Tutankhamun Uncovered (2 page)

“Softens the complexion, though,” followed Ugele, grinning.

“Ah. That it does... That it does. Devilish crisp, however, and a devil of a job to remove when you get it on the member...” The group laughed. “...Especially when it dries before you lose your hardness,” observed Dashir.

Their laughter became louder.

“What’s going on over there?” Hammad yelled from behind the bar. “Quieten it down will you? We’ll have the priests among us.”

Parneb ignored the landlord. “You, Dashir? Are you trying to tell us you do not lose your hardness easily? Come on, man... You are but a frail thing, not the likes of myself or Ugele we have real trouble losing our hardness!”

“Speak for yourself,” said the black man. “My hardness is my affair. As should it be for every man. You talk about it like the washer women! An end to this nonsense. An end to the beer. I am to my bed.”

“Me too,” said the goldsmith with renewed urgency.

“Don’t over extend yourself now,” said Parneb. “But, if in the event you do not rise to the occasion, remember, I am just two doors down be glad to help.”

Dashir raised his fist as if to strike the scribe but Meneg’s large right hand closed around his wrist. “Indeed, master goldsmith, it is time for bed. We all wish you the strength to create.”

He and Ugele bundled the drunken Dashir out into the street and guided him to his front door. Back at Hammad’s, Parneb tilted back on his stool and rested his back against the wall. That washer woman was looking at him again.

The death of Pharaoh Akhenaten, the great builder and heretic, had occurred eleven years earlier. Akhenaten had reigned for eighteen years, some of them in co-regency with his father, Amenophis III, whose steadily declining health had rendered him not incapable of reliably carrying out his kingly duties, just less interested in doing so. The old Pharaoh preferred the duties of the bedroom. In his later years, successful unions brought him two further sons, the first through his chief wife. They named him Smenkhkare. The second came some twelve years later, through one of his younger wives. This latter issue came to be called Tutankhaten.

Not long after taking power, Akhenaten set about accelerating the religious changes his father had initiated. By order of their primary physical deity Pharaoh the fundamental basis for religious belief that had held the Egyptian people together for as long as they could remember was about to be torn from them.

For time immemorial there had been a multitude of gods, each with its own specialisation a god for every need. The father, Amenophis III, revered by the people for his heroic deeds in foreign lands and believed to have singlehandedly engineered the consistency of maat in Upper and Lower Egypt, had skilfully manipulated the introduction of the sun disc, the Aten, already deified in a number of different guises. Publicly the Pharaoh had gone no further than this. Within the confines of the palace, however, worship of the Aten had become a daily ritual. Preparation for ultimate succession and education in affairs of state were the responsibility of the next in line, Prince Thutmosis. The mind of the Pharaoh’s second son, Akhenaten, shy, slight in build, sensitive and impressionable, was not occupied with these matters. Akhenaten had the opportunity, the time and the inclination to become totally absorbed in the new cult. He devoted every moment of his otherwise idle immature life to its study and received fulfilment through worship.

However, the unexpectedly premature death of his elder brother flung him headlong into kingship an office for which by design he was totally unprepared. But his infatuation with his sole deity shielded him from fear of this new position. Within just a short time of becoming Pharaoh, Akhenaten proclaimed to his people that from now on there would be just one all-powerful god, the god of the sun disc, the Aten, who blessed and protected his people with his gentle, warming rays. He became represented in the stone reliefs of temples everywhere as a disc, its rays of light falling on the royal family and ending in open hands to caress them with warmth and proffer them gifts of health and long life. Akhenaten was consumed by his faith. Administration of the great Egyptian state and empire was subordinate to worship and, surely, better left to lesser mortals.

