The Egyptologist (52 page)

king after him; Horus would not reside in the palace. How to preserve
the writings recorded for eleven floodings, and his goods to stock his
boat? Where is his queen? Where is the Master of Largesse? Seth ap•
peared, and twelve vultures carried the king down the cliff to the
ground. With bursts of fire from the vultures' mouths, Seth cut the
rock. "Here, my son, you shall make your crossing in safety, and this
land shall be remembered for a million million years."

Illustrations:
In a series of pictures, Atum-hadu is shown standing
atop a ridge of earth that is unmistakably the cliff wall separating what
is now the Valley of the Kings from Deir el Bahari. The king is alone, it
is night (the goddess Nut, covered in stars, stands beside him). He is
lost in thought. Here he looks down on the Valley, there on Deir el Ba•
hari, as if debating where to start his tomb and hide his immortality. In
the distance, battles rage. Seth, his mythical father whose mysterious
head now resembles an anteater's, and twelve magic vultures appear to
the king and hoist him down to what appears to be the very path out•
side this very tomb. And here the vultures, spitting fire, cut an opening
into the stone of Egypt itself. Seth leads Atum-hadu into the passage,
unmistakably Door A and the Empty Chamber. The final drawing is of
Atum-hadu standing back outside, a floor map of the tomb glowing
magically on the cliff face. It is, as far as we have so far opened this
tomb, unmistakably a map of the complex I am standing in at this very
moment.

Analysis:
We must see past the myth to the historical facts. One
specific day the war was clearly and unmistakably a lost cause. And in
that time of palpable but still unconsummated doom, the king most cer•
tainly realised that he needed a tomb built in secret. I would hypothesise
that he — no doubt travelling alone and incognito—scouted areas where
he might make safe passage to the underworld, with whatever furnish•
ings and baggage he could efficiently transport all by himself. And,
though this is plainly speculation, it seems possible that the story on the
wall should be read as the happy "miracle" of Atum-hadu stumbling one
night onto an open tomb, built and rejected some years earlier for some

other forgotten soul, or perhaps a tomb that had been plundered and left
bare, perhaps storage caverns used by another dynasty's architects or
workmen, perhaps a hermitage occupied only by easily slaughtered her•
mits. There are several possibilities, but it seems quite likely that Atum-
hadu, when he needed it most, found a suitable space that could be
quickly converted to his needs, without the time, trouble, and risk [see
essay on Tomb Paradox] of architects, workmen, or daylight operations.
I can easily imagine Atum-hadu feeling that such a fortuitous discovery
could only have been effected with the timely and loving assistance of a
god-father.

Journal:
As soon as this chamber is completely transcribed into
these notebooks, the hieroglyphs fully copied and translated, I will take
the Earl of Carnarvon on a private tour, and the neat trick of changing
horses in midstream will be gracefully and drily executed.

The twelve pillars of the History Chamber support marvellous illus•
trations as well, covering each pillar nearly from floor to ceiling in a
single, giant depiction of a discrete event, with a short explanatory text.
Now, observe: if the pillars were executed by the same artist as the wall
panels, he had clearly grown far more confident of his abilities and ma•
terials, as they are of an altogether grander dimension and mastery

than the wall histories.

PILLAR ONE, TEXT: THE BOY ATUM-HADU SETS HIS ENEMIES
AGAINST EACH OTHER AND ESCAPES TO THE ARMY.

Illustration:
A soldier attacks a man and a woman while Atum-
hadu (laughing? crying?) escapes to join the army of Djedneferre
Dudimose.

Saturday, 9 December, 1922

J:
Cats. P: nothing. B: closed.

PILLAR TWO, TEXT: ATUM-HADU ENTERS THE COURT OF
DJEDNEFERR E DUDIMOSE AND IS RECEIVED WARMLY.

Illustration:
Atum-hadu receives a particular form of tribute from
the kneeling wife of Djedneferre Dudimose and other kneeling female
members of the court while a long-lashed giraffe gazes on, masticating
at the sight, and Atum-hadu himself looks skyward and watches acro•
bats fly, throwing each other high above the palace floor.

PILLAR THREE, TEXT: ATUM'S WARRIOR DESTROYS THE KING'S
ENEMIES.

Illustration:
Atum-hadu, in the form of a man-headed lion, tram•
ples the enemies of Egypt, who fall in a hail of arrows. High above,
Horus, Atum, Ra, Isis, Osiris, Seth, Montu, Hathor, and Ma'at look
down with marked approval.

PILLAR FOUR, TEXT: ATUM-HADU BECOMES KING AND POET BOTH.

Illustration:
Still standing on the bodies of the treacherous minis•
ters of Djedneferre Dudimose, Atum-hadu instructs his court. He gen•
tly rests one hand on the head of the late king, and in his other he holds
a sheet of papyrus. One can just make out the hieroglyphic writing on
that papyrus in an extraordinary touch of uncommon verisimilitude
and detail in Egyptian art. It is nothing less than Quatrain 1. The detail
of the tiny black hieroglyphs on the tan sheet of papyrus must have
taken the artist hours to perfect. Considering the conditions in which
he was likely working (smoke, heat, hunger, poverty, approaching ene•
mies), his accomplishment is nothing less than genius.

J: C. P: still nothing.

Sunday, 10 December, 1922

J:
Cats, bank, post. Nothing.

