Beauty of Re

by Mark Gajewski

  The sun’s rays reflected off the obelisks onto a magnificent building directly before us.

  “Akh–menou, Brilliant of Monuments, the festival hall your father erected after his return from Megiddo, his very first improvement at Ipet–Isut,” Baki intoned. “There’s no building like it in all the world.”

  “And perhaps none so important,” I added, addressing Amenhotep. “Your father designated it as a temple of millions of years for all his forefathers, where they could be honored with offerings and statues in unprecedented quantities. The rites depicted on the walls confirm the legitimacy of the kingship and its perpetuation for all time.”

  We followed Baki wordlessly into the temple’s foyer, passing between two sixteen–sided columns and two tall statues of Osiris wrapped as a mummy. Straight ahead was a corridor with nine small rooms on its right.

  “These storage rooms hold ritual equipment and priestly costumes,” Baki said. “The three nearest hold bread and vases and wine that we use each day to honor the god. Along the corridor’s north wall are scenes of the king’s Heb–Sed festival.”

  Baki turned left and led the way into the festival hall itself. I caught my breath at its splendor, as I did every time I visited. The hall was almost 150 feet wide and more than 50 deep. Two rows of ten columns supported a high roof over the center aisle, the columns uniquely tapering towards their base and painted red to imitate the wooden poles that supported tents during Heb–Sed celebrations. To either side of the central aisle were 32 shorter pillars supporting lower sections of the roof, permitting clerestory lighting of the hall in the gap between the sections. The figures etched on the columns depicted Thut with various gods. The columns, ceiling, walls and lintels were all carved and brightly painted. Much of the ceiling was blue, like the sky.

  Dozens of workers were busily erecting leather and linen shrines for the gods along the outer edges of the hall for use in tomorrow’s ceremony. The commands of overseers and pounding of mallets echoed in the large space. I suspected the men would be at work until late this night to ensure everything would be ready by dawn.

  “This wall on the left, past the foyer, contains a king list, with your father making offerings to each of them, his ancestors,” Ahmose–Hutnay said, leaning close to inspect it.

  “It shows 61 in all, beginning with Sneferu,” Baki said.

  “He erected the two pyramids at Dahshur,” Mutnofret announced.

  “And one at Meidum,” Amenemopet added.

  Ahmose–Hutnay nodded.

  “The list is not complete, Majesty,” Baki told Amenhotep, who was silently reading the cartouches. “It shows the kings who are most important to Waset and ancestral to your father and yourself. Its purpose is to justify his kingship, and yours, and someday your son’s.”

  I noted that Hatshepsut’s name was not contained on the list. Thut was shown as the direct successor to his and Hatshepsut’s father. Iset’s promise that Thut would erase Hatshepsut from history had been carried out in this hall.

  We walked down the right side of the hall, dodging workers. Recognizing Amenhotep and myself as royals, all fell to their knees and dropped their eyes to the floor. There were many statues in the hall – a series made of graywacke, a stone with a velvety polish and greenish tint, the green symbolizing renewal; another that had originally been carved to represent Hatshepsut that Thut had usurped; another in red granite, nearly six feet tall, also made for Hatshepsut in the middle of her reign, which Thut’s craftsmen had altered by changing the name in the cartouche on the belt from her name to his. There was even a stelophore, a statue of the royal butler Nefer–peret holding a stela and praising Thut and Meryetre–Hatshepsut and extolling the king’s victories. We passed a series of chambers dedicated to Sokar, a deity from Mennefer associated with kingly regeneration.

  About three–quarters of the way through the hall, Baki turned right into a smaller room, 50 feet long and 20 wide, with four papyriform columns down its midline.

  “This is called the Botanical Garden. It contains the record of plants and animals collected by Menkheperre when he campaigned in Setjet in the twenty–fifth year of his reign,” Baki said. “Because the walls were carved in very low raised relief, they’re best seen in the raking light of early morning. Otherwise, the figures and inscriptions are hard to make out.”

