Tutankhamun Uncovered (34 page)

On a signal from Parannefer, Rashid gave an order to his men. They looped ropes through the carrying handles on the golden mummiform lid and slowly raised it until it was suspended above the lower portion of the casket and the mummy itself.

After another short prayer, the men lowered the lid into place. The silver tongues that would attach the lid firmly to its mate slotted comfortably into the mortices provided for them. As the lid connected with its base there was an echoing ‘clunk’, amplified within the confining rock walls. Tutankhamun’s mummy had disappeared from the sight of mortals forever.

The men hammered small gold pins through the coffin wall and into the silver dovetails now snug within the casing. Then they inserted poles into the loops at the ends of the slings which lay underneath the coffin and carefully took the weight of the massive gold body. Testing one another’s balance, they took the strain. The first coffin was slowly laid within the base of the second.

The prayers continued. In the relative stillness of the chamber the sounds of the musicians and dancers outside the tomb were barely audible. The Anubis headed priest took another ladle of anointing oil and, beginning once more at the feet, ceremoniously poured the glutinous unction over the casket all the way up to the hands. The golden shine that had until then sparkled in the flickering light of the oil lamps gradually dulled. The holy unguent slowly rose within the well of the lower casket until it reached within an inch or two of the lip.

Finally, the jars were empty.

Each royal member of the small congregation then took it in turns to place a floral or fruit remembrance on the chest of the anointed coffin. Ankhesenamun was the last, positioning a wide collar of blue glass beads delicately upon the upper chest. As she withdrew, the priest took a crimson linen sheet, folded so that it would fit the coffin lengthways, and tucked it tightly around the gold casket. As he stabbed his fingers around the edges, he felt the material soak up the fatty oils. He wiped his hands briskly on his tunic and signalled to the labourers’ supervisor.

Rashid gestured to his men. Four of them came forward to lift the lid of the second coffin and carefully position it on its base. The men attached the lid with pins just as they had done the first.

The weight of the two coffins together was now considerable. It took all ten labourers to lift it on its slings and lower it into the base of the third coffin. With the second coffin safe within the outer coffin base, the labourers cut the slings that had been supporting it and withdrew the linen from beneath.

The queen came forward and laid a tiny circlet of olive leaves on the uraeus at the coffin’s forehead. As she stepped back, the head man of the work team handed a folded cloth to the two priests, then backed away slowly with his head bowed. Unfolding it between them, the two laid it over the colourful coffin lid and, beginning at the feet, set about neatly tucking it in. The shroud ended up so tight that it revealed the contours of the casket, the hands, the tip of the stylised beard, the shape of the nemes headdress, even the nose itself.

It was Horemheb’s duty to lay a single necklace of olive leaves about the neck of the enshrouded mummy case. Pharaoh’s successor, Ay, followed, steadied by a priest. His arms laden with delicate garlands of spring flowers, he laid them one by one across the shroud, murmuring low, unintelligible incantations. He decorated the body from its neck to below the crossed arms and stepped back.

The final tribute came from the widow. She held a tiny floral wreath in her hands about the size of a bracelet. In the dim light of the chamber, like the others, it had no colour. Like the others it was made of folded olive leaves, sewn together in a circlet, each leaf capturing a tiny spray of spring cornflowers and blue lotus petals. Gently she laid the tiny garland over the lump in the shroud that reflected the uraeus beneath.

The royal entourage stood back and the labourers took up the final coffin lid and laid it exactly on its base. The pins were tamped home and, with no audible command, the queen and her royal party turned together, left the burial chamber and walked silently back to the surface.

The priests, the queen, the Pharaoh and the general went out to take refreshment, food and music. The labourers were left inside to complete the physically demanding task of securing the entirety of the coffin set within the sarcophagus and then constructing the shrine around it.

Ankhesenamun, Ay and Horemheb emerged from the tomb. The sun was gone, the moonless sky an indigo blue. But for the roaring fires of the feast lighting up the valley sides with boiling flashes of red ochre and gold, The Valley would have been in total darkness.

