“With your organisation’s interest in archaeology, you evidently think digging around in Egypt is worthwhile. I wonder why. Why not stick to the Holy Land?”
“Egypt is a holy land!” the tall man said. “It’s front and centre in the Bible.” He made an impassioned gesture with his hands like a gospel preacher. “The Book of Isaiah tells us: In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the Lord at its border...”
Egyptologists and New Agers weren’t the only ones who speculated about ancient Egypt, Anson recalled. One religious zealot wrote to him about the fallen idols of Egypt: ‘Did Jesus topple Ozymandias? It is a fact well attested by the Coptic church that the Holy Family, Joseph, Mary and Jesus, came to Egypt to escape Herod and travelled all over Egypt until the boy was as old as ten. The locals welcomed them in several places, but there were others who rejected them. It’s told that on their arrival at cities and towns, great monolith statues of god-kings and gods toppled off their pedestals and prostrated themselves in front of the boy Jesus. This fulfilled Isaiah’s Old Testament prophecy: Behold the Lord rides on a swift cloud, and will come into Egypt and the idols of Egypt will totter at His Presence and the heart of Egypt will melt in the midst of it. The townspeople, angry at the devastation of their idols, forced the Holy Family to head southwards… as far as the Ramesseum? Was the boy Jesus responsible for the ruination of Egypt’s idols that we see to this day?” Er, probably not, Anson had told him. But an intriguing thought, all the same. He quite liked the idea of a revenge attack by the boy Jesus on the colossal vanity of Rameses, pharaoh of the Exodus.
“You were a presidential aspirant once, I hear,” he said to Thompson Rush.
“True.”
“Wouldn’t that have been a better way to get things done?”
He smiled.
“I was hoping so.” He shrugged. “Wasn’t to be. But I made a few friends and it opened doors at the highest level in Washington.”
“Tell me then, Thompson, are you one of those religious leaders who makes emergency White House calls, like a Billy Graham, and bring presidents to their knees?”
“Hell no, son. I don’t aim to bring presidents to their knees. I aim to bring them to their senses. I tell them we need to stand firmly as a country beside our friends in Israel. The Book of the Prophet Joel tells us that we will be judged for our treatment of Israel -In those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will enter into judgment against them concerning my inheritance, my people Israel, for they scattered my people among the nations and divided up my land.”
“I’m serious about providing funds for your investigations,” the American went on.
“No strings attached. Just do it - get it done. My people will get in touch with your people.”
“I am my people.”
“Then just say the word. History and prophecy are waiting for us and there’s no time to waste.”
A lot of people are taking a great deal of interest in my theories, Anson thought.
“You’ve certainly given me something to think about.”
He rejoined the group just as they were breaking hands. They drew apart, blinking at their surroundings as if they had just stumbled out of sleep.
“I wonder if you can answer me something,” the young man Scott said, making a dive to claim his attention. Sunglasses and a baseball cap shaded his eyes.
Boy Wonder, Anson had dubbed him, a young man who was always wondering about something.
“I’ll try.”
“You’ve heard the alternative theories about the age of the sphinx, that it’s actually seven to ten thousand years old and goes back to an age before the pyramids.”
“I’ve heard it.”
Scott pointed.
“Look at that weathering in the stone. They say course sand couldn’t have eroded the layers like that. Only rainwater, and Egypt didn’t have heavy, constant rainfall in dynastic times. Unless you go back to a wet period ten thousand years ago, which totally destroys conventional dating. What do make of that fact, Mr Hunter?”
“Anson, please. Don’t make me feel like my father.”
“Can you answer my question?”
“I don’t argue with the fact that there may have been a wet period ten thousand years ago and maybe it fell on this outcrop long before they shaped it into a sphinx, but no, I don’t think Atlanteans or aliens built it before the Egyptians were ready. Was it sand that eroded it like this? Probably that and quirky winds. But instead of sand, what about fine dust from successive Khamsin dust-storms clinging and then crumbling off. Less abrasive, so it could behave a lot like water over aeons. Or maybe the haematite in the red dust, mixed with rain from occasional rainstorms created some kind of acid-rain like erosion?”
