Four Ways to Pharaoh Khufu

by Alexander Marmer

  To the west, within the taciturn melancholy of the Arabian Desert, also known as the country of the dead, seethed the mysterious city, Mennefer. Although history is not clear, it is thought that Menes, a pharaoh of the First Dynasty, founded Mennefer.

  Within Mennefer resides the temple Hewet-ka-Ptah. From the roof of the temple, the Hor-em-akhet or “Horus in the horizon” can be seen in the distant rays of the violet evening sun and the flaming red of the early dawn. Carved into the limestone cliffs in the distance, Horus is depicted as a Sphinx with the head of a man and the body of a lion. The Sphinx is manifest among the cliffs as the sunset strikes it, becoming visible above the three large and nine small pyramids rising out of the sand below.

  As the day slowly turned towards evening, the far away limestone cliffs took on a faint violet hue. The heat would drop any minute now. Looking like a young god who had just left the lotus flower, a dark-haired youth stepped thoughtfully along the dusty limestone street. He was shadowed by an intimidating figure.

  “I, Amset, the full-fledged inhabitant of the city of Mennefer, will today know the secret of Horus, living and great, ruler of both Upper and Lower Kemet! Yes, live you forever!” While repeating his mantra in his mind, the youth paused from time to time to raise his face to the heavenly sun’s burning heat and levitated praise to him – the life-giving sun god Horus.

  Quite possibly, the youth repeated his prayer out of habit alone. His thoughts about the secret, however, filled his heart both with happiness and fear, as he was well aware that it could be both excellent and terrible at the same time. This mixed feeling frightened the youth. He truly felt that the unknown excellent was not better than the unknown terrible. There was no way for him to know which would appear first.

  What he did know for certain was that today the supreme priest of the Hewet-ka-Ptah temple would reveal to him one of the great mysteries of Khufu’s pyramid. Only a selected few became the guardians of Pharaoh Khufu’s mystery. He had aspired to be worthy for years for this honor and duty to be bestowed upon him. Now the moment had finally come, and Priest Ur Senu had called Amset for the declaration of the secret. He was the chosen one and it made his mind tingle with anticipation. Finally, it was the time for him to begin the initiation process.

  Amset was of noble origin. His full name was Amset Ba-Pef. While he was a native of the city of Mennefer, he was not allowed to take a single step without the careful eye of his Nubian guard, Jibade, who followed him as consistently as his own shadow. Jibade was a thirty-three-year-old man with curly dark hair arranged in a conspicuous bushy Afro. He usually dressed in a long, white, cotton cloak. He took his duty very seriously and was never seen without a crusader-type sword and his polished, but dented, round shield. Jibade was a Medjay. ‘The Nubian warrior,’ was what Amset liked to call him. Amset had known Jibade for as long as he could remember. They had never been apart. For the Medjay, it was the greatest honor to serve and protect Amset’s life.

  Soon, Amset arrived at the sandy boundary of the city where the Temple Hewet-ka-Ptah stood. After pausing reverently at the threshold, he entered into the temple’s shaded, eternally cool court filled with columns. The columned court was the portion of Hewet-ka-Ptah where anyone could enter to render praise to the gods.

  As Amset waited, surrounded by sculptures of gods and bronze vessels filled with fragrances, his Medjay guardian stood right behind him. They stood in front of several priests in long white robes with leopard skins over their shoulders that were holding rolls of papyrus and reading the sacred texts. On both sides of Amset were others in prayer, either drawn to full height chanting the sacred texts or inclined in a reverent, low bow. The majority of the people gathered to offer prayer were of average wealth: “those, who feed by fish” as high priests called them. These people were not allowed further than the column court. Amset turned and observed as two priests slowly walked in front of the people that were praying to the god sculptures.

  Amset, as a privileged, had the right to pass further, deep inside the temple to the Cherished Hall. The Cherished Hall was the holy of the holies where the statue of the god Ptah resided. Only one supreme priest had permission to enter the Cherished Hall twice a day. His job was to open the Gates of the Horizon in the morning and to shut them tightly at the end of the day. The temple personified the tendency to seek the divine but, at the same time, the impossibility to fully understand the deity.