Nowhere would the god be more exalted than at Aten’s birthplace, Akhetaten, ‘the city without equal’, which the Pharaoh conceived, designed and had built for him and where the Pharaoh, his family and his entourage could live out their lives in the sun god’s blissful care. The site the heretic chose to build this crucible of the one faith lay on the Nile about half way between Thebes and Memphis. It was three or more days’ good sailing downstream from Thebes. The new city rose up from the dust of the virgin desert. It was built on a broad plain held close in the embrace of a bow shaped arc of cliffs and hills on the east bank, at the doorstep of the sunrise. It became a land in itself beautiful, colourful, verdant and self-contained within its natural borders; a sacred, landlocked island unlike any other in Egypt; a city literally planned from the ground up on a grid dictated by the daily passage of the solar disc; a city of unmatchable beauty, with massive buildings and exceptional, lively art.

Akhenaten’s creation became a magnificent tribute to his faith, but the Aten heresy, as it came to be known, did little to protect the people of Egypt. The Pharaoh gave no attention to the stewardship of his kingdom. There were insurrections, border problems, failed military campaigns, corruption in government, chaos in the bureaucracy and worse towards the end of Akhenaten’s reign a great plague had descended on the land; ‘the sickness’ everyone called it.

The royal family were not immune, nor the Pharaoh himself. Akhenaten’s wives had died one by one. His queen, the beautiful Nefertiti, mother to most of his children, was the second of the royal family to succumb to the illness. All but one of his remaining daughters had died, almost year on year. And, after just three years in power, his brother, Smenkhkare, who had succeeded Akhenaten on his death, was himself lost to the same vile hand.

Through this unhappy litany the much younger half-brother, Tutankhaten, ascended the throne at the tender age of eight. He was betrothed to Akhenaten’s sole surviving daughter, Ankhesenpaaten. And she, of pure royal blood but yet a child, became his chief wife, cementing the succession.

Too young to rule without a guardian, the child Pharaoh was easily manipulated into returning to the old religious order. Thereby his elders could restore a sense of foundation and normality to the country, appease the gods, and lift the deadly veil of fever from the land. His old and trusted uncle, Ay, previously Master of the Horse for Akhenaten, had helped and guided Tutankhaten through this religious metamorphosis. To signal rejection of the sun god and properly reflect the old ways, he had the young king’s name changed to Tutankhamun and that of his queen to Ankhesenamun.

But Ay himself had been manipulated. Through his earlier campaigns General Horemheb had become a man of some influence. His well publicised exploits had made him popular with the people. A powerful and strong-charactered man he had made sure he had more public visibility than any of his contemporaries at court. He anticipated a profitable return from these vignettes.

For some time Horemheb had sensed conditions were developing that could ultimately see him placed on the pharaonic throne. The people were anxious for a complete break from the past to return fully to their old, traditional ways of worship. While this was slowly being achieved through the boy king and under the guidance of Ay, it was clear to Horemheb that until the entire Akhenaten blood line had been wiped out the people’s fearful memory of the great heretic would remain. Reminders were everywhere the physical presence of the dynasty was all too clearly represented in the monuments, the most blatant statement of which lay in the now deserted forbidden city. And then there was the boy king himself... his queen... and Ay, come to that. They were all more or less related. Only the general could claim to be totally and cleanly separated by blood. With any of the others in place, a sense of return to the old ways would be in name but not in substance. The end of the family would bring an end to ‘the sickness’ and would leave an expectant and leaderless populace willing and eager to accept a new line of authority so long as it appeared totally unconnected with the former. He saw the opportunity and would grab it with both hands. This he must do before too long, lest the new king managed to endear himself to his people. Time is a great healer and might permit such acceptance. The boy king had been on the throne eight years already. The general would have to act soon.

Successful longevity of pharaonic power comes with ordered ascendancy, not force of arms. The general knew that. He had no wish to risk destabilising the empire. He was too advanced in years himself to cope with controlling the inevitable patchy uprisings that such a move might generate; too much work; too much distraction from the pleasures of being a god. To accomplish a visibly natural flow towards his ultimate coronation Horemheb would have to design and execute a sequence of events that on their outcome would, in the eyes of the people and particularly the priestly household, naturally place him in the accession. The young king must die at some point before he came of age, certainly before he became able and assertive enough to govern effectively alone.

