Those nomadic traders who were treading the long desert route from Gebtu to the Sea of Reeds, scrambled off the ancient riverbed to hide in caves and quarries, pulling cloaks over their heads, or wrapping long headdresses about their faces so that they would not inhale the stifling dust.
After the storm had subsided, villages everywhere were strewn with all sorts of debris once the winds had finally died down. Broken pottery was scattered like pebbles; linen clothing that had been hung out to dry in the morning, and then forgotten in the mayhem, had flown about in the wind like leaves. Some of the reed mats covering the windows were torn away by the wind, and had soared through the air like kites during the storm. Branches ripped off trees, littering the streets, rooftops and fields.
The sandstorm posed a greater risk than the obvious damages to property; much greater than the scattered debris and painful scraping and stinging of skin and faces.
The dust cloud was an unhealthy and dangerous blend of sand and soil, containing mold and fungal spores, some of which were lethal. Pollen, germs and all sorts of bacteria that was hazardous to inhale, were also thrown into the toxic mix. Many people got very sick after the storm, some of whom eventually died in the ensuing infection from the illness following the inhalation of the deadly airborne concoction.
Hours passed before the winds stopped raging. Hours of blinding, suffocating dust, sand and wind that swept across the land, painting everything in dark fuzzy shades. The silt-like matter penetrated every crevice, coating every surface including floors, walls, furniture, linens, jars, amphorae, dishes, food and drink. It adhered to people’s skin, sticking to their pores, stinging their eyes, nasal and sinus cavities, and was even encrusted under their fingernails. There was no getting rid of it.
The wind eventually slowed down to a rumble, and then to a sighing breeze before it ceased to blow.
As soon as things quieted down Mentuhotep prepared to assess the damages. The sails were unfastened and removed from the decks of the ships before being furled and stowed away. Men emerged with their heads and faces covered in linen which had turned a filthy brown. They kept their faces—noses and mouths especially—well shielded from the thick dust coating the air.
Khu and Nakhti withdrew from the cabin where they had remained during the storm. The boys stepped out into the late afternoon, their faces covered with cloth as they surveyed the strange ominous world around them. The wind had completely died down, and a leprous light bled through the dust hanging in the air like fog.
An eerie hush blanketed the land and river, stifling the usual bustling sounds of nature. No birds were seen in the sky or stalking through the marshes. Even the insects buzzing and swarming in the heat of the day remained unseen.
The world was painted in sepia tones from soft browns and yellows, to a grayish orange. But what struck them most was the sun. It hung low in the sky like a huge reddish sphere from which light seeped like blood. It was striking eerie and very beautiful.
“Re…” Nakhti uttered with his eyes on the sun. The boys felt a sense of reverence and awe as they stared at the heavy sun in the sky, their thoughts following the sun-god Re who appeared to have put an end to Seth’s raging sandstorm, if only for the time being.
There was something haunting about the landscape beyond the cove, whose desert hills were obscured by the orange dust. Trees drooped with limp branches hanging dejectedly like defeated soldiers after battle. The stillness was palpable ominous and heavy, and seemed to cast everything under a spell where time had simply ceased.
It was a world suspended in a haze.
Men appeared on the deck with their faces wrapped against the dust that was everywhere, as they went to assess the damages on their ships. It was no use cleaning anything, for all it would do is stir up more of the dust which coated the air like mist.
“It is always this way after the winds cease,” Nakhti said, recalling sandstorms of previous years. The headdress covering his face filtered out the dust. But he coughed a little despite the protection it afforded.
The boys took in everything around them. It had all been completely transformed in the course of a few hours. Despite the dirt and debris, it was strangely beautiful.
Khu’s thoughts turned to his mother Tem again, but he knew she was alright. He would have felt her distress if something had happened, even from this distance.
Most of the ships in Mentuhotep’s fleet had survived the storm, but a couple had not. The winds had torn apart two of the older vessels, and the debris had been scattered or swept away by the winds. No one was hurt fortunately, at least not beyond the expected scrapes, dryness, and inevitable coughing resulting from the contamination they breathed. The men who were on the older ships had disembarked at the first sign of trouble. They grabbed a few supplies and climbed aboard other ships in the cove where there was room.
