Tutankhamun Uncovered (9 page)

As things turned out, neither Petrie nor Carter was responsible for the discovery of the El Amarna tomb of Pharaoh Akhenaten. News of the find reached them quickly. Carter armed himself with pencils and paper and they took off eastward, inland to visit the site.

The tomb lay some considerable distance up a steep ravine, set apart from the ruined city and the other tombs excavated in the surrounding escarpment. The interior, like the Pharaoh’s city ravaged by those who had tried to erase all memory of the heretic, still retained sufficient detail to attest to its original beauty. There was a strange warmth to the art. The place had real atmosphere.

Among the wall carvings that Carter sketched was a tender scene wherein the king and queen mourned the death of one of their children. To the apprentice Egyptologist’s astonishment and intense gratification, his drawing was published in The Daily Graphic in London the following month as an illustration to one of Petrie’s articles. Of course, there was no acknowledgement of Carter’s contribution. After all, the young man was but an apprentice. Granted he was sponsored by Lord and Lady Amherst, but these unusually lofty connections were overshadowed by the lack of appropriate educational background and an absence of breeding.

Carter took a clipping for his scrapbook. The honour had been deeply felt nonetheless.

Chapter Three

On his accession Smenkhkare, Tutankhamun’s elder brother, had delivered the royal family and his people from the pestilent city, the palaces and temples of Akhetaten. The seat of regency and of religious order was happily returned, initially to Memphis and latterly to Thebes. This had been decided and enforced entirely on the advice and counsel of Smenkhkare’s elders. But this Pharaoh, bringing ‘the sickness’ with him from Akhetaten, barely survived three years.

Tutankhamun himself, not yet a teenager and untouched by ‘the sickness’, found himself unexpectedly decorated with the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. Very young, but at the same time endowed with enormous power, it did not take the royal juvenile long to understand that every word he uttered would be taken with unquestioned literality. What he said, what he wished, what he commanded would be acted on without a second thought. As he matured into manhood, he came to realise that he must first carefully consider what he was about to say. Second, he must be absolutely deliberate and resolute in whatever he said.

So it was one day that he decided to return to the place of his early childhood. A place of the fondest memories of a loving father and mother-in-law; of their six children, all daughters, one now his queen; of his brother. There had been much laughing and playing of games. It had been a carefree time no responsibilities; security; beautiful buildings with vibrant frescos on the walls; a freshness and newness about everything. He recalled the abundant flowers, the shrubs, the trees, the ponds of clear water populated with lotus blossom and waving stands of papyrus; the birds in every garden there had been birdsong.

Tutankhamun called for Nakht.

“The Pharaoh and his Queen wish to travel to Akhetaten, the place of our childhood, the burial place of Pharaoh’s mother and of the family of his Queen, the place of our birth.”

The vizier didn’t like the order but understood the young couple’s wish to return to their origins. When they had left they had been little more than children. But also he remembered ‘the sickness’. He was concerned for the royal family’s health, and worse, the possibility of re-infestation at Thebes. In such a visit there was political danger, too.

“Great One, it is well over two, more likely three full days and nights of sailing, even with a strong crew. More than thrice that on the return journey.

And Akhetaten is forbidden. ‘The sickness’ abides there. There are no people there. It is an empty place. It is a dead place. You should not wish to venture to such a place.”

The young Pharaoh was not listening. “Great Vizier, nothing is forbidden to Pharaoh. Do not insult my intelligence. Have I not lived in Akhetaten? Do I not well comprehend the distances? I am quite aware of the logistics. After all these years ‘the sickness’ will have died away itself. There have been no days of darkness since that which spawned it. There are happy memories many happy memories that the Pharaoh and his Queen wish to rekindle. The Queen and Pharaoh shall travel to Akhetaten. Tomorrow you will have assembled for me three ships well provisioned for the journey. We will need horse and chariot plus the usual retinue. You will not accompany us. See to it. That is all.”