“Very interesting. You take a conservative view. So I guess you wouldn’t be a believer in the Lost Chamber of Records buried in some kind of secret chamber under the sphinx?”
“They’ve found nothing to support it.”
Boy Wonder looked up at the sphinx in wonder.
“Do you think there’s a third great sphinx on Mars that’s shown up in official photographs?”
“Not really. Nor do I go along with the theory of the pyramids acting as gigantic water pumps or power stations, or in the possibility of early aeronautics.”
The defence lobbyist Vincent Kraft caught the end of this.
“Slow down there. I believe there’s a full scale model aircraft in the Cairo museum that we’re going to visit this afternoon.”
“Yes, the Sakkara bird. Got lost for years, then museum staff found it in a box of bird models. I think that’s a clue,” Anson said.
“No, no.” Space Invader came up to Anson and blocked out the light of the morning sun. “I’ve seen the specs. This is no bird. It has all the characteristics of modern aerodynamics, yet it comes from the age of the Ptolemies.”
“Wow. I’d like you to show it to me,” Scott said to him, “and give me your expert opinion.”
“If the Ptolemies had aircraft,” Anson said, “don’t you think Cleopatra and Marc Anthony might have fared a little better at the battle of Actium? You are suggesting they had larger versions, I take it, not that they tossed models around like darts.”
“The museum’s example is a model of a larger glider that could have flown fully loaded with around sixty men at over sixty kilometres an hour. It has a vertical tail and wings that are straight and they have a reverse dihedral, or anhedral, just like a Hercules transport aircraft. The design is perfect, except for a slightly broken tail where there had once evidently been a stabiliser. And guess what? When they constructed a balsa model of the exhibit…”
“It flew like a bird.”
“Yes it did. No, not a bird.” He flashed a smile, but there was no humour in it. Rather it said ‘I’ll remember that.’ “No way,” he said. “Birds don’t have vertical tails.”
“No, they don’t. But if you wanted to make your model bird fly, and remember, this one was made of light sycamore and had a falcon’s head design at the front end another clue - you’d soon discover through trial and error that you needed a vertical tail to avoid a crack-up. Sorry, it just doesn’t fly with me.”
“Are you sure you’re an alternative Egyptologist?” Boy Wonder said, rubbing his chin.
“Excuse me,” one of the Chantresses said, engaging Anson. “Hello, I’m Sage. We have a question,” she said, speaking for the group of females who drew nearer. He noticed that she wore a T-shirt with the slogan ‘“in goddess we trust’, “What do you think about the fact that the sphinx is oriented to an astronomical alignment that only occurred ten thousand years ago? The lion at that time faced a peculiar constellation of Leo.”
“It also faces due east, the sunrise, which pretty much occurs every day here in Egypt.”
“Yes, but why choose a lion?”
“What society ever set eyes on a lion and didn’t admire its majesty and power? What better creature to put on the top of the symbolic heap, or limestone outcrop in this case?”
It was strange to hear his own voice pleading for orthodoxy, Anson thought. Usually he was the one advancing rogue theories. He was beginning to feel a little sympathy for mainstream Egyptologists. Just a little.
Neith took his arm and steered him apart.
“Re-Harakhty, Horus in the Horizon… Look into that face Anson, and tell me he doesn’t speak to you. Be still and listen in the silence.”
“I did.”
“And what did he say?”
“Here I am.”
“There you are.” She seemed to approve.
They would be back to the area later that evening for aprivate visit and meditation in the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid.
The organisation evidently had friends and influence, securing permits for their own special purposes on the busy plateau.
Chapter 24
THERE was another obligatory wonder of Cairo and that was the crowded Egyptian Museum.