Mentuhotep’s army was forced to spend that first night in the cove before leaving in the morning for Gebtu. Visibility had been drastically reduced, with the dense haze making it impossible to see much beyond ten paces.
Once they had arrived in Gebtu, efforts to repair any damages to the fleet were undertaken immediately. The ships were pulled onto the low bank of the port, and the ropes lashing the thick planks together were retied or replaced. Seams between the planks were recaulked with reeds where necessary. The men had also refreshed themselves and their provisions, readying to depart again as soon as safely possible.
“And it is just beginning,” Mentuhotep later said once they were settled in the lavish home of an official in Gebtu, who was a relative of the king. “Yes, the sandstorm is only beginning,” the king repeated with a note of irritation, of the oppressive winds that would blow for several hours every few days, over the course of about fifty days.
The storm would later—in subsequent millennia—be known in Egypt as the khamaseen. But Mentuhotep had no intention of waiting fifty days in Gebtu for it to run its course. He wanted to return home soon.
“If we do not depart between the gales, we will be stuck here for a long while,” Mentuhotep continued. “Gebtu is not that far from home. We should be able to arrive safely before the winds start blowing again,” he touched a hand to the amulet around his neck to avert the evil eye. “If the gods will it,” he added hastily.
“Will it be safe to travel the river?” Nakhti asked, after finishing an infusion he had been given to help sooth his dry throat.
“Safe enough,” Qeb answered on the king’s behalf. “We got here safely from the cove, did we not?” The Kushite warrior was standing off to one side of the room with his arms crossed over his chest. He was not pleased with the delay either, and felt tense and agitated. “Thebes is not that much farther. We should be able to leave soon since it does not blow every day,” he reminded them.
“But sometimes it does,” Nakhti insisted.
“No, rarely,” Qeb shook his head. “And usually not more than once every five or six days. We will have plenty of time.”
“We should be alright if we plan accordingly,” the king added with a determined nod.
A few days later after all needed repairs had been completed in Gebtu, the winds rose up as before. Although it blew for several hours again, there were no damages and they were finally able to depart the day after that.
The fleet headed for Thebes through the dust-misted air, traveling south along the Nile whose murky waters swirled and sloshed around the hulls. Like the rest of the landscape, the river had turned a dingy brown. The ships remained by the eastern riverbank as they sailed up the great river against the Nile’s northern-flowing current. The sails were raised, catching the northerly breeze which kept them moving steadily south.
All along the shoreline were signs of life again. Herons waded through the muddy shallows to feed on small fish swimming in schools by the reeds. Snipes pecked their long slender bills in the soft mud where they searched for insects and worms. A kingfisher was perched on the slender branch of a young sycamore tree grow
ing next to a small grove of palms. The bird surveyed the river before diving into the water to snatch a fish with its long beak.
The river curved sharply east and looped around a bend where the land jutted out into the Nile like a peninsula. A small herd of hippopotamuses was submerged in the water near the bank, with all but their eyes and ears showing above the surface. One of the bulls was climbing out of the water to graze on the lush grasses covering part of the plain, and some of the men touched their amulets instinctively when they saw the large male that was believed to be one of the many forms of the evil god Seth.
By the time they arrived in Thebes it was dusk. The sun-god Re had already made his voyage across the hazy sky in his Mandjet solar boat before descending into the realm of the Otherworld. They had watched the red sun setting a little while before from their ship on the Nile, where it loomed larger than life against an orange sky. Its crimson light gilded the western desert in shades of coral and amber, and its heat cast a mirage of shallow pools rippling across the distant dunes.
Tem was there to greet them when their ship finally reached the main river port of the major settlement. She was accompanied by an entourage of officials and some of the other noble women and children in the family. It was a joyful reunion though tinged with anxiety for the events that had happened, and the uncertain times lying ahead.