His personal concerns for the Pharaoh’s safety, the politics and superstitions of the time notwithstanding, Nakht wanted the king to have his wish. But first some subtle arrangements would have to be made and for these he would need a little time.

That evening the vizier consulted with the general. “It is a ticklish situation. The gods will be displeased. There is risk of infestation at Thebes ‘the sickness’ although his Highness believes it to be gone. And the people... There is sensitivity... The people must not become aware.”

“Pharaoh has ordered that it be so?”

“Pharaoh has ordered it.”

The general rubbed his nose. “Can we not explain to him the delicacy of the matter... so that he will understand?”

“He understands ‘the delicacy of the matter’, General. It is up to us to see to it that the entire visit goes ahead, as it were, ‘delicately’... that is, unnoticed.”

“Then it must be.” Horemheb cursed himself for not dispatching the king sooner. But then he had a thought. What if the king’s ship should founder on its journey north? An unfortunate accident. An opportunity altogether simpler than his personal plan. He could not constrain a grin of inner contentment.

Nakht noticed the general’s relaxed expression. “You have a plan?”

“Mmm?... Ah... Well... I see it thus... We must arrange it that the royal couple depart at midnight, when the populace is abed... Also, on the return journey it should be so arranged that they arrive in the dead of night. Before he leaves I will send ahead of him a contingent of my most trusted troops to ensure the capital of the heretic is clear of squatters and nomads. He will not be seen.”

The vizier knew exactly what Horemheb meant by ‘clear’. Those unlucky enough to be present when the troops arrived would be dead and buried without trace long before the king’s flotilla berthed. The few who camped in the desert outside but close to the perimeter of the town, hearing the screams from within, would hide themselves or run off into the hills. No living thing would remain to welcome the Pharaoh but for the guards themselves, the birds, the reptiles, the vermin and the insects.

If Horemheb had anything to do with it there might be no welcome necessary. To his knowledge the boy king had never taken the time to learn to swim. If it could be engineered that his barque would run aground on the rocks at some point during the journey and quickly sink, there would be a strong probability he would become entangled in the powerful and wayward currents of the river and be lost for ever.

Staging the accident would not be easy, however. The captain would have to be paid off. And there must be no chance of discovery. In the past the general had been exposed to a blackmail attempt. That particular infidel had come to mortally regret his indiscretion. Horemheb would have the captain killed later, regardless of the outcome. That would be the easy part.

The king and the queen, understanding the need for secrecy, showed no discomfort with their midnight embarkation. The boat would not normally be expected to arrive before sunrise three days hence. They would sleep late in their cabin and enjoy the daylight hours viewing the passing monuments of their kingdom.

Their plans to retire as soon as they were on board, and the moonless night, suited the general’s purposes. As he saw the captain off, the general signalled with a wave and looked up at the stars. His meaning was perfectly clear.

The captain did not see his task as all that difficult. The steersman of the royal barque could not see the way ahead and relied on the pilot, positioned high in the bow, to shout direction to him. Being the man in charge, the captain had ably confused messages between pilot and steersman on several previous occasions.

However, in the event, the captain had a good deal of trouble steering the disaster course. The oarsmen did not operate in the downstream direction at night because the noise might disturb the royal couple. There was no wind and the boat would not manoeuvre. The river currents naturally took the deeper channel and the momentum of the boat was with that of the river. He tried hard to force the steersman to guide the boat to the left but soon realised that had he persevered he would have accomplished nothing more than to turn the bow in the upstream direction and then, as the boat drifted backwards, only to stand embarrassed as his crew looked on. So he held course and missed the only opportunity he would have to hole the ship mid-river.

He would make another attempt on the return. The general was not generous over failure. Rather he was known to be gratuitous in his punishment.

The royal flotilla made good downstream headway and secured for the third night at Asyut on the west bank.

The captain cast off in the early hours of the following day. By the time the sun was at its highest, they had turned the last bend of the Nile before Akhetaten. The king and queen were sitting in the royal kiosk in front of their cabin expectantly awaiting their first sight of the deserted city. It was approaching a dozen years since the two of them had been taken from the place.

