An Evil Spirit Out of the West (Ancient Egyptian Mysteries) (2 page)
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Authors: Paul Doherty
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Introduction
The Eighteenth Dynasty (1550-1323 BC) marked the high point, if not the highest point, of the Ancient Egyptian Empire, both at home and abroad; it was a period of grandeur, of gorgeous pageantry and triumphant imperialism. It was also a time of great change and violent events, particularly in the final years of the reign of Amenhotep III and the swift accession of the ‘Great Heretic’ Akhenaten, when a bitter clash took place between religious ideologies at a time when the brooding menace of the Hittite Empire was making itself felt.
I was very fortunate in being given access to this ancient document which alleges to be, in the words of a more recent age, ‘the frank and full confession’ of a man who lived at the eye of the storm: Mahu, Chief of Police of Akhenaten and his successors. Mahu emerges as a rather sinister figure responsible for security – a job description which can, and did, cover a multitude of sins. This confession seems to be in full accord with the evidence on Mahu that has been recovered from other archaeological sources – be it the discoveries at El-Amarna, the City of the Aten, or the evidence of his own tomb, which he never occupied. A keen observer of his times, Mahu was a man whose hand, literally, was never far from his sword (see the
Historical Note
here
).
Historical Note
here
).
Mahu appears to have written his confession some considerable time after the turbulent years which marked the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty. He kept journals, which he later transcribed, probably during the very short reign of Rameses I (
c.
1307 BC). Mahu’s original document was then translated in the demotic mode some six hundred years later during the seventh century BC, then copied again during the Roman period in a mixture of Latin and the Greek Koine. His confession, which I have decided to publish in a trilogy, reflects these different periods of translation and amendment; for instance, Thebes is the Greek version of ‘Waset’, and certain other proper names, not to mention hieroglyphs, are given varying interpretations by the different translators and copiers.
c.
1307 BC). Mahu’s original document was then translated in the demotic mode some six hundred years later during the seventh century BC, then copied again during the Roman period in a mixture of Latin and the Greek Koine. His confession, which I have decided to publish in a trilogy, reflects these different periods of translation and amendment; for instance, Thebes is the Greek version of ‘Waset’, and certain other proper names, not to mention hieroglyphs, are given varying interpretations by the different translators and copiers.
Mahu’s confession does not, unfortunately, clarify certain vexed problems of the period. For example, just how long did Amenhotep III reign? Did he allow his son to become full Co-regent during his lifetime? How long did Akhenaten actually reign? Nevertheless, Mahu’s account does bring to life the bloody struggle which tore Egypt apart almost 3,500 years ago. It vividly describes the intrigue and conflict, the vaulting ambition of men and women who fought to the death over the dream of Empire.
Paul Doherty
Chapter 1
I have swallowed their magic.
I call on their spirits.
My thoughts race like chariot teams ready for war,
Hot for the heat of battle.
I taste their blood in my mouth.
I see their Kas come before me,
Released from the Underworld,
Ready to haunt me.
I speak of those who have gone before,
Gulped by Eternal Night,
Swallowed by the destroyer,
Their souls hacked up like joints in the cauldron.
The star-riven darkness parts
A name slips back, memories, images,
And yet it’s like crossing shifting sands,
Or peering through the heat haze of a desert.
I stand and watch them come
But I cannot make out their form or face.
So many names, so many souls, so many thoughts,
so many memories,
So, so long ago.
Only you, Rameses, Lord of the Two Lands,
Strong in arm and form,
Horus Incarnate, Master of the Twin Crowns,
Keeper of the Diadem,
Mighty Pharaoh.
You should know, for you were with us,
in spirit from the beginning.
This is my hymn to you:
‘The Heavens are Overcast
Their Lights are Darkened.
The pillars of Heaven tremble,
The bones of the Earth Gods shatter.
The earth is quiet under your feet.
The creatures of the world
Have seen our Pharaoh
Appear in power.
The King is Master of Wisdom,
He is Possessor of Men’s Necks.’
Ah well, so the fire is laid. A fire burns away the dross of the years. So, who am I? Why, I am Mahu, former General of the great Pharaohs, friend of the great Pharaohs, now I dwell alone in a little mansion beside the Nile where palm trees throng. Over their green-skinned tops I can make out, through the mist, the dim ghosts of mountains. Those mountains know the secrets. They hold the truth about the One whose name cannot be uttered, and the rest. Oh yes, the rest.