  “They look funny,” Kenamun said, turning to me. “Do these things really exist?”

  “They do indeed,” I replied. “The images depict parts of plants and animals, rare birds, flowers, trees, the internal organs of animals, small parts of exotic flowers, strange seeds, misshapen gourds, even deformed cattle with three horns or two tails. These things are not known in Kemet. The king was afraid people – like you – would think his scientists made them up. Usersatet, read the inscription on the wall out loud for us.”

  “I swear, as Re loves me, as my father, Amun, favors me, all these things happened in the truth – I have not written fiction about that which really happened to my majesty.”

  “So you see, the images are quite real,” I said. “I myself saw them on the campaign to Naharina. This room is extremely important because of these images. As the king expanded Kemet’s borders during his reign, so too did Amun’s domain expand, for he created the world, and so these new plants and animals discovered by the king must also have been created by him. The specimens carved on these walls prove that Amun is not a god of Kemet alone, but a universal god, whose powers extend far beyond the Two Lands.”

  “Most cultures believe the power of a god is limited to the people who make offerings to him and the land where his temples are built,” Baki added. “This room proves that Amun is the most powerful god the world has ever known, just as your father is the most powerful king.”

  We exited the Botanical Garden and moved outside the festival hall into the sun.

  “On the roof of Akh–menou is a solar chapel that your father built to honor Aten, open to the sky,” Baki said. “He’s commissioned an obelisk to stand nearby. He calls it tekhen waty, the ‘unique obelisk,’ which will stand alone, not as part of a pair. It will be the tallest obelisk ever cut. Over there, on the outside wall of Ipet–Isut, directly east of us, is the Chapel of the Hearing Ear that he erected, facing the golden obelisks. The common people of Waset, who can’t enter Ipet–Isut, can go inside it to make petitions before a statue of your father and Amun–Re.”

  We exited the sacred precinct to the south and sat down beside the sacred lake that Thut had dug beside its wall to rest. A few priests were washing on its far side, and some sacred geese were paddling about on its surface. More priests were trundling loaves of bread and fruits and vegetables and jars of beer and wine in the direction of Amun’s shrine, no doubt to be offered to the god when he was put to bed at sunset. Amenhotep sat down to my left.

  “Someday you’ll be a great king, Majesty, just like your father,” I told him. “You’ll conquer foreign lands and return with treasure and captives, and you too will honor the gods by adding on to Ipet–Isut.” I gazed far to the south, toward Ipet–resyt, the shrine for the Opet festival that had been erected by Hatshepsut. “But don’t neglect the rest of Kemet, Majesty. Gods besides Amun need temples too.”

  “Like Re’s at Iunu, where my father erected two obelisks?”

  “Exactly.”

  Re was beginning to descend. I estimated we had less than two hours of daylight left. I nodded to Baki and stood up.

  “We should head over to the pylon nearest to us on the southern axis of Ipet–Isut. It was erected specifically for this Heb–Sed,” he said.

  “The king’s stepmother created this axis when she erected the older pylon to the south of the king’s,” I said. “She also built the processional way to connect Amun’s temple here to Ipet–resyt in Waset. See how it goes past Khonsu’s temple complex, with its own sacred lake curving around its southern end?”

  We stopped in the shadow of Thut’s pylon. It towered over us, its surface covered with
gigantic scenes of defeated enemies.

  “Images like this, of the king holding his enemy by the hair and smiting him with a mace, go all the way back to Horus–Narmer, the king who first unified the Two Lands, and perhaps even earlier,” Ahmose–Humay explained. “Such scenes ritually represent the king maintaining maat in the world.”

  “And the king still smites his enemies to this day,” Amenhotep said, glancing at me. “Such was the fate of Dushura.” He pointed to a squad of Nubian slaves, overseen by priests, digging a wide hole near the base of the pylon. Several men were down in the hole, so deep only their shoulders and necks and heads were visible above the dirt piled around its edges. Nearby, stone statues had been arranged in more than twenty long rows, hundreds of them, ranging from very small to over six feet tall. A couple of priests were scooping incense into censors beside them. “What are they doing, Baki?”

