Whilst he spoke, he replaced the papyri in the chest leaving one drawing on the table just before the others rejoined us. The remaining scroll showed, in an amateurish hand, a long tomb, broken into its constituent sections with each section labelled in hieroglyphs.
“When it was announced that Pharaoh Seti had died, I made this drawing in my own awkward hand. You will forgive its poor quality as, unlike you, I have little skill in architectural drawings. However, for our purpose this clumsy sketch is a convenient aid.”
It was now obvious the high priests established the standards for tomb design and not the royal architects. Ramesses must sanction our final plans but, other than a king, it would be a brave man who challenged a high priest on such a matter. I assumed a king could only increase the size of his tomb and not vary its function, a decision providing the priests with a larger tableau on which to add more depictions from the sacred books. Horemheb must have been an iconoclast, as he radically departed from the disjointed style of his predecessors to the more lineal design used by him and his two successors. At his accession, the Theban priesthood was in need of a strong ruler committed to re-establishing their power and the high priest of the day may have been more willing to accommodate unorthodox changes to the practice of the past.
My scribe laid out his ink palette, a fresh set of styli, measuring rule and a roll of the finest papyrus. This he unfurled and placed on his tightly stretched kilt which served as his table. Nebwenenef began, “The actual dimensions of a tomb are a matter between the king and his architect as there is no religious proscription on making any part of the tomb of greater or lesser magnitude.” Then, flexing his religious muscles, he said,
“However, it is important that the design and decorations follow what is prescribed. Religious inscriptions and blessings will be engraved on the sarcophagus, coffins, viscera chest, every shrine, statue and the very linen which enshrouds the king’s body and these must be approved by the temple. I, and my assistants, will instruct the artisans in what must be engraved on every object accompanying the king into the Afterlife. The king may wish to take with him many of his personal possessions but we need not trouble ourselves with these non religious items as they are of the earth and are of no interest to the priesthood.”
It was refreshing to see arrogance not limited to secular men. He continued, as if delivering a lecture to a body of apprentices.
“Sufficient wall space should be made available to record the life and deeds of the king. Sennefer, in this you will be guided by pharaoh himself. Of course, this presents certain problems for his architect. The tomb’s size is finite as it must be completed before the king’s death, whereas the duration of a king’s life is not known until it comes to an end. How you will incorporate the deeds of Ramesses will be determined by when he performed such deeds but limited to the span of his years and the size of his mausoleum.”
I made a notation of this matter. The priest moved on, pedantically describing in great detail the sections of a royal tomb. The scribe took careful notes and the model maker, consulting the scribe’s notes, worked on building a simple model in his crude materials. As the priest spoke, the scribe measured off scaled lengths on the papyrus, noted the dimensions given and what scenes from the Books of the Dead had to appear on the walls. Meketre said that the artists who specialised in wall inscriptions were familiar with the style of tomb decorations. If they needed guidance in a particular interpretation they sought advice from the Sem priest at the great temple where depictions of the deities’ manifestations, in approved styles, were kept in a series of sacrosanct volumes.
Pausing for more wine after a particularly long narrative, Nebwenenef commented “I apologise for this discourse taking so long but, as you will understand, the building and decorating of a king’s tomb is usually an event that takes place once in the lifetime of the high priest and royal architect and what we are about to undertake is recorded in its entirety but once. After the entombment, all documentation is destroyed.”
I now knew this to be untrue as one comprehensive record would be retained at the temple. The documents would be added to the collection within the sealed box which would only be re-opened after the accession of the next pharaoh and at the time he began to plan his tomb.
“No matter” said Meketre. “It is of importance we know in what manner we bring honour to our pharaoh.”
Meketre later told me that when Seti’s tomb was finished, the working notes and diagrams were burnt and the pottery pieces on which were graven field notes smashed and scattered. The last complete drawings he held were passed to Nebwenenef’s predecessor. He recalled reading a notation of the Royal Architect Ineni, employed by Tuthmosis I who had remarked, ‘I supervise the excavation of the cliff tomb of the His Majesty alone, no-one seeing, no-one hearing.’