The beat of the music, which had taken a slower turn during their time below ground, now picked up. It was a happy time; a time for celebration. The king had been embarked successfully on his journey. Servant girls rushed forward with trays of food, cooked meat, vegetables, fruit, trays of water, beer and date wine. The general took the wine and gazed leeringly at the assembled dancers. The queen took some fruit and stood beneath her canopy, her eyes cast solemnly downwards. And Pharaoh, assisted by one of his man servants, sat down in a folding chair, took some water and hoped he could fall asleep and that no one would notice.

Within the lowest empty chamber of the tomb a body stirred. Meneg had recovered his senses. Although his head ached his fearful mind was alert and focused on how he might extricate himself from this place without being detected. The ringing in his ears was entirely secondary. He heard voices. He pulled himself close by the entrance to the storeroom into which he had fallen and squinted to the left to see if he could catch sight of what was going on in the burial chamber. He was relieved to see that those of any status had left, at least for the time being. Noticing that the workers were concentrating entirely on their task, he took the risk of pulling himself up sufficiently to obtain a better view. He could clearly hear their conversation.

The coffin set had been successfully laid to rest on the low bier inside the stone sarcophagus. The exhausted workers quickly tucked two linen sheets tightly about the outer coffin and then turned to dismantling the gantry. Their next task was to lift the stone lid and position it securely in its place. The lid was heavy, but less heavy than the coffin set and easier to manage so, notwithstanding their fatigue, they accomplished the task with relative ease.

Taking some considerable trouble to centre the stone lid correctly, they began to lower it so that the carrying poles rested on the head end of the sarcophagus. This done, they slowly slid the poles out from under it, easing the head end into the open lip. Finally they pulled the poles clear.

Rashid saw the problem first. The toe end of the lid was resting on the foot of the outer coffin which was standing just proud of the lip of the sarcophagus. For a moment all froze in stunned alarm. They stared at it, trying to think what to do next.

Rashid whispered sharply, “Get it off! Quick! There is little time! The coffin is too big. We shall have to cut down the foot.”

The men reinserted their carrying poles into the open end of the lid and levered it up. In their careless haste, one of the poles slid sideways. The imbalance of weight forced the other to slide out on the opposite side and the lid fell back onto the coffin foot, cracking along the old, repaired fissure. The copper dovetail that had held the two broken halves together popped out and fell onto the shroud beneath. In the confinement of the burial chamber the break sounded like a clap of thunder. Rashid could only hope that the music above ground would drown out the noise.

“May Hathor plug your cow’s teats!” Rashid’s yelling at his men was suppressed, but yelling nonetheless. He whispered emphatically, “What are we to do now? We shall all be impaled by Pharaoh. An agonising and eternal death awaits! Osiris protect us!”

The tired workers looked one to the other and to their master back and forth for some moments. Then one of them spoke up.

“Master, Pharaoh will not have heard us. The break is still clean and it is dark in this place. We can repaint the crack. No one will notice. Let us be quick.”

Rashid accepted the proposal immediately. The alternative was, after all, unthinkable. “Remove this end and the linen quickly and shave the foot of the coffin so that it will fit when replaced. Come on. Come on!” He gestured wildly in the gloom.

Their energy rekindled with the adrenalin of fear, six of them removed the two broken halves of the lid. Another picked up the loosened dovetail and pulled the shroud off the bottom half of the coffin. Two others used an adze on the foot.

“Enough! Enough!” Rashid flapped his arms at the men before they did too much unnecessary damage. “Replace the lid. Quickly! Quickly! You two clean up the mess.” Rashid recalled the pots of holy oils in the corner and pointed to them. “Wait! First pour some of that over the foot. Perhaps that will absolve us of the misery of our errors and inculcate the Gods of our innocent intentions.”

The broken lid sat perfectly within the rim of the box this time. With some haste, one of the men painted over the clean fracture, giving it some semblance of normality. Truly, in the poorly lit room the repair was not noticeable.