I have begun my confession on the nineteenth day of Akhit, the Season of the Inundation; the waters of the Nile are fat and swollen, sweeping life into the Black Lands. The Dog Star has risen high into the eastern sky; now it has gone, as have the white flashes of the ibis bird. All memories! The Pharaoh’s scribes have also come and gone, so has the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh: with his cobra eyes and beak-like nose he reminds me of General Rameses, thin lips always twisted in a smirk – or was it a grimace? Even now Rameses’ ghost stands in the shadows with the rest, watching with those close-set, ever-shifting eyes.
They have brought me food, writing pens and ink pallets, rolls of papyrus, a horn knife and a smoothing stone. They have also found the journals I kept over the years: these will serve as pricks to memory. I am to write down all that has happened. They want my confession, so Pharaoh shall have it – once the dross of the past has been burned away, bringing back those glory days of the Magnificent One, Amenhotep III, his fat paunch and coarse thighs gleaming with perfumed sweat. Amenhotep the Magnificent, Lord of the Two Lands, Wearer of the Divine Plumes, sitting on a pleasure stool, his own daughter squatting libidinously on his lap, long legs dangling down, in one fair hand a blue lotus which had flowered at noon and in the other a silver-edged whip. Next is Queen Tiye, small of face and fierce of heart, a Queen whose dreams were haunted by her mysterious god. Ah, and here comes Maya! Old Smooth-Skin with his perfume-drenched robes and face painted more heavily than any heset girl from a temple. Ever-smiling Maya who liked to dress in women’s clothes, his face as bland as the full moon and a heart just as changeable. Maya’s lips were wet, red and full as if he had sucked on blood, that sneering mouth ever ready to sing his own praises:
When I began I was very good
, so ran the inscription on his tomb,
but when I finished I was brilliant
.
When I began I was very good
, so ran the inscription on his tomb,
but when I finished I was brilliant
.
The shadows shift, to reveal Pentju the physician, cunning and just as dangerous. Behind him is Huy, the glory of Pharaoh, followed by Horemheb the great warrior, with his thickset body, square stolid face and the eyes of a ferocious panther. Rameses? Ah well, Rameses always stands in Horemheb’s shadow. And the others? Oh yes, they’ll appear. Nefertiti, ‘the beautiful woman has arrived’. She walks, as she always did, her magnificent head tilted back, those strange blue eyes peering out from under heavy lids. She is followed by her daughter Ankhesenamun, just as eerily beautiful and just as treacherous. Ankhesenamun wears her perfumed wig bound by a golden fillet; her sloe eyes are ringed with black kohl; a silver gorget circles her beautiful throat, and her braided, beaded skirt slaps provocatively against those exquisitely curved thighs. She wears one gold-topped sandal whilst the other is held effortlessly in her hand. Behind her is gentle loving Tutankhamun, innocent dark eyes in a smiling boy’s face. Dominating them all, like a brooding cloud which covers the sky, is the Heretic! The Veiled One, whose name cannot be uttered. They all come to Mahu, and where does Mahu begin but at the very beginning?
I was born popping like some rotten seed out of my mother’s womb, so rough, so hard she died within the month, or so common report had it. My father Seostris, a Standard Bearer in the Medjay, was not present at my birth. Surely you know who the Medjay are? Auxiliary troops from the South. Many years ago, during the Season of the Locust, the Medjay decided to throw their lot in with the Egyptians when they waged war with fire and sword, by land and sea, against the Hyksos: barbarians who turned the Delta town of Avaris into their strong-hold and threatened to bring all Egypt under their heavy war-club. So impudent did they become, that the Hyksos Prince sent a message to the Pharaoh of the time to keep the hippopotami in his pool quiet because they disturbed his sweet slumbers in Avaris.
The brave Sequenre took up the challenge, launching a savage war only to be struck down in battle. The struggle was taken up by his son Ahmose who, like fire running through stubble, marched against the Hyksos and reduced them to ash. The gilded Egyptian war-barges smashed the Hyksos defences along the Nile, and Ahmose’s troops burst into Avaris and burned it to the ground. My ancestors, the Medjay, were with Egypt’s troops and, for such help, an eternal pact of friendship was sworn between the two peoples.