“Pray, let me continue. A tomb can be considered to be of two parts. The section from the entrance to the first room of pillars facing the east is dedicated to Amun-Re. Onwards from that chamber, the lower section of the tomb is the province of The Foremost of the Westerners, the Lord Osiris. The well shaft also marks the point at which the transition from the light of Amun-Re to the darkness of Osiris begins. The room after the shaft is the first of the larger chambers and experience has taught us the ceiling of large rooms usually requires support offered by pillars. However, this is in your area of expertise.”
Said Meketre, “How I laboured on Seti’s burial chamber. I believe it to be the most rewarding work I ever undertook.”
“Your belief was vindicated. Seti visited the tomb just before he died and wept in the presence of so much grandeur. He confided he would find perpetual joy as he lay amidst so much beauty.”
This long recitation on the requirements of a tomb interested me greatly as I had little knowledge of the rituals involved in the transition of the royal spirit from the mortal world to the eternal. Thebes has an immense necropolis, replete with private tombs ranging from quite simple pits to more elaborate tombs of the nobility and members of the high priesthood. I knew from fellow architects, the practical implications of tomb construction and understood they were richly recompensed for their labours.
When apprenticed, my Master was commissioned by the vizier to construct administrative buildings in Thebes and Memphis, where I met Ipi, the woman who would become my wife. My training was tailored to a career in royal projects and I willingly accepted this as my manifest destiny. Curiosity drove me to investigate buildings of every type and function, including tombs. Egypt has large necropolises adjacent to our cities and every settlement has its dedicated burial ground. Ipi’s father was an architect and during one long sojourn in Memphis, he took me to Saqqara and introduced me to some of the finer points of private tomb construction.
We were permitted to enter tombs under construction and Ipi’s father, Neskhons, a warm and loving man, who early detected signs of my interest in his daughter, patiently explained the styles of mortuary decorations and the different ways in which they could be used to depict deities and the life of the deceased.
In the larger tombs, owners caused the creation of elaborate paintings and stories concerning episodes in their life which they remembered with fondness or reflected past glories. None of the tombs commanded the grandeur and size of a royal tomb, though some for the nobility came very close. Neskhons was working on a tomb commissioned by the provincial governor and the quality of the paintings and inscriptions I observed would not have embarrassed a prince.
The esoteric subject of royal tombs was being unfolded in fulsome detail and the exposition allowed me to better comprehend some of the images I saw in Memphite tombs. As the royal architect, it was vital I attained a deeper comprehension of our religion and its iconography as I was being swiftly drawn into a world of symbols and images, the complex relationship between the people and their king and the greatest mystery of all, the kinship of the pharaoh with the gods and all their works. If I was to work intimately with Ramesses, be able to anti
cipate his reactions and satisfy his ambitions, my success would be greater and my path easier if I understood the spiritual concepts that motivated him as merely knowing how to build would not suffice. I thought it more prudent to seize this opportunity and expose my ignorance to a priest rather than to the king, so questions poured from my lips. My Master had advised ‘If you do not know, ask as it is always better to appear to be a fool by asking many questions than to actually be one by living in ignorance.’
The discourse had reached the burial chamber. The priest was enjoying himself. He had an attentive audience and as the heat of the day warmed the room, he asked a servant to replace the flask of wine more than once. Perhaps the red wine from the Delta made him loquacious? After a dry description of the burial chamber, Meketre commented,
“Sennefer, this room is the biggest challenge you and I are to meet. Of necessity, the location of the supporting pillars must allow the passage of the sarcophagus into the room. Moving it down into the House of Gold is not overly difficult as the stairway ramps allow for its manhandling with ropes and sleds. The confines of the crypt call for much delicate manoeuvring and there is the issue of the sarcophagus lid which has to be raised up off its sled and placed on top of the open sarcophagus without damaging either. Not an easy task as I know from my experience with the internment of Seti. The design must also allow room for the priests to erect shrines around the sarcophagus.”