PILLAR FIVE, TEXT: DAYS OF PEACE AND
PLEASURE IN ATUM-HADU'S COURT.

Illustration:
This pillar is worth a moment's analysis. It was prob•
ably only natural that Atum-hadu's court was prey to nostalgic im•
pulses, the mad desire to peer over one's shoulder for a golden age. At a
time of encroaching darkness and a pervasive sense of doom, such an
instinct was probably stronger still. That said, it is clear that Atum-
hadu (even as his scribes were engaged in the previous king's nostalgic
preservation project) was dedicated to making his era a golden age
in
itself and
his court the centre of a reborn Egypt. His was a simultane•
ous
anti
-nostalgic project, particularly difficult in times of defeat and
despair. But to this end, this pillar shows his court as he must have
wished it to be recalled at its peak of glory. Musicians in tunics deco•
rated with multi-coloured lozenges perform while a woman leads sev•
eral dogs in a parade of tricks. Celebrants of the cult of Atum abound,
in a vast array of mathematical combinations, from rows of solitary
worshippers to complex pyramidal arrangements requiring multitudes.
Men are tied down with symbolic chains woven of peacock feathers,
and they are lashed by nude women and, at the centre of all this activ•
ity, the unmistakable king himself, nude, surrounded by adoring

crowds of gentle, long-fingered beauties with sleepy eyes.

PILLAR SIX, TEXT: THE FALSE FATHERS.

Illustration:
This curious pillar with its inexplicable title depicts a
series of executions and tortures, all overseen by Atum-hadu, whose
expression is one of stern necessity. A soldier is fed to a crocodile. A
priest is skewered and roasted alive (see Wall Panel D). A young
working man (attacked in Pillar One) is here pursued by a crowd of
what appear to be armed children, while a donkey mounts the woman
shown with him on Pillar One.

J:
Post, bank—nothing. Cats. Maggie is so funny! She knows
which route I take now to bring her food, and she leads the Rameses to

meet me there, so I need not approach the villa at all. She likes her fish,
we learn tonight, a little Nile perch, while the toms stick to milk and
scraps of meat. I would love to have the three of them across the river
with me, but it would hardly be fair, to them or to the delicate work I
am uncovering.

Mr. Trilipush,

It will interest you to know that, given the apparent magnitude
of Mr. Carter and Lord Carnarvon's find in the tomb of Tut-ankh¬
Amen, making it without question one of the great discoveries in
all Egyptological history, Mr. Carter will need vast resources to
complete the enormous task ahead of him: cataloguing, preserv•
ing, and removing the contents of this frankly "overstuffed" tomb.
Given the tasks, which will certainly take Mr. Carter several years,
the curator of the New York Metropolitan Museum has put at Mr.
Carter's disposal many of that institution's resources currently ded•
icated to the Metropolitan's own excavations. Specifically, Mr.
Lythgoe has offered Mr. Carter the services of photographers,
artists, skilled workmen, philologists, chemical and criminological
experts, and others. As you can well imagine, this reduces greatly
the likely productivity of Professor Winlock and the amount of
surface area he can profitably examine in the Deir el Bahari area, at
least for the present season and perhaps much of next season as
well. And so, Professor Winlock has been kind enough to inform
me that if the Antiquities Service wishes to issue temporary con•
cessions for areas that are outside his current area of investigations,
he would be willing in the interest of science to consider the tem•
porary partitioning of his concession. Considering your previous
interest, I would like to offer you the opportunity to resubmit an
application. While the Antiquities Service reserves the right not to
issue any new concessions, any project showing a likelihood of suc•
cess and professional management will certainly be considered.

With every good wish, please believe that I am your devoted and
unwavering servant,

Pierre Lacau, Director-General of
the Antiquities Service

Monday, 11 December, 1922

Journal:
Cats, bank, post: and there an overdue reward to my pa•
tience awaits me in my
poste restante,
honouring my time in the wilder•
ness when none would support me! Lacau has offered me my
concession at last.

Slow down and savour these events! I raced to Carter's site, without
even cleaning off the traces of my days and nights in the field. The pain
in my leg was excruciating as I set off to find Lord Carnarvon. The tide
has finally turned, but I turned back myself, returned to the tomb for a
moment to mark this down, because in my hurry, I nearly forgot to take
a copy
of Desire and Deceit in Ancient Egypt.
I have just now inscribed it,
"To Lord Carnarvon, Egypt's patron, knowledge's financier, Atum-
hadu's Champion, Atum's most creative right hand, from his admirer
and dare I say partner, R. M. Trilipush, 11 December 1922." Off again!

I am wondering if Lacau is not part of a far-flung conspiracy to
break my heart. I arrived at Carter's site but found no trace of him or
the Earl, no crowd of tourists, no pashas demanding unholy peeks at
Tut. Instead the tomb was covered again. I asked one of the numerous
native guards where his masters were. "His Lordship's returned to En•
gland with Lady Evelyn. Mr. Carter has gone to Cairo to see them off."
Gone, My Lordship, gone to London on the big boat. I could hear
Carter's simpering relief, squiring Carnarvon away from me just as my
opportunity ripened, then quickly rotted.

Bank. Despite my rigid economies, I am nearly out of money. My
backers have abandoned me. My rivals are determined to see me fail.
Post: send
Desire and Deceit
and a detailed proposal to Carnarvon's estate