Tutankhamun Uncovered (4 page)

The old woodworker whispered a short prayer and touched his lips with the fingers of both hands. Using his walking stick for support, he pulled himself back to a standing position, turned and walked down the slope towards the village.

He sat once more on the doorstep of his house and returned to his work. The evening shadows extended towards him across the narrow street. Old man that he was, it was with some difficulty that he crossed his legs to address more comfortably the inanimate object before him.

He was a man of slight build, but one of his more evident physical features included an incongruous oblate paunch that hung like a water bag over his loin cloth. The fingers of his large hands were artistically narrow, the skin toughened through years of woodworking. The toll of responsibility that accompanies a lifetime as master wood carver of the village showed in the lines cut deep within his thin face. Written in the creases about his eyes was the history of thousands of hours of squinting in bright sunlight and straining to pick out detail in the dimness of evening. Yet his eye for form and the dexterity of his hands were as true as ever.

The alleyway that ran by his door divided the enclosed village along its centre. Diminutive ‘dolls’ houses’ of dwellings lay huddled so closely together on either side that they seemed to embrace one another, with just three or four rooms and a single door, each home sharing its boundary walls with its neighbours. The cobbles, polished smooth by the foot traffic of ages, glinted violet in the twilight. The evening air was thick with the pungent smell of kitchen ovens and the satisfying odour of freshly baked bread. At the darker end of the street Dashir and his gang, once again returned from their labours, were breaking the otherwise peaceful setting with the noise of their carousing amongst the ever energetic washer women in Hammad’s bar.

Meneg looked down at the unfinished wooden figure in front of him and sighed. He had always strived to make his art of a quality that would match its celebration. Usually he had been filled with such inspirational strength that execution of the work was almost easy. But this time it was different. Since returning from his parents’ chapel his lack of concentration had sent him back into the house for beer three times already, and this had done little to improve his demeanour or his sensibility. He felt tired, listless. Inspiration would have to come from somewhere and quickly, or ultimately he would answer to the general.

Ugele was on his way to join the evening action. He had had a hard and unsatisfactory day completing excavation of the new tomb in The Valley. Master mason he may have been, but it had been his turn these last few days to take his place in the long line of bodies passing baskets of debris from one to the other towards the tip on the valley flank. The supply of rock chippings seemed endless. There could be no indication of how near the tomb was to completion until the baskets stopped coming. He much preferred being within the bowels of the earth hacking at the limestone bedrock himself, watching the cavity take form and slowly grow before him. There he could sense progress.

His tired, long legs hung down loosely either side of the donkey’s spare belly, almost reaching to the ground. They swung from side to side together following the animal’s rolling gait. The donkey and its rider drew level with the figure squatting in the doorway.

The man stared with an expression of hopelessness at the freshly cut wooden object before him.

“The gods protect you, Meneg,” Ugele greeted as man and beast ambled past.

“And you, Ugele,” Meneg gestured back with a dispassionate wave of his hand.

“As I descended from The Valley I saw you praying at the remembrance shrine of Kha and Merit. You care for them well. Yours is a good family. They were good parents. They will be proud to have such a son.”

“Aye. But no more than my sacred duty. They cared for me well. My sons will do so for me.”

“Praise be to the gods,” they both said.

“But enough of duty talk. How about a few beers with Dashir and the lads, Meneg? Parneb was on good form last night, was he not? Perhaps he will force a report from Dashir! Looks like you need the amusement as much as I.”

“That is part of my problem,” the old man replied. “I have drunk sufficient already this evening. I am far behind in my work. I cannot afford to waste what little light remains.”

While the two had been conversing the donkey, with a full fodder bag and a night’s rest ahead of it, and therefore being in no mood to dally, had continued on its way homeward. Ugele was already well past Meneg’s doorway. The black man signalled back an acknowledgement with his hand, the donkey loped purposefully onward, and the two disappeared into the shadows.

