise had been fruitless excavation.

When Carnarvon and Lady Evelyn first entered The Valley, it occurred to the earl that it was like walking into the midst of a full-scale mining operation. Their usual first sight of the necropolis proper was obscured by a wall of rubble standing high above them and blocking their way forward. The sheer size of the tip caused them to stand and gaze at it open-mouthed. As they regarded the crude pile, a trolley appeared at the top edge and tipped, cascading its load down the slope, the rubble bouncing down the incline. A few rocks rolled close to their feet.

Carter appeared at the top and signalled to them to go to the left. There they found a prepared gravel ramp which took them gradually up to the level of the railway. At the top, a crowd of chaotic men was industriously moving rocks from the pit ahead of them to the tiny cast-iron rail carts.

As Carnarvon and his daughter reached the perimeter of the cavity where the excavation was presently concentrated, Carter turned to his patron. “Look at where the fellahs are working, sir. Tell me what you see.”

This was an unfair and rather tactless question for Carter the expert to ask his patron. Carnarvon hadn’t a clue what he was supposed to be looking for and Carter knew it, yet the Egyptologist continued unrelenting. “It is difficult for the lay eye, I know. Observe the change in character of the soil. What that means I shall explain... You remember that our purpose here was to remove all recent surface rubbish until we reached undisturbed bedrock deposits that could be recognised to have lain here for millennia? That is what you are looking at now, sir. Look at it closely. See how the texture and colour of it differ from the material above. This is ancient flood debris the very material, at much the same elevation, that covered the uncorrupted tomb of Yuya and Tuya Davis’s triumph.”

The earl thought for a moment. “But that doesn’t mean there is anything beneath probably just bare, virgin rock, surely?”

“Probably,” said Carter. “Possibly. But success is not born of doubt. Success comes from curiosity, observation, recognising the signs, and analysis.” He did not allow Carnarvon another word. “Come, I have a small discovery to show you.”

He took them over to the spot where he had placed the objects recently found close to the entrance of the tomb of Ramses IV.

“What do you say to these, sir?”

Carnarvon’s eyes lit up. The earl was enchanted. Carter’s minor theatrical had had its desired effect. As things were to turn out, it would not be long before the pleasure was repeated.

By midday Carnarvon and Lady Evelyn, and Carter himself for that matter, were quite fed up with watching labourers carry rubble from one place to another. The earl suggested lunch. As they walked over to the open tomb which had been prepared for them, the reis ran up to them from the pit.

“Mr Carter, sir. A find! Please come.”

They forgot their hunger immediately and walked briskly over to the edge of the excavation. There below, protruding from the wall of the fresh diggings, was the distinct, smooth, convex shape of a large jar. Carter couldn’t believe his good fortune. The find was embedded in the debris level he had been pointing out to the earl just a few moments earlier.

As the two men stood at the edge of the excavation looking down, Lady Evelyn surprised both of them by hoisting up her skirt and scrambling down the slope to where the object lay. Carter was quick to follow after her he didn’t want her to stumble; neither did he want her to disturb the find.

His lordship remained at the top. He was not that firm of foot, in recent years rarely seen without the support of a walking cane, and was not about to risk negotiating the unstable slope.

By the time Carter had reached Lady Evelyn’s side, she was prising the caked silt from around the jar. “Miss Evelyn, please be careful,” he implored. “It could be broken.”

“But look, Howard,” she said. “Look. The handle is in the form of an ibex head. See... the horns.”

Carter stooped to look. She was absolutely right. The smooth calcite surface curved outwards to form the jar’s lip and from the lip extended the twin horns of an ibex, sweeping in a fragile arc to a diminutive head attached at the neck to the body of the vessel. The carving was simple but exquisite and apparently undamaged.