Casting the Gods Adrift (6 page)

I think such fear had gone through my father that all his hatred melted in the heat of it. He had almost killed his own son. Almost but not quite. Like that scented wax trickling in soothing drops down the
royal skin, the relief cooled Harkhuf's incandescent brain and left only a kind of emptiness – a vacuum.

On the way home, we did not talk of anything that had happened, and Ibrim never was given a proper explanation. But when we got to the house, I straightaway presented Father with the stela I had carved for him. I believe my fear of him had also melted in the heat of the day.

He held it between his two hands as though I had just introduced him to his grandchild for the first time. Here was his promise of immortality. He looked from the stela to me, from me to the stela. ‘I do not deserve this,' he said, fingering the figures of the gods, the hieroglyphs that spelt out his name, and he wept with pleasure.

His humility did not last for long. Soon he was considering the practicalities. How could it be got to Abydos? Who would set it up for him when he was dead? Who could be trusted with such a beautiful, such an exquisite work of art? That is how he described my handiwork! I thought my heart would crack. Not so much with pride,
for I no longer craved his praise, but with a kind of aching tenderness.

‘I shall take it there for you, Father,' I said.

He stared at me. Unspoken in his face was the knowledge that I did not believe in his gods, that I had gone over to the king's religion, that I was an Aten man. He did not hate me for it. He just did not entirely know me any more. ‘Do you promise?' he asked, like a child seeking reassurance.

‘I swear it, Father,' I said. ‘It will stand there for ever, and your soul will travel there and be met by Osiris, Father of the Dead. By Aten, I swear it.' As I said it, I wondered what Aten would think, who was even then prising his way into our house with his flail of sunlight and crook of evening sunbeams.

All that was a lifetime ago. Several lifetimes, in fact. Akhenaten, divine prophet of the one true god, is long since dead, and sleeps in the Red Country, along with his eldest daughter Meritaten, and Harkhuf his animal collector.

Even Nefernefruaten-Nefertiti is dead now – the lovely Nefertiti, sphinx-like in her sadness, too, for she had loved her husband with a passion.

The lovely Ankhesenpa-aten married her half-brother Tutankh-aten who, at seven, became pharaoh over all Egypt, and wearer of the cobra crown.

I did not marry, myself, and I am glad of that now. These are dangerous times, and I
should not like to see children of mine playing among the ruins of el-Amarna.

Only in one respect is Pharaoh Tutankh-aten like his father. He, too, changed his given name. To Tutankhamun. No longer is Aten sole god over Egypt. Tutankhamun has re-established all the old gods, restored all the old festivals. Now, when people talk about Akhenaten, they sneer and spit and curse his memory. They
all
call him ‘the Great Criminal, the destroyer of gods'. I hear his tomb is smashed and looted, though the priests of Aten may have carried his body away in time and hidden it. I pray they did.

Tutankhamun has moved his court back to Thebes, to live in the palace of his ancestors, and el-Amarna is looked on as nothing more than a quarry, a source of bricks for new palaces, new temples to the old gods.

Some of us stayed on here. El-Amarna was our home, after all. But the priests of Amun are out to remove all trace of the Great Criminal and his consort queen. His altars have been smashed, his likeness disfigured in all the wall paintings. They smash his
name and the name of Nefertiti wherever they can find them. They think that if they can keep the names from being spoken, they can ensure that the king and the queen will have no afterlife.

What do I believe? Sometimes, I think it doesn't matter much what you believe, so long as you never start to doubt it. I am a craftsman. I believe in beauty, and I know beauty when I see it. It was in Akhenaten and his life. It was in his temples open to the sky and his palace with its rooms full of the laughter of the princesses. Above all, it was in Nefertiti (
A Beautiful Woman is Come
).

They are out there now, those devout vandals, smashing his name, smashing hers. May the vandals themselves be swallowed up by everlasting darkness, as the desert swallows up their graves.

I can hear them getting closer, working their way through the city. That's why I've locked the door. Until they break it down – if they still have the energy – I shall go on working here, locked in my workshop. I am making, by the light of an oil lamp, cartouche after cartouche of the royal
names. And do you see this head, I've made? This is a likeness of Queen Nefertiti as it is burned into my memory. So beautiful. So superhuman in her beauty.

Perhaps, they will break in here and smash my work as they have smashed so many works of mine over yonder in the palace. But while I have breath in me and light to see by, I shall go on speaking the names –
their
names – in stone, so that they may have everlasting life. A man must do what he can. While a name is remembered in this world, the spirit lives on in the Land of the West.

Am I a fool? One day the world will be a thousand years older, two thousand, three! Who then will remember Akhenaten or the divine Nefertiti? One thing I do know for certain! No one will remember me, Tutmose the potter, or speak my name aloud three thousand years from now.

When the ruins of el-Amarna were excavated, a beautiful carved head of Queen Nefertiti, as well as several cartouches of
the names Nefernefruaten-Nefertiti and Akhenaten were found in a locked workshop. They had escaped both theft and destruction by the troops of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun.

Beetling
      Overhanging.