These evil conspiracies notwithstanding, the general would see to it that the king had the noblest of burials. After all his brother, Smenkhkare, Pharaoh for only a brief time, had had a lavish funeral, although expediency had dictated a severely understated tomb. To appease the people’s inevitable grief and distance himself from suspicion in the forthcoming conspiracy, the general would see to it that no expense would be spared. Appearances were everything, and he would act out the charade to the very end.

The general did not plan to take the throne immediately upon the boy king’s passing. Ay, the natural successor to a king with no issue, was ageing and surely would expire within a short time of his coronation. And with the succession of Ay, any suspicion that Horemheb had anything to do with the boy king’s death would appear farcical. With a judicious marriage the general would then become the only choice. So first he must woo and secure to himself the ‘correct’ chief wife.

There was, however, at least one unpredictable element in this design the queen, Ankhesenamun. Young, exquisitely beautiful and ambitious, she would not willingly yield her regal status. Doubtless craving for confirmation of permanency, she would swiftly seek to remarry. But to whom? Who would have the stature to assume the dead Pharaoh’s place? Horemheb himself, perhaps? But no such marriage could be contemplated. Ankhesenamun had hated him ever since she first set eyes on him. His manner, deceitful and condescending, betrayed his cause and belied trust. Besides, for the general, marriage to her was unthinkable she was of the blood line of the heretic.

Horemheb was well aware of the queen’s feelings towards him. She had made no secret of them. He would bide his time and remain vigilant to her every mood.

Above all, he had to be sure that during the young king’s lifetime there would be no issue from their union. In the fifth year of the king’s reign the general had become uncomfortably anxious when Ankhesenamun first became pregnant.

As was the custom and belief, to ward off the evil spirits that may do harm to her unborn child, the queen had festooned herself with lucky amulets of all kinds. But to no avail. To his relief she had miscarried having sustained a fall while descending the steps of the temple during the harvest religious festivities. The tiny foetus of just five months’ gestation was now mummified and lay within a diminutive plain wooden box laid to rest in the palace in a secret place known only to the queen and king themselves.

The second time she found herself with child, the pregnancy lasted longer and the general grew anxious. She appeared far too healthy for his liking. Horemheb was not about to risk waiting for what this time could well turn out to be a normal birth and an unquestioned heir.

A plague had infested Pademi, the village of the tomb workers, situated across the river from the palace. The artisans, most of whom lived in this village and many of whom were painters, had become reduced so much in ranks that a great deal of commissioned work, both in tomb preparation and palace decoration, was running behind schedule. The illness appeared to be easily passed on through casual contact with those infected but not yet showing outward signs of ill health. For those living in Thebes it was fortunate that the affected population was contained on the west side of the river. They had little choice in the matter. The general had posted guards along the river bank to police the normal crossing points.

But now he saw opportunity in the pestilence and decided to take a major gamble. Although he would have to trust to chance taking a fateful turn, the plan he had contrived would, if successful, provide a cleaner outcome than the more drastic and, for him, necessarily more dangerous measures he would be forced to take should the coincidences he was hoping to assemble not transpire as planned.

At this time Ankhesenamun was having the chambers that would house the new baby painted with inscriptions and amuletic illustrations intended to embolden the gods in protection of the child and guarantee its health, wealth and happiness throughout its forthcoming privileged life. Gilding was to follow completion of the painting and for this an artist expert in his trade would have to be summoned from the west bank.

When the queen asked Horemheb to send for the man, the general went as far as he dared in his apparent attempt to dissuade her from placing herself, the king and her unborn child in danger of falling ill from the affliction that was by now well established throughout the workforce. Happily for him, the queen was adamant that the work be completed in time for the royal birth. If the inscriptions were not in place in their full glory by the time she came into labour, she stated, the gods would not be present to protect the child at its earliest and most fragile time. She explained the obvious. She could not slow down the pregnancy. She was quite evidently very large with child. Horemheb was gratified that she had delivered so compelling an argument. He could find no reasonable further course but to agree reluctantly to her demands. It would allow the fateful events that should follow to take their course sadly but naturally and with no apparent thread of evil.