The men gathered up the disassembled wooden members that had made up the gantry and threw them unceremoniously towards the tomb doorway. Assembly of the four shrines was next. These they now had to put together in sequence, one inside the other, to complete the sacred golden structures that would house and protect the sarcophagus.

“Quickly!” urged Rashid in a strong but low voice. “We shall all be punished if we do not leave this place by the time Pharaoh returns.”

In his anxiety to make up for lost time Rashid chose not to supervise his men’s efforts but rather stand on one side of the sarcophagus and take up a mallet himself. The various panels that would make up the shrines had been stacked against one wall in reverse order, the smallest outward. The four walls of the innermost shrine were quickly passed among the men surrounding the sarcophagus.

Unfortunately, with Rashid helping in the assembly of the shrine rather than supervising the construction, symbols painted on each panel, being in any case illegible to his illiterate team, went unnoticed. It soon became clear that the walls were not fitting together precisely and the chamber became loud with the frantic hammering of mallets as the mismatched corners were bludgeoned together.

The first and second shrines were, in this way, crudely engineered into place. Then the third shrine was quickly assembled and the roof manhandled into place. The canopy frame was constructed over it and, taking a corner each, four of Rashid’s men draped the studded linen pall over the fragile framework. The fourth and final shrine was then forcibly assembled and the roof bashed into place by the hammerings of sixteen frantic hands.

The job was done. The entire nest of shrines, awkwardly botched in places but to all but a detailed inspection perfectly constructed, stood firmly in position. All was well. The Pharaoh had not reappeared. Either they had made up some time or Ay had fallen asleep again and the others at the surface were having too good a time to notice.

As Rashid and his team prepared to leave, they stopped short. The dark silhouette of a man stood between the labourers and their exit. Believing the shadow to be that of a royal guard, Rashid broke into a cold sweat and fell to his knees.

The shadow spoke. “Help me out of here, Rashid, I implore you. If discovered I am a dead man.”

At the sound of Meneg’s voice Rashid was greatly relieved. “My dear friend,” he began. “You frightened me. But what have you been doing so long within the tomb?”

Meneg told his embarrassing story.

“This is not good. If they catch you they will assume you to have been plotting robbery. You are in much danger, my friend. But we also are late and must exit with haste. I cannot hide you. They will count us out as they counted us in. There is no way for me to do this.”

“We can run out as a group. Chances are by now they will not be of a mind to pay sufficient attention to count us. If I left on my own, however, I would be easily recognised. You must allow me to join with your group.”

“If we are discovered with you we could all be put to death. I cannot. I love you Meneg but I cannot.”

The old master carpenter stood back so that the light from one of the oil lamps threw deep, menacing shadows across the features of his face.

“You are artisans are you not, Rashid you and your men?”

“That we are and very proud of our work. Look, Meneg, I’m sorry about this but time is short and we have to go. Please do not hold us up any longer. We must go. You must take your own chances.”

“So you would leave this botched job for me to confess to Pharaoh under torture? Is that what you want?”

Rashid, in the act of pushing past Meneg, stopped in his tracks. “You would never betray us, Meneg. You would not... would you?”

“Would I? How do I know what I might say in the agony of torture?”

Rashid didn’t give the matter a second’s thought. The party picked up their equipment and, with Meneg partially hidden in the centre of the pack, left in a hurry. In the confusion and disarray of their departure, the tired soldiers who had in any case found more interest in watching the dancing gave the scrambling group no more than a cursory look.

Rashid and his gang pushed through the cordon and ran down the valley track back towards the river. Meneg, once satisfied he was out of sight, stopped. He sat upon a rock and watched the illuminated festivities from a safe distance. He waited his turn. His ordeal was not yet over.

In the light of the dying fire that had roasted the calf and oxen, the priests signalled to all that the final rituals in the burial procedure must now begin. They led the queen, the Pharaoh and the general down into the tomb one last time. As they entered the empty room that opened onto the burial chamber, the masons were just completing the wall which, but for a remaining doorway, now separated the first chamber from that containing the king’s remains.