As the first buildings came into view, the memories started flooding back. But for the obvious lack of people and the absence of colourful banners, the site appeared much the same as they had remembered it. Lying within a natural bowl of lowland rimmed by rugged hills, a phalanx of great temples, palaces and buildings of state fronted a sweeping arc of the river.

The small flotilla pulled alongside the Great Palace wharf and the royal couple disembarked. The Pharaoh ordered the majority of his entourage to remain at the docking area.

The king and the queen with her handmaiden, two attendants to keep them shaded from the sun, four carrying two chairs on stretchers, four to carry refreshment, and four guards, walked through the main palace doors and into the first courtyard.

This enormous building held no memories for them. As minors they had never been permitted to enter the place. As they walked on, the echoes of their footsteps rang between the massive columns. Emerging from a second courtyard they reached the bridge that spanned the great processional way. Halfway across, at ‘the Window of Appearances’, Tutankhamun stopped. He turned to look along the wide avenue. Slowly the images returned Pharaoh Akhenaten, his queen Nefertiti and their daughters drawn in their chariots along the great road; a multitude of their subjects flanking either side, cheering and waving colourful banners of all types and sizes; court officials observing from the bridge; loud trumpeting echoes about the city walls; a thousand troops or more in several columns following behind the royal carriages.

A breath of wind drew up dust just as if a moment earlier they had galloped into the distance towards the Great Temple. Now there was nothing just an empty silence.

The squatters, and there were many, had been warned of the arrival. The fortunate had managed to conceal themselves from the general’s purging troops. Consumed by the immediate need for daily survival, they cared little about heresy or the lack of it. They remained huddled in various places of hiding, hoping they would never be discovered, and that the visit would be brief.

The royal party continued across the bridge and into the king’s estate. The great doors, flanked by massive walls deeply engraved and painted all over in brilliant green, white, red, blue, yellow and black, opened onto a large forecourt. The royal family’s quarters fronted the south side of this forecourt. The group of attendants followed the royal couple as they moved quickly through the reception hall in the direction of the king’s suite. Tutankhamun’s sandals crunched on the sand that had drifted in on the wind and settled inside the deserted halls. He walked into a room that held intimate memories. In this particular chamber he had sat on his ageing mother’s knee watching the Pharaoh and his queen and their daughters playing a board game. They sat on mats spread about the floor, the walls around them covered with all manner of bright, colourful, lively murals the verdant swamps, the animals, the birds, the people all alive with activity. All just memories now.

Suddenly Tutankhamun let out a curse. He had stepped on something hard sharp enough to break through the sole of one of his sandals. He bent down and picked it up. He turned the piece over in his hands. It was a broken piece of polished limestone in the shape of a nose. Holding the fragment in his palm, he walked into the adjoining hall and looked up at the great row of giant replicated statues lining the walls. Three were without noses; two with no arms; one had no face. The spoil of liberal vandalism littered the floor of the hallway.

The boy king turned angrily to his guards. “Gather this up. It must be restored. I will not see Pharaoh’s image defaced. Nothing must be lost. Secure it somewhere safe. Gather it up!”

The king had expected to see decline; he had not expected violation. The shock of such discriminate abuse almost reduced him to tears. He turned to the guards once again. “Bring my architect to this place. I order a full restoration that is to be completed before my next visit within the year. Mark that you remember!”

Ankhesenamun herself had the greater cause for anger. These desecrated statues were the images of her father he who had cherished her and her sisters as infants. It was true that he had not been a handsome man, but the other qualities he possessed far outweighed his physical shortcomings. The family had been extremely close. He had never allowed his duties as regent to interfere with the normal activities of the family unit.

Ankhesenamun’s personal beauty and her strength of will she owed to her mother a woman of outstanding beauty herself, with perfect physical endowments and a great mind, she carried a presence with her that gained the dutiful respect of all who knew her, and many of those who did not. For the first time in living memory, the people’s queen had become a virtual deity in parallel with her husband.