Meneg continued his reflections. This dead king deserved only his very best work. The Pharaoh had achieved much in his short life. He had returned the order of life to godly sensibility. It was true to say that much of this had been dictated and controlled by the elders who had advised and instructed him in the ways of kingship during his most formative years, but the boy king nevertheless had willingly supported their recommendations. He had personally given orders for the work to be carried out. On the rare occasions that he had appeared in public he had pronounced his plans before all with lucidity, never once showing malice to Akhenaten, yet always looking to the future. A sense of optimism returned to the rank and file. Sadly his death came too quickly to establish any lasting memory. The people had not come to know him as a warrior. By the time of his passing he was barely a man. The coming celebration of his deliverance into the afterlife would be mixed with a pervasive lack of substance. Meneg and his colleagues would be guests at a funeral for a pharaoh they had hardly come to know. But the community would make sure that the burial and its associated ceremonies would be none the less for all that. Meneg’s art, his skills, all he had learned and become accomplished in execution, all this was in service of the community, this monarch, past monarchs and, perhaps, monarchs yet to come. He must fulfil all expectations.

Meneg drew a long, heavier sigh and turned his eyes once again to the unfinished wood carving before him. Anubis the jackal, this great, wise animal god, would be guardian to the king’s tomb. The old wood carver had executed such a piece many times before and ordinarily it presented no difficulty to him, but on this occasion he was without the passion he had felt in times past. As he steeled himself to continue his work, he looked towards the darkened pyramid of natural rock that dominated his skyline, its silhouette crisply cut against a backdrop of violet evening light.

Meneg blinked. He was tired and his eyes were having difficulty accommodating themselves to the closeness of the work, especially in the subdued twilight. Glancing up to absorb the remaining drops of sunlight he caught sight of a dark, slim figure moving with some determination across the entrance to the alleyway.

The jackal stopped and scratched itself. It stood still with ears erect, listening for any sound that might betray the ubiquitous rodent. At the same time it sniffed the air, searching the odours of the evening cook fires. The dog’s silhouette was poorly contrasted with the dim background of the closely packed houses, but as his eyes once more became accustomed to the dimness Meneg could clearly make out the familiar shape. Elegant in stature, slender of build the pickings were slim for a scavenger in the desert long and bushy of tail, aquinine in snout, large and erect stiletto like ears a fitting guardian to any king. Above all he was black, death black as the most moonless of nights. Observing the flowing lines of his live form helped lift Meneg’s spirits.

The jackal turned its head to look down the street at the figure crouched behind the partially formed piece of wood. There was something familiar about the shape but no recognisable scent. As the animal turned its head forward once more, the light of an oil lamp in a nearby porch flushed the retina of one eye and, for an instant, a blood red spot of light flashed back at Meneg.

Impressionable as always, a deep fear conjured within the old wood carver. ‘The god speaks! The king on his funeral barque is impatient for his escort to the afterlife. He is angered at my slothfulness, at my carelessness, at my loss of purpose. This is a warning!’

As the dog loped away, the energy of fear welled within Meneg. He turned back to his work and picked up a scoop shaped copper chisel. He instinctively tested it for sharpness with a stroke of his left thumb. A tiny bead of blood squeezed from the shallow cut. Meneg licked it with his tongue and set to work. The skilled, old hands began working around the chest of the figure, bringing the bones of the ribcage up in high, deliberate relief. A sublime confidence built within him. He felt the familiar inner assurance that, after all, the outcome of this work would be as good as any he had yet created.

This Anubis, black as pitch and elegantly lying on its charge, would watch over the king, protect his body and his disembowelled organs, and stand vigil beside the ark of his voyage through all eternity.

It was early spring. The Upper and Lower Niles would shortly have a new king, new rules and, in its own way in the order of things, a new way of life. The boy king was dead murdered, some said taken from his people prematurely after a reign of little more than early promise. Certainly it had been sudden a terrible bleeding from the nose one night. He never awoke to cry out. And now there was much to be done and very little time.

