Tutankhamun Uncovered (52 page)

Carter’s body seized up with a rush of excitement the like of which he had not experienced ever before. This was real. There was no mistake: sun disk, scarab... Nebkheperure! Tutankhamen! It truly is Tutankhamen!

He turned and looked up at his expectant tribe gathered about him at the surface. Ali could tell it before he spoke. He had never observed such a grin on the face of his master.

“We have him, Ali! Tutankhamen! We have him! Praise be to God!”

The Valley filled with noise as the Arabs repeated Carter’s words.

The impulse now to dismantle the door and penetrate the depths of the tomb was almost too much. But before he took another step he knew he must call his patron to this place. Then he remembered the Tomb of the Horse.

He sighed. He called to Ali and asked him to bring his satchel. Carter undid the straps and withdrew a steel probing rod. Placing the rod against an unstamped part of the plastered doorway, he carefully excavated a small hole. He chipped his way through the gap between the mud bricks which lay behind until he felt the rod give. He withdrew it and introduced a small torch. Manoeuvring the torch within the confined space, all he could see was a slope of rubble rising to an inclined ceiling. The corridor which lay behind the door was filled by the hand of man that, at least, was quite clear.

The prospect of a great deal more hard labour before he came upon anything of significance confirmed his decision. He would indeed stop here. He would telegraph his patron with the news. The seals had confirmed it was well worth the risk.

He pulled himself up and turned to look at his men silhouetted above him. They all stared downwards expectantly. Carter squinted in the sunlight and drew his hat over his eyes. He addressed them in Arabic. “Men. We have discovered what may prove to be the burial of Pharaoh Tutankhamen. I have all of you to thank for that... Refill this place immediately. Mind you, now take the greatest care not to damage the plaster at the bottom of the steps. Drop your loads gently. There is plenty of time... I must summon Lord Carnarvon to the opening. Repost the guards when you have finished. Ali mark you now the strictest security!”

Ali got the message all right. A word from him and the men began refilling their baskets with rubble. In an orderly and unhurried fashion, they filed down the steps to redeposit their loads.

“And Ali!” added Carter, “make sure you get your most trustworthy colleagues to guard this place.”

Carter thought for a moment. He snapped his fingers. “Of course! Why didn’t I think of it before? Sergeant Adamson! Ali! Never mind. Forget what I just said. Sergeant Adamson is in Luxor kicking his heels. Go to him at once. Tell him I have a most important assignment for him. Now, if you please!”

The reis took off down The Valley bound for the ferry. As he made his way across the river he pondered on what purpose the sergeant could have by kicking his heels, and in Luxor of all places.

Carter remained at the top of the pit supervising the men as they refilled the excavation. He watched the door and the steps disappear and, as the last basket load was tossed on the ground, he addressed the labourers once more.

“Thank you, men. Leave now and return only when the reis summons you. This will not be soon. We must await the arrival of his lordship from England. The reis will provide you with some additional reward for this day’s work. Go home to your families and, once again, my thanks to you all... and thanks be to Allah!”

Carter sat cross-legged in the sand and watched the men disappear. While he waited for Ali to return with Adamson he dwelt on his achievement. Too good to believe! Vindication! But then he knew he had been right. The long wait had been worth it. Now he felt the boyish excitement of waiting to open a Christmas present. He pulled his notebook from his jacket pocket and took the pencil from behind his ear. His fingers were trembling as he recorded the moment.

He closed the book and sucked on the end of his pencil. Must cable Carnarvon tonight. Won’t tell him about Tutankhamen just yet. Much better to save that for his arrival.

Carnarvon was having a restful breakfast in bed. The butler brought the telegram on a silver salver. The earl slit it open with a paper knife. The crisp, dry paper cracked as he opened it.

“It’s from Carter. Dammit, it’s in code. Get me my folio from the library desk drawer. The one I use on my trips to Egypt.”

The minutes the butler was away on his errand seemed interminably long to Carnarvon. ‘Must be important. Must have found something. No other reason for him to code it.’

He was unable to contain his anxiety. He pushed his breakfast tray to one side, got out of bed, put on his dressing gown, grabbed his walking stick and went towards the stairs. He was met by the butler on the landing.