  Amset always lingered in the columned court to offer prayer before passing further into the temple’s mysterious halls. The quiet coolness, lack of deliberateness of the priests and stately silence of the gigantic columns depicting papyrus stems all gave the temple a reverent and mystical aura. The grandeur of the temple and its sculptures, the sublimity of its forms, and the rationality of its plan appealed greatly to him. Like the very creation of gods and the invariability of the world’s order, everything within the temple had to personify the sublimity and the rationality of the world. Amset imagined this would not only strike the imagination of his contemporaries but also even the imaginations of his distant future descendants.

  As Amset raised his eyes from his musings, he saw in the depth of the ornately decorated hall the one who had asked for him: the supreme priest, Ur Senu. Dressed in flaxen, white clothing, a cap with a gold top and the overhanging leopard skin that signified his rank, the old priest was standing alone, praying next to the alabaster sacrificial table. The sacrificial table was set with the viands brought to the gods: fried geese and pigeons, vessels with honey, onion, cucumbers, breads, figs and grapes. Amset waited for the right moment before walking up, raising his right hand to rest on his opposite shoulder and bowing to the supreme priest. “You called me. I arrived. And, I questioned my heart…” the words of prayer flew to Amset’s lips.

  High Priest Ur Senu turned to face Amset, wordlessly pointed his hand to the Cherished Hall’s entry and then walked slowly towards it. Amset hurried in his wake, shadowed silently by Jibade. Where Amset went, he went. This was his unwritten law and Jibade followed it precisely, regardless of the occasion.

  Once they had entered, the supreme priest greeted Amset silently by majestically raising his priestly baton – the top a carved cat’s head, the symbol of the goddess Bastet. The priest then gestured at a door in the wall, asking Amset nonverbally to follow into the inner courtyard. The supreme priest, Amset, and the Medjay guardian moved slowly along the winding path of the internal garden.

  The group paused for a moment. “We have an important task for you,” announced the supreme priest in a hushed but imperious voice. Even while speaking to Amset, the priest looked past him to somewhere far beyond. “Amset, you have reached your sixteenth birthday, and I must now carry out the will of your father.” It was as if he spoke not to Amset, but to someone behind him, far behind him, or perhaps, to someone at an elevated level, far beyond this earthly plane. “You have reached adulthood, and now you must learn the truth. Prepare yourself.”

  The simple, yet dread-inspiring words of the priest agitated Amset and with but a glance, Jibade understood the depth of it. Looking at the majestic figure of priest Ur Senu, Jibade understood Amset’s apprehension. The supreme priest was a heavyset man with powerful arms. He had a strict face with narrow, small but penetrating eyes. The priest always held his head elevated and stuck out his torso majestically. He was the embodiment of the inaccessible itself.

  “Follow me,” commanded Ur Senu and the three began walking again. As they neared the stairs that led to the gates, Ur Senu removed his gilded cap. His hairless, round head gleamed in the sun. Suddenly, Amset’s heart started beating frantically. From above the gates, he witnessed a breathtaking view of the valley of the great Nile River, the Libyan Desert, the Eastern Ridge, the dam of Delta, the green fields of barley, and the majestic pyramids among the reddish-brown sands of the desert to the south. Throughout his sixteen years, he had been privileged only once to stand above the gigantic gates
of the temple and not for very long. On that day, from the top of these gigantic gates, he had seen the gigantic Sphinx sculpture for the first time in his life. The Sphinx had subjugated his young imagination. From that time onward, keeping the experience at the surface of his thoughts, he had worshipped to it.

  As all three men slowly climbed the stairs to the top of the gate arch, they reached a wide, open area where a cool Northeastern breeze wafted. It was refreshing. The day tended towards its close, so the scorching heat of the sun had dissipated to a bearable level. Ur Senu slowly turned his head and pointed towards the infinite plain of sand dunes that stretched out before them in the glowing amethyst light. Moving towards sunset, it doused the reddish sands, the silhouettes of mountains and the pyramids in its violet twilight. The wind that blew heavily throughout the day began to calm as a quiet fell over the desert.

