Tutankhamun Uncovered (54 page)

The dark shadows of anonymous common criminals tower above him. He stares up into their faces Pharaoh at the mercy of scum. He struggles to move but his arms, tightly bound within the mummy bandages, are fixed rigidly across his chest. As Pharaoh calls to the gods for help, one of the infidels raises a hatchet high above his head and, with all the strength he can muster the robber brings it sweeping downwards. The blade chops deep into the mummy’s chest...

The entire valley repeated with Horemheb’s long, agonised scream. As the last piercing echo faded and withdrew into the valley head, an awful silence fell on the group of onlookers. They stared in shock at the trembling figure crouched on the stairway.

Horemheb was sitting with his knees drawn up hard against his belly, his head bent low and hidden between them, his hands clenched tightly together over his wig, his whole body shaking in bursts as if he was in some kind of epileptic convulsion.

The maligned vizier, himself shocked by the violent spontaneity of Horemheb’s outbursts but otherwise not inwardly displeased at Pharaoh’s obvious discomfort, was the first to break the silence.

“Pharaoh. Oh, Great One. He who is father to our lands. He who applauds the gods and is himself applauded. He who...”

Horemheb broke in, speaking from between his knees, “Shut up, Vizier. Can’t you see I am afflicted. Away with you all.”

He squinted open one eye and saw that no one had moved. He raised his head and spoke between clenched teeth. “Leave me, I say! Out of my sight! All of you!”

“If that is your wish, lord.”

The vizier directed the entourage to return to the royal barques awaiting them at the head of the canal.

Ugele walked at the rear of the party and looked anxiously back towards the tomb entrance. The king had come to the surface but had resumed his foetal position in the sand. There he remained, still and alone but for two of the royal palace guards either side of him.

Up to the point at which they had emerged from the unfinished tomb, Ugele had sensed nothing but Pharaoh’s satisfaction at what he had inspected. ‘What could this mean?’ He feared a dreadful punishment for some unintentional oversight.

He did not sleep that night. He lay on his bed on the roof of the house and stared up at the stars. But the following day no one came to take him away, and not the next day, or the next.

Finally, he felt brave enough to return to the tomb. He had related the story to Parneb and his friend was eager to view the scene of Pharaoh’s ‘possession’. When they arrived at the doorway, they peered in cautiously. As their eyes became accustomed to the light of the distant oil lamps, all they could see were a few painters and draughtsmen working on the wall decorations deep inside.

“It happened just as I told you, Parneb. Pharaoh inspected every part of the corridor and the first chamber. He examined each wall surface even felt the floor for signs of imperfection. Then he came out here into the light here, where I am standing and turned once more to look inside. He sat down here on the step and remained quite still for some moments, staring into the corridor. I was watching his face. His eyes grew large as he stared. His fists clenched. His face took on an expression of great fear. His body began to shake. And then... After some moments in this habit he let out a terrible scream. Such a terrible scream. The whole valley seemed to scream. And he huddled himself into a ball shaking in spasms without control.”

“He became afflicted with an evil humour, then,” diagnosed Parneb with authority. “It was not displeasure with your work. The king has much to answer for. The gods took a moment to remind him.”

“You must not say such things, Parneb. Pharaoh has done great things for the people. He has done great deeds on the battlefield. Without him we would have been overrun by invaders many times.”

“You speak the truth, my friend. But do not let your loyalty blind you to other truths. Great men also have a dark side. Your memory is short, Ugele, if you do not recall how he came by the throne.”

Ugele disliked the way the conversation was going. He knew exactly what his colleague was referring to, but, having found himself happily out of the woods in so far as any regal dissatisfaction with his workmanship was concerned, he preferred to let sleeping dogs lie. He ignored Parneb’s last statement as if he had not heard a word of it and walked off back up the track that led to the village.

The Pharaoh attempted to exorcise his fear by wiping out the last visible traces of Tutankhamun and Ay. He gave instructions to raze the mortuary temple that Ay had usurped from the boy king and ordered the construction of a much more extravagant affair on the same site, dedicating it to himself.