“By that stage of the burial service the crypt had become humid and uncomfortable from the press of people and fumes from the numerous oil lamps had befouled the air. Several priests were uncertain in their movements and two actually collapsed. There is a lot of unavoidable but irreligious activity during the entombment. Untrained priests labour with the coffins and the placement of the lid and the noise associated with the erection of the shrines is less than holy. Nebwenenef, frankly I would recommend a pause before the ceremony reaches its final chapters if this is at all possible? Wahibre,you remember the difficult conditions in Seti’s tomb?”
The foreman had been silent so far as much of what we were discussing was already known to him.
“Excavating the burial chamber was only accomplished with much difficulty. I had to relieve the stone workers every two hours as the air was so hot they could not endure a longer period. It was worse for the painters – the chamber was so vast, they needed many oil lamps to provide sufficient illumination for them to adorn the walls accurately. The final stage of the entombment, when your priests laboured under the eye of the king and his entourage, must have been very troublesome for them.”
I looked directly at Wahibre and said sternly “Foreman, the health and welfare of artisans and priests are of small consequence to me and their concerns are but the buzz of flies about my ears. The tomb makers will toil for many years but the king must endure for thousands of lifetimes in the House of Gold we are honoured to build for him.”
I thought it necessary to let the foreman know who was in charge of this project. My experience on other building sites had taught me that foremen could cause immeasurable difficulties if they were allowed to put their workmen’s concerns before the importance of the task.
Wahibre looked at Meketre and me. “Lords, I did not mean to offend. You have my apology. I will build as you design without complaint.”
“I am glad we understand each other. Gentlemen, let me suggest we break now for refreshments. The scribe has been sitting for some time and he begins to look pained. My servants will prepare a meal for you in the courtyard. Nebwenenef, Meketre, you may wish to join me under the portico?” The model maker took his materials with him as it was evident his work would continue during the break. The sun had reached its zenith when we sat to lunch. My cook had prepared a meal of roasted venison the night before and we consumed this delicacy together with cold roasted wild fowl and a selection of fruit. A consignment of grapes had just reached Thebes from the Delta and I had purchased some of the new season’s offerings.
The high priest asked about the temple under construction at Abu Simbel, an isolated area some 650 kilometres south of Thebes. When Ramesses first mentioned the project, I sought permission to investigate progress at the site.
“It would be very useful for you to see what is being executed there. Note carefully all that is unfolding at the place as this will give you further insight into my thinking about my other commissions. Having your observant eye on the construction from time to time will be a valuable reminder to the builder in charge that the king is watching even at a distance. When you are free, take one of the royal barges and make passage down the river to this modest temple I designed when an unbearded youth.”
I detected no sense of irony in his voice and fully expected to find an insignificant monument. What I saw, sailing towards the building site, left me almost breathless. On arriving at the quay I was greeted by Ashahebsed, the builder Seti had put in charge of the project who, I learned, began his career as the son of the foreman in the granite quarry at Aswan long famed for the production of colossal statues and obelisks.
As a young prince, Ramesses had accompanied his father on a punitive campaign to Nubia in the eighth year of Seti’s reign. On the voyage south, Ramesses noted the prominence of two long sanctified hills, Meha and Ibshek, which overlooked the river as it swept past Abu Simbel. Other than low hills and sand dunes, there was nothing of note in either direction. What Ramesses conceived was stupendous and all the more remarkable for he was only fifteen when he described his vision of the temples to an indulgent father. Over refreshments, Ashahebsed admitted that he happily accepted he would be engaged on the commission for the remainder of his working life. Fortunately, Abu Simbel is at a beautiful part of the river valley and, although a considerable distance from Thebes, it certainly was a better place to live and work than in the heat blasted granite quarry down river at Aswan. He now managed a small township with administration offices, a temple for religious observance, store rooms, a granary, slaughter houses, workshops for the masons and artisans and buildings to accommodate some thousand men and their families.