“What took you so long, man?”

He grabbed the folder from him, sat down on a stair step and rifled through the pages. He found the sheet he was looking for and wrote the words on a scrap of paper as he decoded them.

Carnarvon scrunched the paper together in his fist and pressed it to his lips. He got up and called to the butler. “Make up my things and the Lady Evelyn’s and book us two berths on the next steamer to Cairo. We’ll go even if they don’t have a suite!”

He hurried down to the hall and thence into the library. Grabbing the phone in his left hand, he took the earpiece off the hook and clicked the rest a couple of times. “Operator? Operator. Get me Mr Gardiner’s number. Quickly, if you would be so kind.”

There was a pause. While he waited for the connection, Carnarvon paced impatiently up and down in front of his desk. The phone rang.

“Gardiner? Alan, old chap. Just heard great news. Had to share it with someone before my head burst. Carter has found a tomb. Intact, man. Intact! Unbelievable! After all this time...”

Gardiner responded to the earl’s euphoric words, but Carnarvon wasn’t listening.

“It couldn’t be... not Tutankhamen, surely?”

As the last limestone boulder was thrown on the filling in the stairway, a fissure moved ever so slightly within the body of rock beneath. A lacelike curtain of fine lime dust fell gently from the ceiling and lightly powdered the gilding on the roof of the shrine.

For a moment the absolute silence had been broken. Within the innermost coffin a body had been disturbed. Its waxy wrappings momentarily glowed bright orange in the enclosed darkness. As the last of the ancient oxygen was consumed, the smouldering corpse gave up its temporary light and faded once more into blackness.

Chapter Seventeen

A nest of rats had made their home in a cavity high up within the mud brick walls of Horemheb’s chambers. Some thoughtless remodelling completed in preparation for the Pharaoh’s formal coronation while the mother of the rat family was giving birth had sealed up their only means of access to the outside world. Cut off from any source of food and water, they had all expired some days later. The odour sudden, obscene and totally unsociable in its heaviness precipitated the evacuation of all the royal residents from the palace complex. The servants were left to manage the ordeal.

While the cleaning and redecorating of his rooms were under way Horemheb had chosen the vizier’s palace for temporary quarters, and once in residence he took over virtually every aspect of the vizier’s life. Of all the Pharaoh’s interferences, there was one that irritated the vizier far above any other. If just that would go away, he could tolerate all the others. It began the first night.

The vizier had seen the same look in Horemheb’s eye on many occasions. Prior to this it had involved others. But not this time. Now, it was clear, Horemheb coveted the youngest of the vizier’s wives. He knew he could not refuse him not Pharaoh if he was to keep the privileged office he currently enjoyed. Nevertheless, he lay awake most of the nights that Horemheb was there imagining the ugly scenes taking place a few walls distant. Strain how he might to listen for signs of movement or a whisper, she never cried out, and each morning she would return to the harem apparently untroubled, saying nothing, almost serene. The thought that Horemheb might actually be pleasing her far outweighed any concerns he may have harboured for her personal discomfort. Sleeplessness would dog him for as long as the Pharaoh remained at his house. And Horemheb would happily relish every moment of anguish he generated within his host total power over even the highest-ranking of his subjects absolute control. The vizier would never again feel completely at ease when Pharaoh was resident at Thebes.

“My dear Royal Vizier,” Horemeheb slapped him firmly on the back as he left to return to his restored palace. “Fantastic time. Best I’ve had in years. You are a loyal friend indeed. The gods will repay you.”

‘Not Pharaoh,’ Nakht grumbled thoughtfully as he bowed.

The security of Horemheb’s eternity was far more important than matters of state. In this, his priorities were much like any other. No sooner had the Pharaoh sobered up from the final night’s celebrations of his coronation than he began his planning for a perfect departure to the afterlife. Nothing would take priority over the design and preparation for his safe spiritual transition. Once these plans had been set in motion, but for periodic progress reports, he could virtually forget about them and return to the daily business of administration of his empire.