But this did nothing to alleviate his insomnia. For the rest of his life, King Horemheb would retain this awful dream. Some nights would be worse than others, but pretty much every night he awoke and at some stage shook uncontrollably for a minute or two before sliding back into unconsciousness.

One night, during his longest sleep, the stuff of his nightmares would prevail.

“Watch your elbow, Kopchef! That’s the third time my chisel has slipped. You are too close.”

Ugele pushed at his colleague’s shoulder. He was one of six, each of them on their knees frantically sculpting the lowest register of sketched figures. The conditions were so cramped that their bodies touched as they worked.

“I am sorry, master. I was pushed myself by Bek of the third generation he who is on my right. He is not yet skilled. He is slow. It is difficult. There are too many of us in this place.”

“All I hear is excuses! Do it once more and I will pray the gods will punish you! Mark my words. And push the lamp closer. I can hardly see what I am doing. Like as not, I’ll cut off my fingers as I try to follow the line.”

Ugele, his years and experience not reflected in his impatience, was aching and fatigued from hours of painstaking chiselling in the dust choked atmosphere of the great pillared hall.

The lower reaches of the tomb were crowded with artisans and labourers of one type or another. There were draughtsmen laying out the grids on the walls for the artists to draw by. Two priests, like orchestra conductors, stood in the centre of the room directing the work of the artists as they sketched line upon line of figures and texts. Behind them, rows of sculptors with copper chisels brought out the drawings in pale relief. The painters were completing the artwork in the well room. The excavators were still there, too, busily digging out new rooms beyond the burial chamber. The sounds of mallets, chisels and falling masonry echoed about the confining walls. It was almost unbearably hot. Lime dust filled the air and choked the lungs. The chambers echoed to everyone’s coughing.

There had never been such activity. All because Pharaoh was ailing and likely to die. Time was running out to complete the largest, the greatest, the most beautiful and most noble sepulchre of all time.

‘They have no business commanding me to do this at my age,’ thought Ugele, ‘and for such as he...’

The master mason’s reflections were cut short by the voice of a man calling from the direction of the entrance corridor. The noise became louder as the messenger ran towards him, repeating the same words over and over. As he drew closer, everyone stopped work and strained to make sense of his shouting.

“Pharaoh is dead! Eternal life to Horemheb! Long live Ramses!”

The sweating messenger slid to a stop over the fine dust on the floor of the great hall. He looked about himself. In the faint light of the oil lamps a mass of grimy faces emerged from the settling dust.

Ugele addressed the messenger. “The news does not sadden me but for the fact that now we know exactly how much time we have to finish the job. But two months. We shall have to work all the harder. No rest for the people of Pademi!”

“No, Master Ugele. Hear me out,” gasped the messenger. “You are all to cease work at once. This very moment. Ramses has ordered it so. You are to leave this place immediately.”

“Down tools?” asked Kopchef, grinning expectantly.

“Yes. Stop work. Leave at once. Your work is finished here.”

Ugele needed no further encouragement. He gestured to those about him, waving in the direction of the entrance. He stepped over to the stairs which led down to the burial chamber and beyond, and shouted at the top of his voice. “Men! The king is dead! Pharaoh Ramses has ordered our work to finish here! Gather up your things and leave! Now!”

“‘The hell with Horemheb,’ he thinks. No doubt Pharaoh Ramses has plans for us to begin work on enlarging his own sepulchre,” moaned the wise Ugele under his breath. “No peace for the souls of Pademi!”

For once the tired, dirty crew straggled out of the mouth of the tomb before dark. They began their long walk back over the hill to the village to welcome food, drink, and the comfort of their families.

Approaching dawn, a solitary bat found a comforting roost in the depths of the unfinished tomb. As it flew in, it would not have taken any notice of the curious condition of this magnificent, vacant, expectant place.