Boon
      A royal favour or blessing.

Cataract
      A series of river rapids and small waterfalls.

Coracle
      A small roundish boat made of waterproofed animal hides stretched over a wicker frame.

Country of the West
      Spirit world of the dead.

Dais
      A raised platform, usually at the end of a large room or hall.

Electrum
      A natural metal alloy of gold and silver.

Faience
      Greenish-blue glazed pottery.

Flail and crook
      Implement for threshing wheat and shepherd's curved staff, used as symbols of kingly power in ancient Egypt.

Ibis
      A wading bird.

Kohl
      Cosmetic powder used to darken around eyes.

Lapis lazuli
      Brilliant blue semi-precious stone, much prized for inlay in jewellery.

Land of the West
      The spirit world of the dead.

Palanquin
      A covered seat built between two parallel rods. Used for conveying an important person, it is carried upon the shoulders of four men.

Pigment
      A powder used to add colour to a liquid.

Scree
      Loosely-piled, weathered rock fragments.

Serval cat
      A slender bush cat that has an orange-brown coat with black spots, large ears, and long legs.

Skiff
      A small reed boat propelled by oars.

Sphinx
      A statue with the body of a lion and the head of a man.

Stela (plural: stelae)
      A rectangular stone slab with a rounded top; inscribed with title, name and epithet (descriptive word) of the dead person; set up as an aid to secure continuing life after death.

Ushabti
      Small wood or faience figures put in a tomb to perform any tasks the gods may require of a dead person in the afterlife.

Akhenaten's capital of el-Amarna was uncovered by archaeologists in the 19th century and today, Akhenaten and his beautiful wife, Queen Nefertiti, are among the most famous of all the rulers of ancient Egypt. However, for many hundreds of years, the city's ruins lay forgotten and the pharaoh was virtually unknown.

For many people, the fascination with Akhenaten's reign lies in his dramatic and controversial religious reforms. Religion and ritual held a central place in the lives of ancient Egyptians and they traditionally worshipped many gods and goddesses. They believed that there were gods and goddesses responsible for every part of life, and death. There were those who created the world, some who brought the flood every year and others who took care of people after they died. There were also minor, local gods who were responsible for particular towns and places.

Each of the gods and goddesses had sacred animals that were linked to them. The gods could be represented in human or animal form, or as animal-headed humans. The first and most powerful of the gods was Amun. Amun was usually represented as a man wearing a headdress of two tall ostrich plumes, as a ram, or as a man with a ram's head. Likewise, Thoth, the god of writing and knowledge, was linked with baboons and ibises, and Bastet, the protective goddess, was symbolized by a cat. Worshippers could honour a god by making temple offerings of bronze or faience figurines of an animal associated with the god, or they could offer the mummified remains of the animal. Mummification was a successful business for the temples, which kept large breeding pens for animals. When they reached a certain age the creatures were killed and mummified, and the mummies sold to pilgrims.

Akhenaten was raised in a traditional ancient Egyptian manner. He grew up in the capital Thebes (modern-day Luxor) and worshipped Amun and the established gods.
Akhenaten came to the throne around 1353 BC and was crowned Amenhotep IV, meaning ‘Amun is content'.

Soon after becoming pharaoh, Akhenaten rejected his royal name and his loyalty to Amun. He renamed himself Akhenaten, in honour of the sun-god Aten. The new pharaoh turned away from the old priests and forms of worship and began the cult of Aten the sun disc. Akhenaten declared that Aten was the only god. He banned the worship of the old gods and closed down sacred temples.

Akhenaten decided that the worship of Aten required a new location, away from places where traditional gods had been worshipped. He chose a site in Middle Egypt, along the Nile. There he build a new capital city which he called Akhetaten, ‘Horizon of the Aten', which today is known as el-Amarna. To the east of the city, the pharaoh started preparing tombs for the royal family. On the plain near the river, massive temples to Aten were constructed. Unlike traditional temples these were open to the sun.

There is much we still do not know about this remarkable period in Egyptian history, including Akhenaten's reasons for his religious reforms. However, it is clear that Akhenaten's ideas were not accepted by most Egyptians. This was partly due to the powerful influence of tradition, but also because people must have found it more difficult to relate to this impersonal abstract god than their traditional deities.

Akhenaten's reign lasted 17 years and when he died the throne passed to young Tutankhaten, ‘the living image of Aten'. This ‘boy-king' later changed his name to the one he is known by today, Tutankhamun, ‘the living image of Amun'. As he was still only a child, regents ruled Egypt on his behalf and they encouraged him to abandon the sole worship of Aten. All across Egypt, temples to the traditional gods were restored. It was not long before the new pharaoh left the city of el-Amarna and returned to the old capital. His subjects shut up their houses and followed him.

Later pharaohs attempted to erase all memory of Akhenaten's unorthodox reign.
Throughout Egypt his image and name were removed from monuments, his temples were dismantled and the stone reused for new buildings. The names of Akhenaten and his immediate successors were left out of official king-lists. His city crumbled back into the desert, vanishing as quickly as it had risen.

PAT THOMSON

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