My father was a Medjay from the moment he left the egg. A born soldier, he did not bother with me. My memories of him are vague: a stout man with a shaven head, dressed in a leather kilt and jerkin, marching boots on his feet, a war-belt fastened about his waist, a quiver of arrows slung across his back. A man proud of serving Pharaoh, he had received the Golden Collar of Honour together with the Silver Bees of Courage for slaying enemies in hand-to-hand combat in battle. (I still own these medals of bravery; the heavy gold necklace and the small silver bees carved in a cluster from a lump of pure silver with a jewelled hook to fasten on your tunic.) I remember him showing me the
khopesh
, the curved sword which he used against the People of the Nine Bows, those myriad enemies of Pharaoh who envied Egypt’s riches and lusted after her rich soil and fair cities.
khopesh
, the curved sword which he used against the People of the Nine Bows, those myriad enemies of Pharaoh who envied Egypt’s riches and lusted after her rich soil and fair cities.
Father visited me occasionally, sometimes accompanied by an aide who carried his ceremonial shield. He would crouch down and stare coldly at me, eyes wrinkled up after years of peering through the heat and dust of the Red Lands. From the beginning I was lonely. I lived with my father’s sister, Isithia, a hard-faced, sinewy woman, sharp-eyed and bitter-tongued. A childless woman whose husband had gone North on business and never returned. I could understand why! He certainly left Isithia wealthy enough, the owner of a country mansion surrounded by lofty thick walls. One of my constant memories is playing on the steps leading up to its porticoed entrance with its palmetta decoration in blue, green and ochre-red. Around the house were slender columns carved to represent green papyrus with red roots and golden capitals, a shadow-filled peristyle which provided welcome shade against the heat. The rooms inside had polished beam ceilings and tiled floors: a vestibule, an audience chamber, other rooms and polished wooden stairs leading to upper chambers. Isithia and I would sit on the broad roof, away from the heat, to catch the cooling breath of Amun. All around the house stretched verdant gardens, fed by a canal from the Nile, shaded by climbing vines and edged with flowers. A beautiful place, its paths were lined with trees of every variety: kaku palms, sycamore, persea, pomegranate, acacia, yew, tamarisk and terebrinth. Elegant coloured pavilions stood around the garden where you could sit to enjoy the different flowers and scents. In the centre gleamed a square pool of pure water with blooms of white water lilies floating on the top. Even as a boy I could sit for hours and observe them, how the blue lotus would flower at dawn, curl at midday and sink beneath the water whilst the white lotus only flowered after darkness fell.
I very rarely left that house and garden. I used to stand on the roof next to the corn bins, resting against the latticework built around the parapet to keep me from falling off. Not that Isithia cared all that much for me. She was a cold woman. The only creature she ever showed affection for was Seth, the ugly Saluki hound – a fierce war-dog from less gentle days, and in my youth a rare breed. Where Isithia went, Seth always followed, and where Isithia went, so did her fly whisk. She hated flies and mice. Every hole, every crack through which vermin could creep, were liberally coated in cat fat.
I recall her sitting, fly whisk in hand, in her high-backed armchair, its legs ending in four panther paws. The chair suited her. Isithia was a panther with narrow eyes and receding chin. A tall woman, she dressed in flowing gowns and embroidered sashes. She very rarely wore a wig or, indeed, her silver-edged sandals which a servant always carried behind her. If the nights turned chilly, she’d drape a fringed shawl about her shoulders. She distilled perfumes and medicine and sold them to select customers, often making trips out to the Valley of the Pines to collect those herbs and concoctions she could not grow in her own gardens. In the main these produced enough fruit and vegetables to make us self-sufficient, with crops of onions, leeks, lettuces and water melons. Isithia rarely went to the market but hired the best cooks to buy and serve fattened duck and geese. I always drank the freshest milk, sweetened with honey from the hives of pottery jars kept at the end of the garden and, when the bees were found wanting, the milk was sweetened with carob seeds. If I was naughty I’d be given nothing except the pith of a papyrus stalk to suck. Isithia never hit me though sometimes she’d seize me by the shoulders and shake me. She led her own private life: her customers came at night – women for potions and sometimes men. I used to hear the sound of beating and cries but whether they were of pleasure or pain I could not tell.
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