  “Take a look,” Ur Senu spoke solemnly. “Over there is the country of the Dead, the country of the West.” Amset turned to gaze in the direction Ur Senu was pointing. The desert and the pyramids appeared to be an azure color.

  “Take a look,” repeated the old priest. “Here are the pyramids: the great tombs of the pharaohs, our living gods. Their stones are blessed. They are the embodiment of the highest godly validity. The pyramids will remain standing for all eternity. Do you see the colossal sculpture of the Sphinx?”

  The priest turned his head slightly towards Amset. “The Sphinx’s forms are majestic. The years will pass and the stone may begin to crumble. But, the Great Pyramid will not be destroyed. Time itself is not imperious on it. Only an outside evil force could destroy it, but no such force is in existence nor may ever be. All three measurements of the Great Pyramid are in the equilateral construction. Its sides are the faces of the world; the Delta connection on the equilateral basis is the law of the world. The formula of the relationship of the sizes was given by the gods and was given once and for all. The world was created once and forever. That is why the Great Pyramid will always remain standing.”

  Amset scrutinized the majestic structure of the Great Pyramid from afar. Ur Senu turned and began to walk along the stone barrier above the gate. Amset and the Medjay followed the priest along the southern edge.

  “You know,” the great priest continued, “Khufu’s pyramid, the largest of all, was built over only a few decades period because the gods themselves participated in the erection of the Great Pyramid. Without the aid of the gods, men could not create so perfect a construction. Men could never have created the Great Pyramid, if they were not inspired by the godly will, if they did not act upon the words and the call of the gods, and if men’s hands in reality were not the hands of the gods. While the cruel pharaoh Khufu was not the gods’ favorite, Khufu was destined to create the symbol of the invariability of life, and he completed the task laid upon him by the gods.”

  Amset paid close attention to the supreme priest’s words. Outwardly he stood in a silent, patient reverence; but deep in his heart, he desperately wished to hear the secret of the Pharaoh Khufu. Amset’s eyes were shining and his heart was pounding so loudly that Ur Senu soon sensed a visible tension in Amset.

  “You are anxious to hear the secret, correct?” Ur Senu asked rhetorically before continuing. “The biggest mystery is that Pharaoh Khufu was entombed deep within his pyramid, and the gods were merciful to his soul since he obeyed their orders. Khufu erected the pyramid to glorify the gods, and therefore, for this the gods were in debt to him. His body was buried in a secret chamber inside the pyramid known only to the gods themselves. All who participated in the burial proceedings were sent to their death one way or another. No witnesses remained.”

  Subjugated by the force of the supreme priest’s words, Amset began to experience a rise in his anxiety. Suddenly, the story told by Ur Senu seemed too close a reality as they descended the stairs and reentered the chamber below.

  “No mortal knows the true location of Khufu’s mummy as it is guarded by the gods themselves,” continued the priest. “Only we, the heirs of the pharaoh know his true resting place – the location of his burial tomb. We have in our possession the stele handed down to us by the great God Ra himself.”

  The supreme priest paused and looked at Amset meaningfully. “Are you ready to take on the sacred mission of guarding the stele?”

  “I was born ready,” answered Amset honorably, pushing any lingering anxieties from his mind.

  “Remember that the integrity of the stele cannot be compromised. Were the stele to fall into the wrong hands, this would lead to irreversible consequences. Gods do not forgive.”

  “Supreme priest, I will do what it takes. The secret will remain safe with me.”

  Satisfied by Amset’s devoted response, Ur Senu walked towards the sacrificial table in the corner as Amset and Jibade silently followed him. Pushing on a carved glyph, the priest reached deep down into the revealed secret compartment, removed the stele, and reverently handed it to Amset.

  “The meaning of it will not be revealed to you yet,” said the priest quietly. “However, the time will come.”

  “I understand. It will be my honor,” replied Amset as he bowed before the supreme priest.