  “Burying statues of gods and kings,” he replied. “As your father the king fills the temples and shrines here at Ipet–Isut with statues of his own, like that one over there of him in the guise of a sphinx, or the one in the Wadjet Hall of King’s Wife Mery, also depicted as a sphinx, something must be done with the older ones, since space is limited. They can’t be thrown away, since they are sacred. So we bury them from time to time, with the proper rituals. That way the kings’ kas can return to them if necessary.”

  Colossal statues of Thut stood on both sides of the pylon, and two more obelisks rose before its south face. I craned my neck, squinted, made out the inscription on top of the nearest obelisk: “Thutmose, who crossed the great Bend of the Euphrates with might and with victory at the head of his army.”

  Amenhotep was studying an inscription on the pylon. He read it out loud: “My father Amun–Re–Harakhty granted to me that I might appear upon the Horus Throne of the Living. I having been appointed before him within the temple, there having been ordained for me the rulership of the Two Lands, the thrones of Geb and the offices of Khepri at the side of my father, the Good God, the King of Upper and Lower Kemet, Aakheperenre, given life forever.”

  I was amazed and appalled. Thut had usurped the very inscription used by Hatshepsut in Djeser Djeseru to justify her selection by Amun as king. It was the same one Hatshepsut had inscribed on the southernmost pylon. I wondered if Thut had altered that one too, changed her name to his. I decided I didn’t really want to know.

  “Your father created this alabaster shrine on the south side of his pylon,” Baki told Amenhotep. “It’s a copy of the one created by the first Amenhotep that stood near the sacred precinct. It’s a way station now, for those carrying the gods’ barque to rest in during processions.”

  “And now, the hour grows late, and we must return to the per’aa for dinner,” I announced. “Ahmose–Hutnay, will you see the boys home? There are some details about tomorrow’s ceremony I need to discuss with Baki. I’ll be along shortly.”

  The tutor bowed. “As you wish, Majesty.”

  The boys were already headed back towards the per’aa at a run, chasing each other, calling loudly, dodging and weaving between priests and temple workers, drawing angry looks. Ahmose–Hutnay hurried after them.

  Once he was out of sight Baki led me to the alabaster shrine. We seated ourselves on its steps. I quickly scanned every direction, made sure we weren’t being observed.

  “You carried out my instructions?” I asked in a low voice.

  “Except for some of the granite, yes,” Baki said. “The overseer of construction thought it an excellent idea to use the rest of the blocks of Hatshepsut’s red shrine as fill for the king’s new pylon. They are now buried deep within its walls.”

  “The inscriptions they bore? Hatshepsut and Nefer’s names?” I asked a bit fearfully.

  “The overseer saw no sense in erasing them from the blocks, since they’re hidden from view,” Baki said. “The overseer of construction is a lazy man. Lucky for us.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Maybe someday the blocks will be recovered and Hatshepsut’s shrine will be restored,” Baki said.

  “We’ll not live to see it,” I predicted. “But that’s not important anyway. Baki, tell Bastet to tell Aachel what’s been done, and make sure Aachel tells Nefer. Nefer needs to know that she and her mother no longer face the eternal death as Iset commanded. It’ll ease her mind.”

  “I’ll ensure the king’s wife knows it was you who preserved her name, and her mother’s,” Baki assured me.

  “Absolutely not. Say it was yours.”

  “But why?” Baki asked, puzzled.

  “I’m afraid Nefer would suspect my motives,” I said sadly. “It’s best that she think it was your idea. Then it’ll bring her only joy, knowing.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Baki patted my hand. “As you wish, Majesty.”

  “Not as I wish, Baki, but as it must be,” I said, rising to return to the per’aa.

  1434 BC

  Regnal Year 46 – Thutmose III

  I inhaled deeply. “I smell salt in the air, Beloved.”

  Thut put his hand on mine. “Avaris is just around the bend in the river, and the Great Green not far beyond. We’ll be there soon.”