‘Matters of State’ in large part embodied the broadcast of his ascendancy to the realm of the gods. He would accomplish this, as had those before him, in the form of great buildings, particularly temples, massive flattering likenesses of himself most quite unlike himself, however and prolific wall writings. His name would appear prominently everywhere, often overwritten on those of his predecessors. Most of all he would annihilate all vestiges of the memory of the cult of Aten and secure his personal acceptance through energetic promotion of the old order.

But, first and foremost, he must prepare the ark. The grave goods inventory was the easy bit: a fairly standard equipage of staples to sustain him, immaculately executed, of the finest materials and workmanship, and a plethora of ushabtis to serve him, including an ample number of females. He would make a special listing of the personal items he wished to accompany him on his great journey. And to cover the guilt of his life’s misdemeanours he would have to ensure a sufficiency of amulets, far more than had been placed on the body of the youthful innocent he had dispatched just a few years since more even than the recently departed Ay. To hide all his wrongs successfully the inventory would of necessity be substantial.

Neither was Pharaoh going to risk an unfinished sepulchre at the time of his passing. He would lose no time in commissioning the excavation ultimately to become the grandest tomb of all time.

Starting from a clean slate...

“Torch it! Burn every bit of it! Every building; all of their belongings, especially those they returned with from Akhetaten. I want nothing that even smells of Aten,” Horemheb sneered. “But protect the artisans they must not be hurt. Pademi is to be rebuilt, enlarged, and resupplied. They will all remain whole their families, everyone; no one must be harmed. But make sure you cleanse that place nay, cauterise it! The gods will be watching you!”

Vizier Nakht carried out Pharaoh’s command with almost clinical precision. Pademi, and most of what was material within it, died in a fiery holocaust on a day that every man was at work in The Valley and all the families, young and old alike, Hammad and the washer women included, had been directed to The Valley of the Queens to pay tribute to Ankhesenamun’s passing, or disappearance call it what you like. By the time they noticed the great pall of smoke hanging over the hills behind them it was too late.

The vizier was well prepared for their dismay adequate temporary quarters were provided in the temples; adequate provisions from the temple stores; even some of their most personal things had been selectively saved. The work of rebuilding would begin as soon as the stones had cooled.

Some months later Ugele was summoned to Pharaoh’s presence. He was escorted from his home by two palace guards. Although massive enough themselves, the tall Nubian standing between them in the entrance to Pharaoh’s chambers practically dwarfed the two sentinels.

Horemheb pushed an attentive servant girl off his knee and addressed the master of the masons. “In The Valley of the Tombs of the Kings you will begin immediately on the construction of the greatest sepulchre ever fashioned by the hand of mere man.”

Ugele knew exactly who it would be for.

“It will be the longest, the deepest, the most exquisitely decorated. A fitting new world for Pharaoh. You will see to it. I have marked out a place. You will bring me plans fit for Pharaoh. I know your artistry. It will be acceptable. Bring the plans to me tomorrow at this time.”

Ugele bowed respectfully and backed out between the guards.

Horemheb’s words hung like a capital threat in his mind. He could not conceive how big would be big enough; how long; how deep. He did not know, even by way of comparison, how large the largest of the older tombs was, or which it was.

But then, he thought, ‘Pharaoh probably doesn’t know either.’ One thing he was certain of, however. Horemheb’s tomb would have to be demonstrably larger than that of his predecessor, Ay, and Ugele was quite familiar with the size of that particular tomb.

The master of the masons did not finish the plans until sunset of the following day. Honouring Pharaoh’s orders, he took the product of his draughtsmanship directly to the palace. The king opened the papyrus on his lap. Horemheb’s face broke into a full smile. Aside from these physical signs, however, there were no thanks. Nevertheless, Ugele’s sense of relief was immediate.

“I command you to begin at once. I will visit the place in seven days. By then the doorway to my ark must be complete.”

The master mason was too pleased with Pharaoh’s clear satisfaction with the plans of the tomb to feel any undue anxiety at the king’s request. In any event, initial excavation of the doorway in preparation for tunnelling into the wall of the valley was usually a relatively simple and least exacting affair. The entrance portal would be easy to alter if Pharaoh complained not so the corridors.