The news of Khu’s injuries had reached Tem several days before the sandstorm, and she had gotten little sleep since then from worrying about her son. Khu saw the lines etched between her brows as she stood on the bank of the river among the shadows darkening the land. She looked fragile and small as she darted a searching glance across the deck before her eyes landed on Khu with relief, and his heart went out to her.
At the first opportunity he told Tem what had happened in Abdju, and how it was Ankhtifi who had led the massacre on his village years before. Tem listened quietly, pondering Khu’s story with a sense of dread. She had always suspected that that was what had happened to Khu when he was found hiding in the reeds with his clothing bloodied. She assumed that his was one of the many unfortunate villages to have been raided along the Nile. She thought that he had escaped death and found his way to Thebes by the grace of the Seven Hathors who had decreed other plans for his fate. Yes she had believed this, but hearing his story was overwhelming nevertheless, and she shuddered involuntarily at the cold-blooded malice that claimed some people’s souls.
Tem knew that Khu might have to face Ankhtifi once again, and she feared for her son’s life. She embraced Khu after he finished recounting the details of his ordeal, and she wept with him for the terrible loss he had suffered, and the deaths of his parents and little sister.
Later Tem made special offerings at the Temple of Mut and at the shrine of Isis, in gratitude for the protection bestowed on Khu throughout his life, and also in supplication for the strength and help they would need in the times ahead.
The hot dry winds continued to rise up at regular intervals every five or six days, over the course of about fifty days, usually lasting a few hours at a time. But they were all well prepared for it, and remained safely ensconced within the palace compound each time it blew.
The winds presaged a coming change in the divided lands: a change that would rise up from the south to blow all the way to the northern settlements lying beyond Mentuhotep’s reach, where it would expose the wicked to burn like chaff under a blazing sun. It was a good omen, filling people with cautious optimism despite the growing uneasiness brewing like the thick heqet fermenting in large vats. And as an orange sun claimed the stillness of the late afternoon sky on the storm’s final day, people touched their amulets in a silent plea for courage, guidance and protection in the times to come.
FOURTEEN
It was on the thirteenth day of the Festival of the Inundation, on Khu’s fifteenth year, that Odji’s death was discovered.
The annual holiday marked the Opening of the Year—Wp Rnpt—with the Season of Inundation—Akhet—which was celebrated with festivities usually lasting about fifteen days. The star Sopdet had appeared to brighten the night sky shortly before the flooding commenced, as it did every year to herald the inundation at the New Year. As the astral goddess of Egypt, Sopdet’s appearance was greeted with joy for the renewal of the land that was announced by her celestial rising. She was known as “Bringer of the New Year and Nile Flood.”
The very first rains of the season arrived timid and trembling as they fell in scattered drops which ran red over the land from the dust still coating the air, and clinging to the settlements for almost two courses of the moon after the sandstorm had passed. It was a gentle rain which quickly gained confidence, shedding its demure pretense to bare its assertive power before proceeding to boldly beat the ground.
The people welcomed the rains gratefully, making reverent offerings to the gods in temples and shrines, especially Hapi, Amun and Isis. It was believed that the annual rains were caused by the weeping of the lovely goddess Isis whose sorrowful tears fell over the land as she grieved for her deceased husband Osiris. And as the river’s many tributaries were engorged by the water which fell most heavily in the south of Egypt and Kush, the Nile swelled as it pushed its way north on its ancient course, rising above the muddy banks and rocks which jutted out of the river, until it flooded the plains, depositing a rich layer of black silt that would fertilize and renew the land once again.
The flooding of the world’s longest river was attributed to the god Hapi who was considered to be the god of the Nile’s inundation, and who oversaw the river’s annual flooding. Hapi was a large-breasted male god depicted with long hair, a false beard, a loincloth and a fat belly, all of which symbolized his fertility. He gathered and transformed the sorrowful tears of Isis into a fertile blessing that poured out its life-giving bounty over the land. Although no temples were built in his honor, statues and reliefs of Hapi were found within the temples of other gods throughout the land, where he was portrayed as bearing offerings of foodstuffs in the forms of crops like wheat, barley, vegetables and flax.