  We were seated on thrones beneath the canopy in front of the cabin on Thut’s royal boat. The sides of the canopy were rolled up, giving us an unobstructed view of both banks of the river. The afternoon sun was slanting across Ta–mehi, its light golden. Thickets of papyrus cast shadows on the water from the fringe of the river. A few birds sang from precarious perches atop swaying stalks. Others flitted between groves of palms and emerald fields. I indicated Amenhotep and his friends Sennefer and Mutnofret and Amenemopet, huddled near the bow of the royal boat, heads close together, occasionally glancing in our direction and laughing. Who knew what mischief they were planning?

  “Did you ever think, when I saw you off to train with the army at Mennefer, that we’d be seeing your son off together forty–four years later?”

  Thut laughed. “At that age I never even gave much thought to what was going to happen next week.” He traced the white scar on my arm with his finger. “I do remember that you were very afraid for my life. Yet you’re the one who was bloodied first in battle.”

  “That was pretty foolish of me, wasn’t it – sneaking onto your boat at Buhen.”

  “If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have been you,” Thut said. “And I wouldn’t have loved you so very much, Mery.”

  Many decades ago Thut had moved his army’s base from Mennefer to Avaris, the one–time capital of the Chiefs of the Foreign Lands. He’d built a massive supply depot beside its twin harbors, and an anchorage for his warships and transport boats, enabling him to move his forces quickly north by sea whenever rebellion threatened in Retenu or Setjet. Because of that speed, he’d defeated the wretches over and over, for his army always appeared at the gates of their cities long before they were organized and properly prepared to resist him. They’d never failed to underestimate Thut’s ability to rapidly mobilize his forces, and so had fallen before him every time.

  Our journey here from Mennefer along the easternmost branch of the river had been leisurely. We’d sailed directly from the quay at Peru–nefer a week ago. The harbor had been crowded – boats from every land in the world were tied up there, with more in the canal waiting their turn to land, the quay teeming with porters moving containers into and out of a multitude of warehouses, decks and rigging alive with sailors. The cries of overseers competed with those of vendors and workmen in a babble of tongues. Columns of smoke rose from workshops and fanned out over the city. I remembered my first visit to Peru–nefer, how fascinated I’d been, how overwhelmed. It could hardly hold a candle to now. There could have been no more visible sign of the prosperity Thut had brought to the Two Lands than the expansion of that district.

  We’d spent several days at Giza, wandering aimlessly, Thut telling the boys about the great kings who’d built the pyramids m
ore than a thousand years earlier, poking around the tombs of their families and courtiers, investigating the smaller pyramids built for the kings’ wives, trying unsuccessfully to keep the boys from scaling them. The kings’ pyramids were so large – virtually mountains – each block of stone so large and heavy that it was impossible, for me at least, to comprehend the effort it had taken to build them.

  “The Annals tell us every person in the Two Lands was devoted to the construction of pyramids, starting with King Sneferu’s structures at Dahshur and Meidum, and his successors’ here at Giza,” Thut told his son. “Such a single–minded marshalling of a population had never before been seen in the history of the world. All of the land’s quarries were dedicated to providing stone. Craftsmen who had spent their lives creating stone cups and vessels abandoned that work to shape the blocks. Fleets were built to move the stone here. Harbors were dug – the one at the foot of the Giza plateau was the busiest in the entire world – and canals. A small town was built to house a permanent core group of workers, somewhere on this plain. That core group was supplemented during the inundation by thousands of farmers from the length of Kemet. They were the ones who hauled these blocks into place. Farmers and fishermen fed the workers, others clothed them and cooked for them and provided wood and water and medical care and all the necessities of life. An administration was created to oversee this plateau and everything being produced throughout the Two Lands.”

  “And just as those mighty kings marshaled Kemet to build pyramids, the largest structures in the world, your father has marshaled the Two Lands to create an empire, the first ever,” I added. “Future generations will marvel at what he’s done, just as we marvel at these great tombs today.”