He dutifully shuffled around with his group, beginning with the main sculpture hall downstairs. The place was like a train station for giants, filled with figures on seats who looked as if they’d been sitting there so long they’d turned to stone. Then it was on to the Old kingdom Galleries, Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom.
Upstairs the shuffle ground to a crawl. The group split up and merged into the crowd and the golden haze of the treasures of Tutankhamun.
Anson took the opportunity to slip away. He went to inspect the famous Narmer Palette in room forty-three on the ground floor. There it was, a votive tablet in grey-green schist. It showed the famous image of the first single ruler of a united Egypt, smiting a foe, brandishing a mace over the head of an enemy.
“There you are,” a female voice said, “at ground zero. Or at least Dynasty Zero.”
He twisted.
Scrummy Girl.
“You’re going to have to stop stalking me in the museums of the world,” he said to the blonde young woman. “Anyway, they’re still arguing about whether Narmer’s a dynastic king or a predynastic one.”
In a change from the snug London wrappings he’d first seen her wearing, Scrummy Girl looked cool and breezy in a white lacy dress.
“There’ve been developments, Anson. Let’s keep moving.”
He drifted with her, puzzled.
She slowed at a display case filled with necklaces from the Thinite region in carnelian, faience and amethyst.
“We have reason to believe that a big figure in Egyptian archaeology may be involved in all this,” she said. “A major sponsor.”
“Go on,” he said, bending at a case for a closer look at a blue-green faience choker in the form of a half-moon boat surmounted by a falcon.
“Ibrahim Saad. Awkward, because among other enterprises, he is a sponsor of your friend, Doctor Marilyn Skilling. We believe Saad is planning to come to Egypt.”
Saad, Anson thought. Did he have New Age dreams?
Anson had met him once in Luxor, a healthy, shiny-domed Egyptian-American who had once worked with Anson’s father. Saad had raided the pharmacopia of ancient Egypt in search of new drugs for his pharmaceutical empire. His chemists, he claimed, had examined and investigated ointments, plants, roots, fruits and leaves, rare stones and minerals, animal fat, vegetable extracts, herbs, resins, excrements and every chemical compound they could isolate. Combinations of these ingredients were leading to promising discoveries at Scarab Pharmaceuticals. And now the chemistry and medicine of Egypt was funding his exploration of Egypt’s past.
There were many forces at work in Egypt, Anson had thought at the time, and this man was just one more of them, an alchemist who wanted to transmute the base metal of archaeological picks and shovels into knowledge and power.
“There’s another thing.” Here Scrummy Girl watched him closely. “The woman who contacted you in London is back in Egypt and we believe she may try to reach you. Alexia Costas. She’s somewhere in Upper Egypt.”
It was as if Narmer had slid off his palette and stalked up behind Anson to club him on the back of the head with his mace.
She knew about Alexia.
“A question for you,” she said. “What did the Minister of Culture say to you on your drive around Cairo?”
She had been keeping a close watch on him.
“Just the standard riot act he reads out to me whenever I come to Egypt these days.”
“No specific proscriptions?”
“Just a warning against turning over a single stone in Egypt. I’ll have to be careful how I walk. But someone tried to jump me on an excursion to Siwa. An Iranian pal of Haroun’s. Name of Hassan. I think he’s some kind of Sufi cleric.”
“Iranian.” She said it in a guarded way.
“Is that one of your ramifications?”
“We’ll do some investigation. Just go carefully meanwhile, Anson, and keep things to yourself. I’ve shared this information with you because I trust you. I’ll contact you again.”
Chapter 25
THE REST of the museum visit went by in a fog, which was a pity because obscured by that fog were the greatest treasures and images of Egypt in the world. Tutankhamun’s golden mask. The statue of the pharaoh Khafra, said to be the face depicted on the sphinx. A seated polychrome scribe…
Things were coming to a head, he could feel it.
Alexia, the mysterious woman who had intercepted him on the train to London was looking for him.