After the first stairway falls into the depths from the valley floor, there are two bare, inclined, arrow straight corridors of about thirty cubits each, separated by a second flight of steps as long but steeper than the first. At the base of these, there is a deep well brilliantly decorated about its top with flattering paintings of Pharaoh and the gods in vivid colours. Beyond the well there is a large chamber with two pillars and a staircase which leads to a third inclined corridor of about twenty cubits in length. This ends at a fourth staircase which opens into an impressively painted vestibule of about ten cubits square. Another doorway leads to a large, six pillared hall about eighteen cubits square with coloured decoration on one wall, the others unfinished in various stages of draughting and sculpture, two partially sculpted horizontal registers along one of the walls. This opens via two short flights of stairs which descend to the burial chamber of twelve by eighteen cubits, the walls again incompletely decorated. Several storerooms lead off both sides of each of these rooms and, at the rear, northern end of the burial chamber a single, small doorway leads to three further, incompletely excavated storerooms, the debris of excavation still filling the entrance. The whole tomb is driven some two hundred and thirty cubits into the depths of the limestone bedrock of the valley and over fifty cubits below the valley floor.

Come nightfall, the bat flew from its roost and left the tomb to forage. A spattering of excrement lay spread untidily across the burial chamber floor.

A gentle breeze from the east raised ripples on the surface of the lake. The golden light from the setting sun danced briefly from one to the other. The Hittite queen raised her hand to shade her wrinkled eyes. The endless sunshine, the trials of life and the sands of time had etched their signatures into the once smooth features of the face that in her youth had enchanted all who had been privileged to look on it. Her habitual evening meditations were taken in solitude upon the private terrace which overlooked these waters. As she had approached her fiftieth birthday, the time she chose to languish in this place had steadily lengthened.

The waters of the lake were deep. Its shores, the gaping mouth of a long dormant volcano, fell sheer to unknown depths. She gazed reminiscently across the huge body of water towards the hills beyond. The deepening shadows reminded her of the darkness which daily would bathe the west bank of the river of life.

Tia approached her and knelt. “There is a messenger, my lady. A boy from your kingdom to the south. He asks for you by your previous name.”

“Bring him to me. At once.” A great thrill of anticipation flooded through her. She had waited so long for news. It had seemed that the infidel would live forever.

The grimy, sweating messenger boy prostrated himself before the queen. He clutched an elongate wrapping of fresh mummy bandages. Ankhesenamun took the package from his outstretched hands and, one by one, slowly peeled the soiled linens from it. Her face glowed with anticipation. From the weight of the bundle she knew very well what it was she was about to uncover.

As the last of the bandages was removed, a roll of papyrus fell to the ground. It was Horemheb’s ‘Book of Gates’. She picked it up and summarily tore it to shreds, allowing the pieces to be scattered by the wind... ‘He shall have to manage without it.’

She placed the golden statue on the table beside her. Two tiny forearms stretched vertically from its head, their hands open, the palms facing forward. Below this headdress was that familiar, grotesquely squat, round face, the fat lips, the oblate, rippling body, a golden tunic gathered about its stout waist. The likeness was uncompromisingly true and utterly repulsive. The artist who had fashioned this must have done so with some personal gratification, representing the king as he had appeared in life, not at all as he would have wished to have been remembered.

The royal widow felt a consuming sense of release. For years she had remained preoccupied with a single yearning. For years her new marriage had been troubled with her fixation. Her husband had understood at first but, as the years passed by, her continuing private obsession had driven him elsewhere for affection. She had let him play. She would not ask much of him. Just that he be there to talk with her when she needed the company. He played his part well.

As the sun touched the distant horizon, a flash reflected off a facet scratched into the gold. The queen brought the small statue closer to her eye and examined the script etched crudely into its buttocks: ‘For Queen Ankhesenamun. Loving wife of Tutankhamun. For our eternity.’

It was signed with the nomen of ‘Dashir’. She smiled in contentment. They had been true to her to the end.

Still holding the gold figure, she got up from her seat and knelt down on the stone floor to face the last glimmer of the evening sun. She whispered a prayer to her loyal servants to protect them from discovery and the possibility of awful punishment. As she uttered her last word, she clenched both her fists tightly about the legs of the statue, raised it at arm’s length above her head and with all her strength brought it hard down on the stone floor. The paving’s rang as the head broke at the neck. Turning over and over again in the air, it bounced down the steps before her, finally splashing into the water’s edge and disappearing forever. She stood up quickly and tossed the mutilated figure after it. The queen and the boy watched as the ripples grew outward and gradually died.