The flooding of the Nile was a time of great rejoicing and jubilee. Everywhere people joined in the festivities now that all work in the fields had been suspended due to the rising waters and subsequent flooding of the river. Animals were herded onto higher ground by the peasants, where they would remain until after the waters had deposited a rich layer of silt onto the fields. People participated in sporting competitions including rowing, archery, fishing, hunting for waterfowl, wrestling and swimming. Others demonstrated their gymnastic agility, played musical instruments, or danced in groups.
A large procession of priests with animal skins draped across their chests exited the Temple of Amun and walked down the Avenue of Sphinxes bearing two sets of portable shrines resting upon their shoulders. The first shrine contained Amun’s golden statue which was paraded on most of the major festivals on a gilded barque. The patron god of Thebes wore the Shuti two-feathered crown on his head, symbolizing divine law. He carried the ankh key of life in one hand, a scepter in the other, and stood with his right foot slightly before the left in a posture of readiness to command and aid his subjects.
The second shrine bore a smaller statue of Hapi carrying an offering tray of vegetables and fish on his lap. The god of the Nile’s inundation was depicted in kneeling position in deference to Amun. This particular statue was kept in a niche lining the wall of the hypostyle hall within the Temple of Amun. It was one of several statues of deities which were subservient to Amun, yet held important roles in the overall balance and order of life.
The procession of priests fell in step behind a tambourine player who led the way through a path flanked by musicians sounding trumpets, beating drums, and playing the sweet notes of flutes, whose inspiring melody lent an emotive note to the reverent proceedings. A few priests carried incense in burners, while others fanned the fragrant smoke over the shrines in homage to their divine occupants.
Because it was a time of me
rrymaking and indulgence, when the people lost themselves in the elation of the occasion, a group of soldiers followed the procession, while others lined the streets carrying their shields and spears. The soldiers looked like statues themselves as they stood tall with their ox-hide shields held proudly at their sides. Although their presence was largely ceremonial and ritualistic, Mentuhotep had instructed them beforehand to be vigilant after what had happened in Abdju.
People danced, sang and waved palm branches joyfully as they saluted Amun—who was king of gods and creation—with joyful hymns of gratitude. The god was carried through the streets before being reverently set upon a royal barge that would travel slowly up the Nile to northern Thebes and back, so people everywhere in the district could worship and glorify the patron of Thebes. Many prostrated themselves as the priests carried Amun’s statue along the processional route, while others burst into acclamations of adoration and delight.
Peddlers lined the roads of the procession route selling fruit, vegetables and salted meats, while others sold flower wreaths and incense cones. Hundreds of measures of heqet were consumed, as was the red wine that was stored in amphorae. Thousands of bread loaves had been baked for the occasion, as well as sweet cakes and confections made from dates and honey, which were reserved for such festivals.
Mentuhotep and Tem accompanied the procession in the royal barge in honor of the festival, and to offer salutations to the people of the surrounding settlements. The king and queen were dressed in all their regalia and looked stunning from where they were seated on the barge. King Mentuhotep wore Upper Egypt’s Hedjet White Crown, while carrying the crook in his right hand, and the flail in his left. Tem was seated beside him, shaking sistra ceremonial rattles which she clutched in each of her hands, while tapping her foot to the beat of a drum. She wore the royal vulture headdress of Amun’s wife Mut, under which her ceremonial wig was braided with strands of golden thread, and woven with beads carved from precious gems. Her kohl-elongated eyes were shadowed with green powdered malachite. Around her neck hung the beautiful yellow topaz and malachite collar necklace which Khu had given her in honor of his fifteenth Season of Inundation. It was made from the stones he had chosen himself when they had stopped in Nekhen on their way to Swentet, just before the revolt in Abdju. The necklace shone beautifully under the clear, blue sky which had been washed clean by the rains, and Tem smiled when she caught Khu’s eye before climbing into the barque. He was pleased to have made his mother happy, and he admired the necklace which only enhanced her lovely face.
Khu: A Tale of Ancient Egypt Page 21