But it was Boy Wonder who found him as he stood in front of a carved wooden statue of the King Hor. It was an image of the dead king’s ka and had dazzling rock crystal eyes and a pair of arms with upraised signs, the hieroglyph for ‘ka’, resting on top of its head. Right now the upraised hands looked like a warning sign.
“We were wondering,” Scott said. “There are some wooden spearmen in a case upstairs, a whole troop of them. Can you tell us about them?”
“Yes, I can. They represent a private army of a noble, Prince Mesehti at a time of uncertainty and provincialism in the Eleventh Dynasty. The memory of the chaos of the First Intermediate Period was probably still fresh in everyone’s mind.”
“Can you tell us why troops were taken to the grave?”
“I can do better than that. Do you and your colleagues have laptops?”
“Just about all of us.”
“Good. I’ve got a blog about a troop of wooden spearmen, just like the ones upstairs, stuck in a museum far from home. A bit of imaginative speculation.” “Great, we’ll have something to read on the cruise.” “I’ll upload more of it.”
Chapter 26
Anson Hunter’s Blog – The Other Egypt
“Soldiers of an Endless Night” 2
"I WILL SAVE the Lady Tiy alone," said Karoy.
Heka shook her head: "You forget the saying, Karoy -'no one is strong at night; no one can fight alone; no success is achieved without a helper.'"
"Then he has more than a helper - he has three. We stand behind you, Karoy!"
Voices made Karoy twist. Three spearmen had broken from the ranks and joined him, grinning - Private Hefti, Private Planki and Private Weji.
Hefti was a solid spearman with legs and arms like tree limbs. Planki was a plain soldier, straight and true. Weji was a smaller man and sharp-witted.
"Do not listen to this cross-grained witch," said Weji.
"We will go with you Karoy and crush your enemies beneath our sandals," said Hefti, the lumbering spearman, although he went barefoot like the rest of them.
"Even though we know the risks of this venture," said Planki, the plain-spoken soldier.
"Because someone has to look out for you seeing you have bee blinded by the beautiful Tiy," added the small and sharp Weji, poking a bit of fun at Karoy.
Karoy felt dampness rise like sap to his eyes.
"Thank you, Sp
earmen. Though your bodies are made of acacia, you have hearts of precious cedar." His throat thickened as if sawdust had invaded his mouth.
The men shuffled and looked down at their feet, embarrassed by their leader's emotion.
Heka laughed bitterly. She raised her twisted metal snake-wands above her head. The snakes appeared like flashes of lightning in a black sky. Afraid of being blasted by her magic, Karoy's three soldiers raised their shields in defence.
"You and your wooden warriors cannot succeed," said the magical figurine.
Karoy stepped around her.
"I have had enough of you."
"You think so? Then if you will not have my help, you will have my anger. Dare to go after Tiy and I shall release things to hinder you in the darkness, things from the cases and also ugly, broken things from the realm below! No matter how far you get, even to the ends of the earth, my powers can reach out and find ways to hinder you. Remember, you are model men, fashioned in magic and for the purposes of magic and so you remain at the mercy of the unseen forces of magic…"
It was a chilling threat, but there was a higher unseen power than Heka’s magic, Karoy told himself.
At least he hoped so, and if there was one, he called on it now to protect him on his quest.
Karoy, followed by his spearmen, approached the workshop of the weavers.
The door was open and looking inside they saw a hive of activity. Little female workers, dressed plainly in wraps of cloth tied over one shoulder, were crouching in back breaking work. The women used flat looms on the floor and they were weaving fine linen fabric from the fibres of flax plants. Other spinners were busy attaching the fibres to spindles, twisting the fibres into thread.
Weavers used only fibres from half-ripened flax stems, which made the best thread. But Karoy needed stronger stuff than this. Half-ripened flax was best for cloth, but not for ropes. Fibres from over-ripened stems made the strongest mats and ropes.
THE HATHOR HOLOCAUST Page 14