  The priest acknowledged him with a slight nod and continued, “The great wisdom of life consists of the fact that the world is inviolable and constant. The world is inviolable as long as it follows the order given to it by the god Ra and remains protected by the feather of Ma’at.” Ur Senu raised his wand of Bastet, the sacred daughter of Ra. “We guard these laws! We will not let anyone disturb them. This is why we need to protect the resting place of Khufu. Kemet is still alive because of this secret and it will remain so.”

  The priest stood silently for a long period of time, prompting Amset and Jibade to remain silent as well.

  Suddenly the priest broke the silence in a low tone of voice. “I will tell you the legend of the Pharaoh Menkaure. He was the grandson of the great Pharaoh Khufu. The pyramid of Menkaure is located to the left of the others.”

  Amset nodded, as he was quite familiar with its location.

  “The legend states that the Pharaoh Khufu was a cruel person, as was his son, Khafre, whose pyramid is in the middle of the triad. During the reign of these pharaohs, the land of Kem-ta underwent great calamities such as droughts, bad harvests and diseases. Nevertheless, by the order of these pharaohs, the temples were closed down and the people’s labor was used entirely on building the pyramids. Indeed, it was necessary to transport stones and clear the sands. But, when Menkaure, the son of Khafre and grandson of Khufu, became pharaoh, he opened all the temples again. He freed his tired people from their burdens, allowed them to go back to work the fields and into the temples for the offerings. Menkaure was also the most righteous judge and a far more respectable pharaoh than all those that preceded him. The people of Kem-ta were grateful to the gods for providing such a righteous pharaoh.

  However, our most gracious pharaoh, Menkaure, was suddenly struck by three terrible misfortunes: the death of his daughter, the treason of his friends, and an ill-fated prophesy of the gods. This prophecy stated that he had six years to live and on the seventh he would move to the Duat country, or the afterlife. The Pharaoh Menkaure was thrown into a great grief and in desperation he sent his priests to the oracle of the goddess Ma’at. His priests appealed to Ma’at, the goddess of world order, “Oh great Ma’at! Both father and grandfather of the great Menkaure locked down the temples and suppressed their people, however they satisfactorily lived to an old age. Why must the most righteous Pharaoh Menkaure die in six years? Is this righteous?” And, Ma’at answered the priests, “Menkaure is a good and righteous pharaoh. But, for this very reason, I reduced his lifespan. He has not completed what had to be completed. Kem-ta had to undergo the calamity for one hundred fifty years. Khufu and Khafre understood this, but Menkaure did not.”

  “Does that mean that I’m doomed as well?” Amset quietly
asked.

  Ur Senu smiled almost softly as he replied calmly, “The legend has a continuation. The priests brought the oracle’s answer back to the pharaoh.”

  “What did the pharaoh do? Did he follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather? Were the temples shut down? Did he begin to suppress his people?” Amset interjected questions in rapid succession.

  “No, he remained the same,” answered the priest. “Menkaure decided to deceive his fate. He gave the order to prepare one hundred thousand torches and to ignite them at night. In this way, the night would turn to day. The pharaoh ceased to sleep. At night, as in the daytime, he drank wine, played games, and delighted himself with the dances of slaves. By converting the remaining nights into the days, he attempted to expose the oracle in a lie. Menkaure wanted to convert his six remaining years into twelve. He thought he could cheat his fate, but he did not succeed.”

  “What if Menkaure had stopped being nice to people?” asked Amset in astonishment. “What if he had become as ruthless and terrible as his grandfather and father? Then what?”

  “Then, Ma’at would have possibly abolished his death sentence.”

  “Why is it that righteousness must always be held with less respect then evil? Is cruelty legitimate?”

  “We cannot know what is correct and what is not. The gods decide this. Because cruelty and evil exist in the world, it means it is convenient to the gods for it to remain. The story about Pharaoh Menkaure indicates that it is not possible to deceive fate, but that it is necessary to entrust oneself to fate. Menkaure destroyed nights and thought that he would prolong his years. Nevertheless, his fate triumphed.”