As was the custom, the site for his tomb had been selected at the time of his coronation. The entrance had been cut at the base of the cliff face within the extreme upper reaches of The West Valley, closer to the sunset. But that had been only nine years ago. Excavation had been progressing without any sense of urgency. As the traditions of the period dictated, the design laid out lengthy corridors and intermittent processional staircases which would extend ever deeper inside the valley flank, joining one palatial chapel to the next and culminating in the burial chamber. Smaller, ancillary store rooms would supplement the larger chambers. But at the time of the king’s death the masons had barely started on the well room. Within the time remaining before the funeral there was no way now that this tomb could be completed as originally intended.

An almost finished but much smaller sepulchre, originally selected for a noble who was yet still living, lay in the bottom of The East Valley, close to its centre and almost opposite the similarly small tomb of his brother. This became requisitioned as the boy king’s final resting place. Ultimately it would consist of just four rooms clustered together and separated only by the thickness of their shared walls. As the king’s body was prepared for mummification the rooms of the tomb were hurriedly enlarged to hold the multitude of grave goods, the walls being dressed by as many masons as the cavity could effectively accommodate.

The artisans had a little over two months before the funerary ceremonies would begin.

Chapter Two

Thousands away in time and space...

Norfolk a boy in his early teens bicycles through country lanes resplendent with the anxious, frenzied life of spring. The lad’s appearance is not remarkable. He is small for his years, rather thin, and his skin tone is pale, but a strength of character and single-mindedness shows in the lean face. His chin juts out strongly, the mouth is full lipped, the cheekbones are high, and the nose long and prominent. Beneath the thick eyebrows the eyes are a deep brown.

He cycles in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat, his jacket rolled up in the pannier strapped to the handlebars. He wears a tie thickly knotted at the neck and his best trousers, clipped at the ankles. There is determination in his pedalling. Pushing his body forward over the handlebars, he presses purposefully ahead.

With the spring weather so gently sunny it is a pleasant ride. Best of all, he is alone, away from the over indulgent care of his two aunts and the confines of their modest cottage in Swaffham. He is on his way to an environment that could not be more different.

He takes the sweeping single lane road that bypasses the villages of Cockley Clay and Foulden. Like a verdant corridor it runs between tall hedgerows across almost imperceptibly rolling countryside. The odd cock pheasant, casual and indefinite in his direction, fat from the bounty of spring and unaware he has been luckily spared by the hunter, waits in confusion and at the last moment moves out of his way. Just after Swaffham Gap the boy turns off to the right along a narrow track until he reaches Didlington hamlet. Here the road divides about a tiny triangle of grass. In the centre of the triangle stands a solitary parish notice board announcing forthcoming local diocesan events and little else. The lad cycles off to the left.

Almost immediately he spies the old church enclosed within its small graveyard on the far side of the field ahead. The clear, bright morning light reflects off the flint knapped walls still unsoftened by years of inclement British weather. As if studded with diamonds, the building virtually sparkles. The boy stops and dismounts.

His birthright has endowed him with a sensitive artistic skill and an eye for detail. He has his drawing instruments with him and settles down on the grass verge with his sketchbook open on his knees. Tongue licking lips in the intensity of his concentration, his delicate pencil strokes accurately follow the outlines created by those who had laboured to build the place. He is very precise. He makes no errors. Each of the headstones in the churchyard leaning, mildewed, many now anonymous from the attrition of time each is faithfully documented. In twenty minutes a near perfect copy has been transferred to paper. He records at the bottom, ‘St Michael and All Angels, Didlington. Howard Carter, 1888’.

He gathers up his things, picks up his bicycle, returns his drawing pad and instruments to the basket on the handlebars and pedals on. The entrance to the grounds of the hall itself is no more than a short walk south of the church. He free wheels up to the massive front door, dismounts and places the bike against the outer wall. The butler had seen him coming and the door opens before he can reach for the bell pull.