He had already laboured for nine years and the general outline of the monuments was emerging. The structure is crafted in the Nubian manner, with the temples and images cut directly into the sacred hills. I appreciated the wisdom of Seti’s choice of builder as the task was a grandiose version of fashioning granite objects. Creating the façade and the colossi involved carving away thousands of tonnes of limestone, thereby allowing the figures and temples to evolve from the stone. The sanctuaries were to be quarried deep within the hills in a manner similar to tomb construction but this is the only similarity between my work and what was being carved out of the hills at Abu Simbel.
The architect, as yet uncertain of my sense of self-importance and the threat I could pose to his position – I was, after all, the royal architect on an unannounced visit at the behest of the king - endeavoured to ensure I was suitably feted for the duration of my visit. He invited me to a banquet in my honour that evening but as I was tired from the long voyage, I had to decline. We agreed to an early meeting next morning and, not to appear imperious, I accepted his offer to dine with him and the village notables the following night.
Over a breakfast of fried fish of a very delicate texture, figs, dates and a beverage new to me made from soured goat’s milk, I learnt more of the commission which Ashahebsed said would take at least another twenty years to complete. The temples are built in veneration of the gods Re of Heliopolis, Amun of Thebes and Ptah of Memphis in the main edifice carved into Meha with the second temple, cut into Ibshek, dedicated to Hathor and Ramesses’ wife, Nefertari
I was a little surprised by the inclusion of the king’s wife because, when the project commenced, the king was only a princeling and years away from being married. Ashahebsed explained Prince Ramesses had provided drawings of the temples but left the face of his future wife a blank tablet. After his marriage, a statue in the likeness of the queen was shipped down to Abu S
imbel to serve as a model for the sculptors.
We rose from the breakfast table and the builder escorted me into his main office. Watching me closely, he removed a cloth from models of the facades and then unrolled a papyrus with drawings of the temples. Upon entering his office, I noticed clay heads of the pharaoh, bearing the double crown and nemes headdress, and two life sized statutes of Ramesses and Nefertari. What I was not prepared for was the final appearance of the facades. I looked at the models and the drawings, then at the builder and back at the models. He seemed amused at my reaction. “When were you presented with these models and drawings?”
“Royal architect, they were here when I first arrived.”
“And Ramesses was how old when you arrived?”
“He had seen sixteen summers and still wore the side lock of a prince”.
I was amazed. Without thinking, I remarked “I thought this was a temple in honour of the three principal gods of the kingdom?”
“But, of course, you are correct. Let me show you the interiors of the temples in the next set of drawings.”
He unrolled another papyrus showing the first hall of the larger temple with its eight pillars, each twenty metres tall, carved in the mummiform figure of the Lord of the Underworld, Osiris. The face of the god was, unmistakeably, that of Ramesses. At the end of the sanctuary were to sit, side by side, four statues – Re-Harakhty, Amun-Re, Ptah and the deified Ramesses. Whilst it was not uncommon to feature a king in the company of the gods, it was customary to show him in a subservient role. A king’s statue or image was, without exception, slightly smaller than a representation of a principal god. The drawings did not show Ramesses in any way inferior or his statue any smaller than the three gods.
What beggared belief were the four colossi guarding the entrance to the temple. Each statue, twenty five metres tall, was of a powerfully built Ramesses seated upon a throne, looking straight at the dawn horizon, his hands resting along his thighs and wearing the double crown, nemes cloth and uraeus with the beard of kingship upon his chin. Carved into the legs of the thrones would be diminutive representations of his mother, Queen Ta’ay, his wife, Nefertari and six of his children. The colossi sat, four abreast, carved deep into the side of the limestone hill. Nowhere in the kingdom would one find statues that equal the size and brooding dominance of the quartet.
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